34 Paleontology
Wednesday, 11 March 2026
8:30 AM - 10:00 AM
RCC, 103
A Comprehensive Review of the Fossil Cretaceous Echinoids of the Central Andes allows a review of their Paleoenvironments and Paleobiogeography
Paper number: 34-0
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 8:30 AM – 8:45 AM
Authors
Abstract
A comprehensive faunal list of fossil Cretaceous echinoids from Peru and related basins in Ecuador and Bolivia has never been assembled, thereby limiting the interpretation of paleoecology and paleobiogeography. Fossil echinoids were first reported from Peru in the middle 1800s. Many reports and incomplete reviews followed over the next century and a half. Available literature, in five languages, for Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and the rest of South America has been thoroughly reviewed and reassessed. Material collected by Harvey Basler in the 1920s was accessible for review but proved to have been consistently misidentified. A systematic reevaluation and reidentification of Basler’s specimens led to the recognition of a new species (Petalobrissus chamayaensis). The complete Cretaceous echinoid taxa from Peru are reconciled, and prior identifications are updated. This complete echinoid fauna is compared to the Cretaceous fauna from the rest of South America and globally. Many similarities exist with the echinoid fauna of Brazil; however, despite an extensive lower Cretaceous unconformity across Peru, distinct differences in phylogenetic Orders are present between Peru's active margin and Brazil’s passive margin. Peru’s close affinities with the fauna of Mexico and Texas contrast only slightly with their shared affinity with North Africa. Biogeographic affinities with other regions are weaker, but present.
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 58, No. 1
doi: 10.1130/abs/2026SE-411840
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