Private Correspondence

Antarctic plesiosaurs are known from the Upper Cretaceous López de Bertodano and Snow Hill Island formations (Campanian to upper Maastrich-tian), which crop out within the James Ross Basin region of the Antarctic Peninsula. Here we describe the first plesiosaur fossils from the Lachman Crags Member...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Taissa Rodrigues, Museu Nacional
Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: 2000
Subjects:
Antarctica
plesiosauria
Late Cretaceous
Museu Nacional
oldest
Antarctic
Antarctic Peninsula
Hill Island
Lachman
Lachman Crags
Ross Island
Snow Hill
Snow Hill Island
The Antarctic
Antarc*
James Ross Island
Online Access:http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.680.9122
http://www.polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/download/7265/pdf_152/
Description
Summary:Antarctic plesiosaurs are known from the Upper Cretaceous López de Bertodano and Snow Hill Island formations (Campanian to upper Maastrich-tian), which crop out within the James Ross Basin region of the Antarctic Peninsula. Here we describe the first plesiosaur fossils from the Lachman Crags Member of the Santa Marta Formation, north-western James Ross Island. This material constitutes the stratigraphically oldest plesiosaur occurrence presently known from Antarctica, extending the occurrence of plesiosaurians in this continent back to Santonian times (86.383.5 Mya). Furthermore, MN 7163-V represents the first plesiosaur from this region not referable to the Elasmo-sauridae nor Aristonectes, indicating a greater diversity of this group of aquatic reptiles in Antarctica than previously suspected. Plesiosaurs (clade Plesiosauria herein) have been found in Mesozoic aquatic deposits ranging from the Upper Triassic to Upper Cretaceous (e.g., O’Keefe 2001).

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