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Journal of Paleontology

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THREE NEW TANAID SPECIES (CRUSTACEA, PERACARIDA, TANAIDACEA) FROM THE LOWER CRETACEOUS ÁLAVA AMBER IN NORTHERN SPAIN

¹ Zoological Museum Amsterdam, Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam, Mauritskade 57, 1092 AD Amsterdam, The Netherlands, <vonk@science.uva.nl>
² Burke Museum, University of Washington, Seattle, <fschram@u.washington.edu>

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

	INTRODUCTION

 
MARINE CRUSTACEANS were not known as inclusions in amber from upper Aptian–middle Albian deposits in Northern Spain. The publication of a photograph of a purported fossil amphipod (Alonso et al., 2000) among many other arthropods promised to be of high interest because the fossil record of the amphipoda does not extend further than Upper Eocene (Schram, 1986; Coleman and Myers, 2000). The Museum of Natural Sciences of Álava in Vitoria-Gasteiz (AMNS), northern Spain, kindly sent us the material with the presumed amphipods, as our intention was to investigate its affinities to other fossil amphipods. The fossil crustaceans of this assemblage were found among 15 orders of insects, spiders, and mites—i.e., mainly terrestrial arthropods.

Upon close investigation, however, we learned that the samples contained not amphipods but tanaids. This means that the fossil age of amphipods remains unchanged for the moment and other questions emerge, such as: how can a common looking, marine, subtidal tanaid end up in a 100–120 my piece of amber from a sedimentary environment in northern Spain? And how does it relate to the numerous insects and plant pollen enclosed in other pieces of amber from the same site?

The sedimentary environment in the south of the Basque-Cantabrian Basin around Álava in Lower Cretaceous times was marked with distributary channels, crevasse splays, and interdistributary bays, evolving towards an open marine platform (Alonso et al., 2000; Portero and Ramirez del Pozo, 1979, personal commun. V. Pujalte). Where waters became stagnant in this environment and could no longer carry large particles in suspension, amber lumps of nearby forests were deposited. Flooding of the delta occurred from both marine incursions, as indicated by the presence of silt and dinoflagellate cysts in a coastal area, and fluvial influxes. It is under these . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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