Paleobiology of Decapod Crustaceans from Southern Patagonia:A Link with Antarctica

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This award supports a US contribution to a collaborative project with Argentine geologists and paleontologists to study late Cretaceous to early Tertiary marine fossils in southern Patagonia. The US contribution will focus on decapod crustaceans (crabs). Studies of Cretaceous an dTertiary decapod crustacean faunas from several sites in the southern hemisphere has provided clear evidence of faunal relationships between New Zealand and Antarctica, and less well understood relationships between those faunas and the decapods of South America. Recent study of Paleocene decapods from La Pampa and R o Negro provinces, central Argentina, has suggested affinities of these organisms with tropical and subtropical Atlantic communities. Thus, the biogeographic boundaries between the Atlantic and southern circum-Pacific regions must lie within southern Patagonia. This award will allow the US investigators to join an Argentine field program that is being planned to study Cretaceous and early Tertiary fossiliferous marine rocks in remote regions of southwestern Patagonia. This is a unique opportunity to gather valuable information about the distribution of these crabs in a remote region. The objectives of this project are: 1) to collect, describe,a nd classify the decapods crustaceans from Cretaceous and Tertiary exposures in southern Patagonia; 2) to determine the implications of this fauna for the paleobiogeographic evolution of the southern high latitudes; and 3) to assess the significance of these organisms to our understanding of the origin and evolution of modern decapods. This work is important to creating a paleoenvironmental framework for interpretation of the important Cretaceous and Tertiary faunas from Seymour Island, Antarctica.