Puente Potrerillo (Cretaceous to of Cuba)

Where: Cienfuegos, Cuba (22.3° N, 80.2° W: paleocoordinates 19.5° N, 61.4° W)

• coordinate stated in text

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Monos Formation, Late/Upper Campanian to Late/Upper Campanian (83.5 - 66.0 Ma)

• The Monos Formation was deposited during part of a transgressive cycle characterized by a sequence of polymictic gravels that transition into sandstones originated by the erosion of the Antillean Cretaceous Volcanic Arc. Simultaneously, siltstone, claystone, and calcareous beds can also be found intercalated in some sections. These clastic sediments were deposited in a post-volcanic basin during the upper Campanianelower Maastrichtian (Iturralde-Vinent, 2014).

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: fluvial; mudstone

• deposited in the distal part of fluvial systems under the influence of marine and terrestrial environments. Species in the genus Dentalium, Inoceramus, and Rotularia are commonly considered bioindicators of soft-bottom, and the last genus is found in environments where medium to high energy predominate (Borja et al., 2000; Uppsala, 1995).
• The outcrop has a thickness of approximately 1.5 m and extends over 20 m on the south bank of the river (Fig. 2). It is dominated by dark beige and brown mudstone and siltstones poorly stratified with some lenses of very fine polymictic sandstone derived from the erosion of rocks from the extinct volcanic arc.

Size class: macrofossils

Collection methods: The specimens here described are housed at the Museo Municipal de Rodas (MMR) in Rodas, Cienfuegos, Central Cuba.

Primary reference: L. W. Viñola-López, A. Cerda, J. Correa-Narvaez, L. Codorniú, C. R. Borges-Sellén, A. F. Arano-Ruiz, and Y. Ceballos-Izquierdo. 2022. New fossils shed light on the Late Cretaceous terrestrial community in the Caribbean and the First American Biotic Interchange. Cretaceous Research 130:105067 [P. Mannion/G. Varnham/P. Mannion]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 225169: authorized by Philip Mannion, entered by Grace Varnham on 28.04.2022

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

• Fossils of plants, including seeds and fragments of charcoal, were found in association with solitary corals, echinoids, annelids (Rotularia sp., Pentaditrupa sp.), scaphopods (Dentalium sp.), bivalves (Inoceramus, ostreids, pinnids), and osteichthyian fishes.
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Polychaeta
 Serpulimorpha -
Pentaditrupa sp.
 Sabellida - Serpulidae
Rotularia sp.
Bivalvia
 Myalinida - Inoceramidae
Inoceramus sp.
Inoceramus sp. Sowerby 1814 clam
Scaphopoda
 Dentaliida - Dentaliidae
Dentalium sp.
Dentalium sp. Linnaeus 1758 tusk shell
Angiospermae
 Laurales - Lauraceae
Lauraceae indet.
Lauraceae indet. Jussieu 1789 laurel
fruit mold (MMR PP-1)