This work was supported by National Science Foundationgrant DPP 89-15439. The specimen upon which the description ofthe new species of Lyreidus was based was made available by M.R. A. Thomson, British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UnitedKingdom. (Contribution 526, Department of Geology, Kent StateUniversity, Kent, Ohio 44242.)

References

Feldmann, R. M. 1990. Decapod crustacean paleobiogeography: Resolv-ing the problem of small sample size. In G. Mikulic (Ed.), ArthropodPaleobiogeography. Paleontological Society Short Courses inPaleontol-ogy, 3:303-315.

Feldmann, R. M. 1992. The genus Lyreidus de Haan, 1839 (Crustacea,Decapoda, Raninidae): Systematics and biogeography. Journal of Pale-ontology, 66(6), in press.

Feldmann, R. M. and P. A. Maxwell. 1990. Late Eocene decapod Crus-tacea from north Westland, South Island, New Zealand. Journal ofPaleontology, 64: 779-797.

Feldmann, R. M., and M. 0. Woodburne, (Eds). 1988. Geology andpaleontology of Seymour Island, Antarctic Peninsula. Geological Soci-ety of America Memoir, 169:566.

Feldmann, R. M. and W. J. Zirismeister. 1984. New fossil crabs (Decapoda:Brachyura) from the La Meseta Formation (Eocene) of Antarctica:Paleogeographic and biogeographic implication. Journal of Paleontol-ogy, 58: 1046-1061.

Glaessner, M. F. 1980. New Cretaceous and Tertiary crabs (Crustacea:Brachyura) from Australia and New Zealand. Transactions of the RoyalSociety of South Australia, 104:171-192.

Sadler, P.M. 1988. Geometry and stratification of uppermost Cretaceousand Paleogene units on Seymour Island, northern Antarctic Penin-sula. Feldmann, R. M. and M. 0. Woodbume (Eds.), Geology andPaleontology of Seymour Island, Antarctic Peninsula. Geological Soci-ety of America Memoir, 169:303-320.

Zinsmeister, W. J. 1979. Biogeographic significance of the late Mesozoicand early Tertiary molluscan faunas of Seymour Island (AntarcticPeninsula) to the final breakup of Gondwanaland. In J. Gray and A.Boucot (Eds.), Historical Biogeography, Plate Tectonics and the ChangingEnvironment. Proceedings of the 37th Annual Biology Colloquium andSelected Paper. Corvallis, Oregon: Oregon State University Press , 349-355.

Fossil corals from Seymour Island,Antarctica

HARRY F. FILKORN AND RODNEY M. FELDMANN

Department of GeologyKent State University

Kent, Ohio 44242

Fossil corals have been known to occur in the rocks on SeymourIsland, Antarctica, since the early part of the century. Based uponspecimens collected on Nordenskjöld's Swedish South PolarExpedition (1901-1903), Felix (1909) described six species of cor-als reported to have been collected from seven localities in Creta-ceous rocks (Nordenskjöld's map in Andersson, 1906, pl. 6). Fiveof these localities were on Snow Hill Island, and two were onSeymour Island. With the exception of a preliminary report(Filkorn 1990), no subsequent examination of Cretaceous coralsfrom this region has been made.

During the austral summer of 1986-1987, M. A. Kooser, Uni-versity of California, Riverside, California, and Rodney Feldmanndocumented the presence of corals at 24 localities on SeymourIsland (figure 1), of which 18 were Cretaceous and six werePaleocene. Although these were anecdotal collections madewhile studying other macroinvertebrate taxa, over 400 specimenswere collected. These specimens, as well as the original speci-mens studied by Felix, have served as the basis for a re-examina-tion of the coral fauna of Seymour Island.

Sixteen species of corals have been identified from Cretaceousand Paleocene rocks and referred to 13 genera. All the corals tendto be relatively small and all are presumed to have beenazooxanthellate; that is, they lacked the algal symbionts thattypify modern, shallow water reef building corals. Four of the

species are colonial, forms whose skeletons formed branching,bush-like colonies, whereas the remainder are either free-livingor attached, conical or cupolate, solitary forms. Within thecollections made to date, the corals have been more widespreadand diverse in the late Cretaceous to Paleocene Lopez de BertQdanoFormation, where 12 solitary and one colonial species have beenidentified. In the Paleocene Sobral Formation, three colonial andone solitary species have been identified including one species ofMadrepora that apparently formed relatively large thickets (figure2). The species of solitary coral may be conspecific with onecollected in the LOpez de Bertodano Formation. Tentatively threespecies have been recognized in collections from the Eocene LaMeseta Formation; however, the paucity of corals in the LaMeseta Formation is likely related to the intensity of collectingrather than to the abundance of or diversity of forms. Althoughthe sampling of the rocks of Seymour Island for fossil corals sincomplete, the high diversity of the coral fauna, particularly iithe LOpez de Bertodano Formation, reinforces observations ofhigh diversity in other invertebrate taxa collected from SeymourIsland (see articles in Feldmann and Woodburn 1988).

In general, the Cretaceous and Paleogene coral faunas onSeymour Island are dominated by taxa that have living descen-dants. The occurrences of five genera are unique to the JamesRoss Basin, four genera of corals within this assemblage representthe first occurrence of those genera in the fossil record, and at leasteight species in five genera are ancestral to living forms that areinhabitants of lower latitude, deep-water assemblages. Thus,observations based upon corals from Seymour Island corrobo-rate conclusions based on the study of arthropods, molluscs, andechinoderms (Zinsmeister and Feldmann 1984) that the southernhigh latitudes served as a site for origin of some modern deep-water species.

Examination of the mineralogy of the coral skeletons, using astaining technique employing Feigi's solution (Feigl and Leitmeier1933) and X-ray diffraction studies indicated that all specimenstested were composed of aragonite, the original skeletal mineral-

20 Ar&icnc JOURNAL

senye

Lamb IU,

Surf icialdeposits

IT'TiLa Meseta:Tel 4-5

FormationTel m3

Ic rn 1-2

! Cross Valley Mbr.Sobral Tps I.

Formation ______ Tps?3Ips3Ips 1-2

KIt b 10

K lb 1-9Lopez de

Bertodano

Formation

Figure 1. Geologic map of Seymour Island denoting the sites (dots) from which fossil corals have been collected. Localities from which Felix'smaterial was collected are indicated by squares. Base map from Sadler, 1988.

ogy of the corallites. Unaltered aragonite in fossil material of lateCretaceous age is relatively rare. Its presence offers the opportu-nity of using corals for geochemical and isotopic analyses thatmay yield valuable information on paleobathymetry andpaleotemperature.

The results that have been derived from the preliminarycollections made of fossil corals have documented a diversefauna, largely of pioneering species, that have given rise toseveral modem taxa. Additional, more systematic collecting iswarranted to fully document this unusual occurrence.

Access to the type material of corals studied by Felix wasprovided by Christina Franzén-Bengtson, NautrhistoriskaRiksmuseet, Stockholm, Sweden. Field work for Feldmann wassupported by National Science Foundation grant to William J.Zinsmeister. Laboratory work was partially supported by NationalScience Foundation grant DPP 89-15439. (Contribution 525, De-partment of Geology, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242.)

References

Andersson, J . C. 1906. On the geology of Graham Land. Bulletin of theGeological Institute of Llpsala, 7:19-71, plates 1-6.

Feldmann, R. M. and M. 0. Woodburne. 1988. Geology and Paleontologyof Seymour Island, Antarctic Peninsula. Geological Society of AmericaMemoir, 169:566.

Feigi, F. and H. Leitmeier. 1933. Spot test for distinguishing betweencalcite and aragonite. Chemical Abstracts, 27(16): 3,896.

Felix, J. 1909. Ober die fossilen Korallen der Snow Hill-Insel und derSeymour-Insel. Der Schwedishen Sudpolar-Expedition 1901-1903,Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse, 3(5):1-15.

Filkom, H. F. 1990. Scieractinia from the Lopez de Bertodano and Sobralformations (Upper Cretaceous -Lower Tertiary), Seymour and Snow

Figure 2. Fragments of Madrepora n. sp. littering an exposure of thePaleocene Sobral Formation on Seymour Island. The fossils arepresumed to represent the remains of an azooxantheilate coralthicket.

Hill Islands, Antarctic Peninsula, Antarctica. Geological Society ofAmerica, Abstracts with Programs, 22(5):10.

Sadler, P. M. 1988. Geometry and stratification of uppermost Cretaceousand Paleogene units on Seymour Island, northern Antarctic Penin-sula. In R. M. Feldmann and M. 0. Woodburne (Eds.), Geology andPaleontology of Seymour Island, Antarctic Peninsula. Geological Soci-ety of America Memoir, 169:303-320.

Zinsmeister, W. J . and R. M. Feldmann. 1984. Cenozoic high latitudeheterochroneity of Southern Hemisphere marine faunas. Science,224:281-283.

1992 REVIEW

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