Abstract
Analysis of samples collected from Lower Cretaceous marginal marine sediments in outcrop sections north of Ericeira, west Portugal, reveals Trochammina, mixed Trochammina-Ammobaculites, and three Ammobaculites dominated assemblages. The Trochammina and Trochammina-Ammobaculites dominated assemblages may indicate the development of a marsh paleoenvironment during a rise in relative sea level. The Ammobaculites assemblages may represent estuarine paleoenvironments.
Study of the morphology of the Ammobaculites populations indicates that test construction may be architecturally constrained by grain size, related to the sedimentary environment, as well as a necessity to construct the test rapidly under short-lived environmental conditions. Ammobaculites subcretaceus has a relatively finer grained coil reflecting the architectural limitations on grain size in construction of the planispire, but a coarse uncoiled stage constructed at a 90 degree tangent to the coil, reflecting the availability of coarse grains and the possible necessity to build the test as rapidly as possible. Ammobaculites coprolithiformis has an inflated test constructed from medium sized equant grains throughout, reflecting the architectural ability to build the crude planispire from larger grains and the availability of these in a probable lower estuarine environment. Ammobaculites obliquus has a compact, delicate test built from fine grains, reflecting the availability of finer grains in probable upper mudflat subfacies within the estuarine paleoenvironment. One new species, Ammobaculites safarujensis n.sp., from the marsh facies in the Ericeira region is described and illustrated.
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Wightman, W.G. (1990). Estuarine and Marsh Foraminifera from the Lower Cretaceous of the Lusitanian Basin, West Portugal. In: Hemleben, C., Kaminski, M.A., Kuhnt, W., Scott, D.B. (eds) Paleoecology, Biostratigraphy, Paleoceanography and Taxonomy of Agglutinated Foraminifera. NATO ASI Series, vol 327. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3350-0_26
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