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Latest Jurassic–earliest Cretaceous age for a fossil flora from the Latady Basin, Antarctic Peninsula

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2006

Morag A. Hunter
Affiliation:
British Antarctic Survey, NERC, Madingley Road, High Cross, Cambridge CB3 0ET, UK
David J. Cantrill
Affiliation:
Swedish Museum of Natural History, Department of Palaeobotany, Box 50007, Stockholm, 104 05, Sweden
Michael J. Flowerdew
Affiliation:
British Antarctic Survey, NERC, Madingley Road, High Cross, Cambridge CB3 0ET, UK

Abstract

Dating Jurassic terrestrial floras in the Antarctic Peninsula has proved problematic and controversial. Here U–Pb series dating on detrital zircons from a conglomerate interbedded with fossil plant material provide a maximal depositional age of 144 ± 3 Ma for a presumed Jurassic flora. This is the first confirmed latest Jurassic-earliest Cretaceous flora from the Latady Basin, and represents some of the youngest sedimentation in this basin. The presence of terrestrial sedimentation at Cantrill Nunataks suggests emergence of the arc closer to the Latady Basin margin in the south compared to Larsen Basin in the north, probably as a result of the failure of the southern Weddell Sea to undergo rifting.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© Antarctic Science Ltd 2006

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