Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ws8qp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T18:04:54.583Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Devonian plants from Colombia, with discussion of their geological and palaeogeographical context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2000

CHRISTOPHER M. BERRY
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Wales Cardiff, P. O. Box 914, Cardiff CF10 3YE, Wales, UK
EDUARDO MOREL
Affiliation:
Departamento de Paleobotánica, Museo de la Plata, Paseo del Bosque s/m, 1900 La Plata, Argentina
JAIRO MOJICA
Affiliation:
Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Departamento de Geociencias, Apartado 14490, Bogotá, Colombia
CARLOS VILLARROEL
Affiliation:
Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Departamento de Geociencias, Apartado 14490, Bogotá, Colombia

Abstract

Plant fossils are described from the Cuche Formation, Eastern Cordillera, Colombia in the area of Floresta. Those identified as Colpodexylon cf. deatsii Banks and cf. Archaeopteris sp. suggest an earliest Late Devonian (Frasnian) age for the formation. These or similar taxa are also found in contemporaneous deposits in western Venezuela, and other elements of the Venezuelan flora are found in a geographically intermediate locality. All three Devonian plant localities in the northwest of South America are within the Colombian Eastern Cordillera and its northern extension, the Venezuelan Perijá Range, an area that has been integrated as a part of the so-called ‘Eastern Andean Terrane’ or ‘Central Andean Province’, supposedly accreted to the autochthonous block of the Guyana Shield during the early Jurassic or before. Although both invertebrates and plants from this terrane have strong affinities to North American and European assemblages, and might be interpreted as implying a Laurussian origin for the Eastern Andean Terrane, the evidence is not yet unequivocal, with some authors postulating an in situ development of this province.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2000 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)