Some new fossil records and notabilia from the Falkland Islands

Abstract

During recent geological investigations in the Falkland Islands new fossil material, including some previously unrecorded species, was collected at several stratigraphical levels. The sedimentary rock sequence preserved in the islands (Figure 1) comprises marine but near-shore, clastic strata in the lower part, the West Falkland Group of Siluro-Devonian age, succeeded by marine to lacustrine clastic lithologies of the Lafonia Group, of Carboniferous to Permian age (Aldiss and Edwards 1999). At the base of the Lafonia Group is a glaciogenic unit, the Fitzroy Tillite Formation. The sequence is broadly comparable to those present in the originally adjoining parts of the Gondwana supercontinent now fragmented into South America, Africa and Antarctica. Particularly close stratigraphical similarities are seen between the Falklands and the Cape Fold Belt and Karoo Basin of southern Africa