Letters and records of the dissenting congregations: David Crosley, Cripplegate and Baptist Church life

The original publication is available at www.springerlink.comInternational audienceThis chapter examines the status and function of letters in manuscript records of dissenting Churches of the post-Toleration years, concentrating on the correspondence of the Baptist Church of Cripplegate. The letters are placed in the context of controversies about Church government and discipline and the rhetoric used during the scandal caused by the excommunication of its Northern minister David Crosley for drinking, lying and adultery is assessed. In doing so, the chapter pays particular attention to the epistolary exchanges between metropolitan and provincial congregations and to what they reveal about conceptions of the Baptist ministry

Neogene sharks and rays from the Brazilian ‘Blue Amazon’

The lower Miocene Pirabas Formation in the North of Brazil was deposited under influence of the proto-Amazon River and is characterized by large changes in the ecological niches from the early Miocene onwards. To evaluate these ecological changes, the elasmobranch fauna of the fully marine, carbonate-rich beds was investigated. A diverse fauna with 24 taxa of sharks and rays was identified with the dominant groups being carcharhiniforms and myliobatiforms. This faunal composition is similar to other early Miocene assemblages from the proto-Carribbean bioprovince. However, the Pirabas Formation has unique features compared to the other localities; being the only Neogene fossil fish assemblage described from the Atlantic coast of Tropical Americas. Phosphate oxygen isotope composition of elasmobranch teeth served as proxies for paleotemperatures and paleoecology. The data are compatible with a predominantly tropical marine setting with recognized inshore and offshore habitats with some probable depth preferences (e.g., Aetomylaeus groups). Paleohabitat of taxa particularly found in the Neogene of the Americas (†Carcharhinus ackermannii, †Aetomylaeus cubensis) are estimated to have been principally coastal and shallow waters. Larger variation among the few analyzed modern selachians reflects a larger range for the isotopic composition of recent seawater compared to the early Miocene. This probably links to an increased influence of the Amazon River in the coastal regions during the Holocene