Foraminifera from organic-rich sediments: La Barca Formation, Upper Paleocene, Tierra del Fuego, República Argentina

Abstract

Foraminifera are described from the La Barca Formation, a 220 m thick upwards fining, organic-rich sequence on Peninsula Mitre, Tierra del Fuego. The La Barca Formation is one of the few post-Danian Paleocene marine formations of Patagonia. Its lower member bears a peculiar assemblage of calcareous benthic foraminifera, here called the Bulimina karpatica Assemblage, which is composed of, in abundance order, B. karpatica, Baggatella sp., Bulimina subbortonica, Buliminella isabelleana, Turrilina robertsi, Buccella sp. and Karreria pseudoconvexa. The first five species are buliminids and comprise more than 50% of the total specimens, in agreement with the well-known relationship between organic-rich sediments and buliminid-rich assemblages. The B. karpatica Assemblage shows its austral character by the occurrence of B. isabelleana and B. subbortonica, and the genera Antarcticella and Buccella. This is the oldest record of Buccella, one of the genera with tuberculate surface that have characterized the shallow-water austral assemblages of Patagonia mainly since the uppermost Eocene. Its appearance apparently precedes the abrupt appearances of the genera Elphidium and Cribrorotalia, recorded in the overlying Punta Noguera Formation (uppermost Paleocene?_lowermost Eocene?). The appearance of these genera suggests a marked turnover in the shallow-water microfaunas at high latitudes near the Paleocene/Eocene transition. The La Barca Formation upper member contains only scarce agglutinated foraminifera, dominated by Spiroplectammina spectabilis.