Cretaceous fossil wood and palynomorphs from Williams Point, Livingston Island, Antarctic Peninsula

Abstract

Terrestrial palynofloras from two localities on Williams Point, Livingston, Island, contain angiosperm monocolpates and tricolpates and can be dated as Cenomanian-early Campanian. This fixes the age for a collection of 15 silicified wood fragments described as 6 palaeotaxa; three are gymnosperm woods (Coniferwood-spacedpits, Coniferwood-clusteredpits, Coniferwood-lowrays) and three angiosperm woods (Dicotwood-heterorays, Dicotwood-multiserirays, Dicotwood-dumpirays). The palynofloras and wood specimens indicate a species rich, mixed conifer and dicotyledonous angiosperm forest possibly with a complex standard tree and understorey structure. This forest was growing at a palaeolatitude of about 59°S during the Late Cretaceous. The use of palaeotaxa rather than the ICBN system for fossil material is discussed and a brief description of the classification system proposed by Hughes (1989) is given in an Appendix.