Abstract
DURING an examination of the Foraminifera from the Lower Cretaceous clays of Speeton, Yorkshire, a number of samples were found to contain holothurian sclerites. This was an unexpected occurrence, as Frizzell and Exline1 have pointed out that virtually no work has been published on sclerites from strata of Cretaceous age. The only previous records of Cretaceous holothurian sclerites are Calcligula (?) huckei Frizzell from the Gault of Pomerania, Theelia rotula (Egger) from Germany and Hemisphaeranthos frankei (Müller) from the Turonian of Germany. ‘Chirodota’ from the Hauterivian of France were noted by Deprat2, and Wetzel3 obtained sclerites from a Baltic flint which Deflandre-Rigaud4 identified as Myriotrochites elegans (Schlumberger), Chiridotites atavus (Waagen) and Chiridotites cf. ingens (Joshua). More recently Kemper5 recorded ‘Holothurienreste’ from the Hauterivian of Germany, though he did not describe them.
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References
Frizzell, D. L., and Exline, H., Univ. Missouri School Mines and Met. Bull., 89 (1955).
Deprat, J. F. G., Bull. Soc. d'Hist. Nat. du Doubs, 1, 21 (1900).
Wetzel, O., Paläont. Zeit., 27, 37 (1953).
Deflandre-Rigaud, M., in Traité de Pal., edit. by Piveteau, J., 3, 951 (1953).
Kemper, E., Geol. Jb., 80, 456 (1963).
Fletcher, B. N., Geol. Mag., 99, 4, 322 (1962).
Hodson, F., Harris, B., and Lawson, L., Geol. Mag., 93, 4, 336 (1956).
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FLETCHER, B. Holothurian Sclerites from the Speeton Clay. Nature 208, 281 (1965). https://doi.org/10.1038/208281a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/208281a0
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