A paleoictiofauna da Formação Missão Velha, Cretáceo Inferior da Bacia do Araripe, Nordeste do Brasil

Abstract

The Araripe Basin is one of the richest fossiliferous localities in the world and represents some of the main stages of tectonic evolution related to the process of the opening of the South Atlantic. This basin is subdivided into two distinct stratigraphic packages: the Cariri Group (constituted by Cariri, Missão Velha and Rio Batateiras formations) and the Araripe Group (composed by the Crato, Ipubi, Santana and Exú formations). The Missão Velha Formation is the only one in the Vale do Cariri Group that presents vertebrate fossil records as, for example, disarticulated remains of fossil fishes. The present work consists on the: identification, preparation and description of the specimens collected in the Missão Velha Formation; comparisons of the paleoichthyofauna of this formation with other basins of the same age; analysis of the paleobiogeographic distribution of the groups present on Missão Velha Formation. Although disarticulated, we can identify the presence of six fish taxa (including teeth, cephalic spines and finspines of Hybodontiformes; scales, teeth and fragmented bones of Lepidotes; scales of Pleuropholidae, several disarticulated bones of Mawsonia cf. gigas; tooth plates and other disarticulated bones of Ceratodus) as well as fragments of at least three more teleost taxa. This fauna is very important because it represents a continental and lacustrine biota, tipical to the Neocomian of Brazil, deposited during the pre-rift/rift stages of the breakup of western Gondwana. During these stages we can observe a stratigraphic correlation between the Missão Velha Formation and the marginal basins of Western Africa. Therefore, the biota present in Missão Velha Formation contributes to understand the diversity present in pre-rift and rift stages in Brazil and Africa.