FOSSIL FORAMINIFERA FROM THE BURDWOOD BANK ii 



in that area. Unfortunately in two cases the history of the samples is not known 

 sufficiently well to exclude any question of contamination, so that while there may be 

 suspicion on the point proof is yet lacking. 



Mr R. Wright Barker kindly allowed me to examine a sample of Foraminifera from 

 the Clay Pebble Bed of Ancon, Ecuador, which is, so far as is known, of Eocene age, and 

 no fossiliferous Cretaceous rocks are known or suspected, I believe, in the vicinity. In 

 the sample I found a single specimen of Rzehakina epigona. The other Foraminifera did 

 not suggest to me any definite age. 



Some samples from the "Clay of Payta", North-west Peru, were sent by the late 

 Dr Jose J. Bravo, Director del Cuerpo de Ingenieros de Minas at Lima, and are 

 preserved in the Sedgwick Museum. They may have been collected from the Lobitos 

 formation (Eocene), but in default of more than a locality label this cannot be stated as a 

 fact. One tube contains an abundance of Pseudotextiilaria globulosa together with a number 

 of other forms in the same state of preservation and of Tertiary aspect, such as Nodosaria 

 spinosa, Berry, 1928, {non Neugeboren), described from the Eocene of Peru, Dyocibicides 

 sp., Ceratobidimbia sp., Uvigerina sp., and three forms oi Plectofrondiadaria, etc. 



A third sample, from another locality, yielded many Rzehakina and abundant Pseiido- 

 textularia globulosa, together with some well-known forms described from the Eocene 

 of the Mexican region, in the same state of preservation. 



In addition to the four characteristic species noted above from the Burdwood Bank, 

 the following may form part of the same probably Upper Cretaceous fauna ; they have 

 been recorded from the Upper Cretaceous particularly in the Mexican and West Indian 

 region, and one, Globigerina cretacea, is often rather characteristic of it. Since the species, 

 or such closely allied forms that it is not possible to separate them in the literature, 

 nearly all occur in Tertiary deposits, and most are living at the present day, they are by 

 themselves not of definite value as age markers : 



Hormosina globulifera 

 Trochammina globigeriniformis 

 Haplophragmoides subglobosiis 

 H. coronatus 

 Glomospira charoides 

 G. gordialis 

 Nodosaria limbata 

 N. communis 



Cristellaria rotulata ? 

 Allomorphina cretacea ? 

 Valvidineria allomorphinoides 

 Gyroidina nitida 

 Globigerina cretacea 

 PuUenia sphaeroides 

 Anomalina ammonoides 



The similarity of foraminiferal faunas in facies and species between localities so far 

 apart as the Burdwood Bank and the Mexican-West Indian region (some 4000 miles 

 direct), is remarkable; particularly when the great difference in latitude is considered, 

 54° S as compared with 10-25° •'^- ^^^ many species of Cretaceous Foraminifera are 

 known to be of very wide range ; they are identical in America and Europe according 

 to Cushman,^ and appear also to be the same in Australasia according to Chapman.^ 



1 Cf. i()2i, Journ. Pal., v, p. 298. 



^ Cf. 1926, Pal. Bull., XI, Geol. Surv. New Zealand. 



