ABSTRACTS
15
Oral Communication: Patrícia Madeira
THE MARINE FOSSILS FROM SANTA MARIA ISLAND:
AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
Patrícia Madeira1, 2, Sérgio Ávila1, 2, 3 & António M. de Frias Martins1, 2, 4
1
MPB, Marine PalaeoBiogeography Working Group of the University of Azores, Departamento
de Biologia, Universidade dos Açores, Ponta Delgada, Açores, e-mail: [email protected];
2
Departamento de Biologia, Universidade dos Açores, Rua Mãe de Deus, 9500 Ponta Delgada;
3
Centro do IMAR da Universidade dos Açores, 9901-862 Horta, Azores,
e- mail: [email protected]; 4 CIBIO - Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos
Genéticos - Pólo Açores, Departamento de Biologia, Universidade dos Açores,
9501-801 Ponta Delgada, São Miguel, Açores, Portugal; e-mail: [email protected]
K
nowledge of the presence of fossils in Sta. Maria Island can be
traced back to the sixteenth century,
through Gaspar Frutuoso’s description of “seafood shells glued to
stones”, at Figueiral. The first scientific reports date back to the 19th century, with three studies describing the
presence of sedimentary rocks and
Miocene marine fossils at Pinheiros,
Feteira, Boca da Cré, Figueiral, Forno
da Cré, Raposo, Ponta dos Matos,
Praia and Prainha (Bronn, 1860,
Hartung, 1860 and Morelet, 1860). In
the following years, reports of the
sedimentary rocks of Santa Maria
continued, e.g., the listing of species
by Mayer (1864), Hartung (1864) and
Cotter (1892). By the turn of the 20th
century the palaeontological interest
in Santa Maria decreased to almost
total forgetfulness, with the exceptions of Friendler (1924), and the
reviews of Agostinho (1937). In the
beginning of the 1950’s this tendency
was reversed with the studies of
Berthois (1950, 1951, 1953), Colom
(1958), Ferreira (1952, 1955), KrejciGraf et al. (1958) and Teixeira’s (1950)
reproductions of the 19th century
reports. In the following decade, a
prolific series of palaeontological
reports were made, many of which
were the result of some expeditions
made in the late 1950’s to the island of
Santa Maria, by the Geological
Services of Portugal. During this
time, Zbyszewski, Ferreira &
Assunção (1961) produced a geological map with several explanatory
notes, where the fossil contents of the
island outcrops are again discussed
(Ferreira,
1961;
Ferreira
&
Zbyszewski, 1961, 1962). In 1961,
Zbyszewski, Assunção & Ferreira,
wrote one of the few reports solely
about the fossils from Formigas. After
these productive decades, the scientific production on the fossils of Sta.
Maria Island becomes again scarce.
Some exceptions were the revisions
on the sedimentary rocks of the
Macaronesian islands by MitchellThomé (1974, 1976, 1981), and the
papers of Talavera (1990, on the
Pleistocene outcrops of Prainha) and
Callapez & Soares (2000, on the
Pleistocene outcrops of Lagoinhas).
16
ABSTRACTS
Santa Maria’s outcrops were visited
again in 2002 by a scientific expedition organized by present members
of the MPB and of the Department of
Biology of the University of the
Azores. The main results were aimed
at both the understanding of the
palaeoecology and palaeobiogeography of the Pleistocene and MiocenePliocene outcrops, as well as towards
the legal protection of the geological
legacy of Sta. Maria Island. As result,
a checklist of the Pleistocene molluscs
of Lagoinhas and Prainha was produced (Ávila et al., 2002), together
with a technical report for the protection of the outcrops of Pedreira do
Campo and Figueiral (Cachão et al.,
2003). In conclusion, Santa Maria
palaeontological studies depended
primarily on a few expeditions made
in the last two centuries and on valuable donations made by private collectors. Several palaeontological
works were produced during this
time, especially about the fossil molluscs, but few were made on the
microfossils, with the exceptions of
Colom (1958), Ferreira (1960), Ávila et
al. (2002) and Ávila (2005), let alone
on the fossil algae present on some of
the Pleistocene outcrops of Santa
Maria (Amen, 2002; Amen, Neto &
Azevedo, 2005). Mitchel-Thomé
(1976) classified the palaeontological
situation in Santa Maria Island, as a
promising field, and it seems that this
is still true.