- publication
- 03-05-2018
Ichthyoliths (fossil fish microremains) from geological core samples are commonly recorded and where present allow dating and contribute to the knowledge of the evolution of fish faunas through time (see, for instance, Sibert et al., Citation2014; Sibert and Norris, Citation2015, for the Ocean Drilling Program). However, reports of articulated fish specimens in cores are much rarer due to the limited chance of a core drill returning a small-diameter cylinder of rock encompassing the fossil to the surface. Examples of articulated fishes described from cores include specimens of Permo-Carboniferous actinopterygians near the city of Zurich, Switzerland (Bürgin, Citation1990), as well as a new taxon of a Cenomanian ellimmichthyiform from Alberta, Canada (Hay et al., Citation2007), and two new Eocene cypriniform fishes from Guangdong and Henan, China (Liu, Citation1957; Zhou, Citation1990; Chang and Chen, Citation2008). In this paper, we report the discovery of an ichthyodectiform fish fossil collected during re-evaluation of a core from DSDP Leg 41 Site 367 at the IODP Bremen Core Repository, Germany ( ). The core was recovered from a well drilled in the Cape Verde Basin, ca. 400 km offshore from the West African Atlantic Margin, to test the early basin evolution of the Central Atlantic region (Lancelot et al., Citation1977). The fossil fish was discovered in core 21 section 6 at 699.9 m measured depth, preserved on the bedding surface of a bituminous marl. Reports from the DSDP expedition had previously recorded fish vertebrae in the same subunit, suggesting abundance and/or high preservation rate of fish remains in Central Atlantic waters during the Albian to Cenomanian period (Lancelot et al., Citation1977:fig. 6). Associated calcareous nannofossils indicate an earliest Cenomanian age for the cored interval containing this specimen ().
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