The Villalta collection at the Natural History Museum of Barcelona, donated by Josep Fernandez de Villalta in 1983, is a relevant palaeontological collection and a highly valuable heritage —considering its cultural and scientific interest—including well-preserved fossils of vertebrates, invertebrates, plants and, to a lesser extent, ichnites. The collection was assembled as a result of an entire professional career searching and teaching on Palaeontology. While its vertebrates are better known among the specialised scientific community, invertebrates are less renowned but have a similar scientific value because of its type and figured material. Current activities dealing with the inventory, register, documentation and computerization of such invertebrates allows cataloguing its treasures and enhancing their value. The palaeobotanical content of the collection is also important since it includes samples from international reference sites.
Abstract A site in the western flank of Jabal Ja'alan (Oman Mountains) reveals an exceptional succession across the Cretaceous–Palaeogene boundary. The sampled interval comprises a series of carbonates deposited in shallow‐water platform environments and belonging to the Murka Formation, which lies between the Simsima and Abat formations of latest Cretaceous and Thanetian age, respectively. The larger foraminifera recovered from this interval belong essentially to the group of larger rotaliids (Rotaliidae). Two new genera and two new species are here described, Praelockhartia neoakbari gen. et sp. nov. and Rotaliidium parvum gen. et sp. nov. The former shows a very characteristic architecture of an umbilicus with strong piles and two types of umbilical cavities, while the latter has characteristic dorsal supplementary chamberlets. Other species such as Rotalia cf. jacobi , Rotorbinella hensoni , Rotospirella conica and Lockhartia sp. complete the rotaliid assemblage. The entire assemblage can be considered to be of late Danian age and to belong to shallow benthic zone SBZ 2. The larger rotaliids appear to have recovered and diversified earlier than any other larger benthic foraminifera in the region after the K–Pg crisis. The rotaliids from the Murka Formation also appear to be linked to the Lockhartiinae and to play a special role in improving our understanding of subsequent diversification in the Lockhartia Sea. A new subfamily, Praelockhartiinae, is erected to accommodate all primitive forms that are architecturally close to lockhartiines.
The larger foraminifera of the lower part of the Jafnayn Formation outcropping in the Wadi Sayq, in the Paleocene series of the eastern Oman Mountains, have been studied and described in detail. The analysis have allowed us to develop a detailed systematic description of each taxa, constraining their biostratigraphic distribution and defining the associated foraminifera assemblages. The taxonomic study has permitted us to identify each morphotype precisely and describe three new taxa, namely,Ercumentina sayqensis n. gen. n. sp. Lacazinella rogeri n. sp. and Globoreticulinidae new family. The first assemblage is characterized by the presence of Coskinon sp., Dictyoconus cf. turriculus Hottinger and Drobne, Anatoliella ozalpiensis Sirel, Ercumentina sayqensis n. gen. n. sp. Serra-Kiel and Vicedo ,Lacazinella rogeri n. sp. Serra-Kiel and Vicedo, Mandanella cf. flabelliformis Rahaghi, Azzarolina daviesi(Henson), Lockhartia retiata Sander, Dictyokathina simplex Smout and Miscellanites globularis(Rahaghi). The second assemblage is constituted by the forms Pseudofallotella persica (Hottinger and Drobne), Dictyoconus cf. turriculus Hottinger and Drobne, Lacazinella rogeri n. sp. Serra-Kiel and Vicedo, Azzarolina daviesi (Henson), Keramosphera? cf. iranica Rahaghi, Lockhartia haimei (Davies), Lockhartia retiata Sander, Sakesaria trichilata Sander, Kathina delseota Smout, Elazigina harabekayisensis Sirel, Daviesina khatiyahi Smout, and Miscellanea juliettae Leppig. The first assemblage can be considered to belong to the Shallow Bentic Zone SBZ2 (early Selandian age), and the second assemblage to the SBZ3 (late Selandian-early Thanetian age).This paper shows, for the first time in the Middle East area, a correlation between the Selandian larger foraminifera and planktonic foraminifera biozones.
Planeta Vida, la exposicion de referencia del Museo de Ciencias Naturales de Barcelona (MCNB), se estructura en tres ambitos: “Biografia de la Tierra”, “La Tierra hoy” e “Islas de Ciencia”. Biografia de la Tierra es un espacio de 500 m2 donde se explica, en siete areas expositivas diferenciadas, la historia de la Tierra desde la formacion del planeta hasta la actualidad, siguiendo una linea cronologica. Las areas son: Inicios del Universo y de la Tierra, Arcaico, Proterozoico, Paleozoico Inferior, Paleozoico Superior, Mesozoico y Cenozoico. Museograficamente, se ha combinado el uso de especimenes de las colecciones de Geologia y Paleontologia del MCNB -principalmente- con el de recursos audiovisuales disenados a medida. Asi, cada area se presenta con una gran proyeccion sobre el Planeta y la Vida, un panel explicativo retro-iluminado para situar el estado de la Vida y la Geologia, tres o cuatro pantallas tactiles con la informacion presentada en forma de noticias y varios ejemplares de rocas y fosiles. El contenido cientifico de la exposicion se basa en un guion elaborado y revisado por especialistas del museo y externos, creado a partir de la historia de nuestro planeta tal y como la entendemos hoy en dia.
Catalogue of the Santonian rudists from the La Cadière-d’Azur Formation (Le Beausset Basin, SE France) of the Museu de Ciències Naturals de Barcelona The inventory and revision of the 162 catalogue numbers of rudist bivalves from the Lower Santonian of the La Cadière-d’Azur Formation (Le Beausset basin, SE France) has allowed identifying 17 species. The specimens, kept in the palaeontology collections of the MCNB, come from some rudist classical localities in the region such as Moulin de la Roque, Le Castellet, La Cadière-d’Azur and Le Beausset. The recognized species are Hippuritella maestrei (Vidal), Hippuritella toucasi(d’Orbigny), Hippurites matheroni Douvillé, Hippurites socialis Douvillé, Hippurites sublaevis Matheron, Pseudovaccinites beaussetensis (Toucas), Pseudovaccinites galloprovincialis (Matheron), Biradiolites acuticostatus (d’Orbigny), Biradiolites angulosissimus Toucas, Biradiolites fissicostatus d’Orbigny, Bournonia excavata (d’Orbigny), Praeradiolites caderensis Toucas, Praeradiolites toucasi (d’Orbigny), Radiolites galloprovincialis Matheron, Radiolites squamosus d’Orbigny, Plagioptychus aguilloni (d’Orbigny) and an indeterminate requienid. Among them, H. maestrei is cited for the first time in the region, while others have already been reported in the Le Beausset basin outcrops by previous studies.