21 st ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM ON CARIBBEAN GEOLOGY

by Simon Mitchell
Department of Geography & Geology

Dr Peter Skelton (The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK) and I were invited as the guest speakers at the 21 st Annual Symposium on Caribbean Geology: Caribbean Palaeontology and Biostratigraphy, held at the University of Puerto Rico from February 25 to 29, 2004.

I presented two talks: an extended (one hour) talk entitled “Stratigraphy of the Cretaceous Rocks of the Central Inlier, Jamaica,” and a second talk entitled “Morphology, Microstructure and Stratigraphy of Some Small, Late Cretaceous Radiolitid Rudists from Jamaica.”

The trip also allowed me to undertake seven days of fieldwork in Puerto Rico with Dr Hernan Santos, Dr Peter Skelton and Mr Michael Martinez. This fieldwork was largely concerned with the Cretaceous geology of southeastern Puerto Rico, and was a first attempt at comparing the Cretaceous successions in Jamaica and Puerto Rico.

A general similarity was found between the Santonian and Campanian successions between the two islands, with an early Campanian limestone resting on deeper water shales in both areas.

Additionally, a new Lower Albian (Lower Cretaceous) rudist fauna was recognized in central Puerto Rico, a fauna that has also been discovered in Jamaica by Ian Brown and myself in the Benbow Inlier.

We hope that this trip is the first of an established link between UWI and the University of Puerto Rico, and will lead to joint research projects.

Towards this end, Dr Santos, Dr Skelton and I established an international research group to examine the evolution of the fossil rudist genus Barrettia in the Caribbean. We hope to present the first results at the Seventh International Rudist Conference in Texas in May 2005, and at the Caribbean Geological Conference in Puerto Rico in July 2005.