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The Marine Fossil Record at Santa Maria Island (Azores)

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Volcanoes of the Azores

Part of the book series: Active Volcanoes of the World ((AVOLCAN))

Abstract

Santa Maria is the oldest island of the Azores Archipelago and is remarkably rich in exposed marine fossiliferous sediments and submarine volcanic sequences. This chapter summarises the geological history of the island and reports on the most important palaeontological studies done on the outcrops of Santa Maria since the early studies, during the 19th century. The most important early Pliocene and late Pleistocene (Last Interglacial) fossiliferous deposits are described and palaeoecological reconstructions are presented for each sedimentary succession. The most abundant, diversified and well-studied fossil groups are also reviewed, namely the algae, vertebrates (cetaceans and selaceans), and invertebrates (molluscs, echinoderms, brachiopods, crustaceans and ostracods). We also discuss the palaeontological significance of carbonate sequences in reefless volcanic oceanic islands. Finally, we discuss the importance of applied palaeontology, with products specifically designed for tourism, such as the Museum “House of the Fossils”, the “Route of the Fossils” project, and the “PalaeoPark Santa Maria”, all of them aiming to protect and conserve fossil sites, allowing at the same time, its sustainable use by locals and tourists.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Direcção Regional da Ciência, Tecnologia e Comunicações (Regional Government of the Azores), Direcção Regional do Ambiente e do Mar (Regional Government of the Azores), FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) of the Portuguese government for financial support, and we also thank the Clube Naval de Santa Maria and Câmara Municipal de Vila do Porto for field assistance. We are grateful to the organizers and participants of several editions of the International Workshop “Palaeontology in Atlantic Islands” who assisted with fieldwork (2005–2012). Sérgio P. Ávila acknowledges his IF/00465/2015 research contract funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portugal). This research received support from the SYNTHESYS Application DE-TAF-1071 “Systematics and taxonomy of the Miocene malacofauna of Santa Maria Island (Azores)” (http://www.synthesys.info/) which is financed by European Community Research Infrastructure Action under the FP7 “Capacities” Program. Ricardo Ramalho’s funding was provided by DFG-The German Research Foundation, through the project TH1530/6-1 “Investigation of ocean island uplift in the Azores Island Region”, and later though his FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IOF Marie Curie Fellowship. The contribution of Jörg Habermann is based on his master thesis and Prof. Dr. André Freiwald and Prof. Dr. Karsten Haase are gratefully acknowledged for their supervision. Furthermore, Jörg Habermann and Jürgen Titschack benefitted from the financial support by the DFG project BE4459/1-1 “Magmatic and sedimentological evolution of Oceanic Plateaus: constraints from the Azores”. We are grateful to the referee work of Jere Lipps and Markes Johnson, whose comments helped to clarify relevant parts of the manuscript. This work was also supported by FEDER funds through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors—COMPETE and by National Funds through FCT—Foundation for Science and Technology under the UID/BIA/50027/2013 and POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006821.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. InBIO Laboratório Associado, CIBIO, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, Pólo dos Açores, Azores, Portugal

    Sérgio P. Ávila

  2. Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologias, Universidade dos Açores, 9501-801, Ponta Delgada, Azores, Portugal

    Sérgio P. Ávila

  3. MPB - Marine PalaeoBiogeography Working Group of the University of the Azores, Rua da Mãe de Deus, 9501-801, Ponta Delgada, Azores, Portugal

    Sérgio P. Ávila

  4. Faculdade de Ciências, Instituto Dom Luiz, Universidade de Lisboa, 1749-016, Lisbon, Portugal

    Ricardo S. Ramalho

  5. School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Wills Memorial Building, Queen’s Road, Bristol, BS8 1RJ, UK

    Ricardo S. Ramalho

  6. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Comer Geochemistry Building, PO Box 1000, Palisades, NY, 10964-8000, USA

    Ricardo S. Ramalho

  7. Faculdade das Ciências Humanas e Sociais, Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeology and Evolution of Human Behaviour (ICArEHB), Universidade do Algarve, Campus Gambelas, 8005-139, Faro, Portugal

    Jörg M. Habermann

  8. Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology (ICEA), University of Oxford, 64 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PN, UK

    Jörg M. Habermann

  9. GeoZentrum Nordbayern, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Schlossgarten 5, 91054, Erlangen, Germany

    Jörg M. Habermann

  10. MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen, Leobener Strasse, 28359, Bremen, Germany

    Jürgen Titschack

  11. Marine Research Department, Senckenberg am Meer, 26382, Wilhelmshaven, Germany

    Jürgen Titschack

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  1. Sérgio P. Ávila
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  3. Jörg M. Habermann
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  4. Jürgen Titschack
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Correspondence to Sérgio P. Ávila .

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  1. Department für Geo- und Umweltwissenschaften, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München, Munich, Germany

    Ulrich Kueppers

  2. GeoZentrum Nordbayern, Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany

    Christoph Beier

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Ávila, S.P., Ramalho, R.S., Habermann, J.M., Titschack, J. (2018). The Marine Fossil Record at Santa Maria Island (Azores). In: Kueppers, U., Beier, C. (eds) Volcanoes of the Azores. Active Volcanoes of the World. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32226-6_9

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