Field trip: palaeozoic echinoderms from Northern Spain

Abstract

Spain contains some of the most extensive and fossiliferous Palaeozoic outcrops in Europe, including echinoderm faunas that are internationally significant in terms of systematics, palaeoecology and palaeobiogeography. This field trip will review some of the most remarkable Palaeozoic localities in North Spain. It will be divided into two different but related geological and geographical areas, the Cantabrian Zone in northern Spain and its southeastern prolongation, known as the Iberian Chains (Fig. 1). Palaeozoic echinoderms have been known from northern Spain since De Verneuil (1850) who described the Devonian crinoid Pradocrinus baylii. Ten years later, Prado et al. (1860), reported the first Cambrian echinoderm, Trochocystites bohemicus ?, n. sp. (sic!), on the southern slope of the Cantabrian Mountains between Sabero and Boñar (León). Since then, numerous echinoderms have been described from the Cambrian of Spain, and some of the most important contributions include the works of Friedrich (1993) and Sdzuy (1993), who provided the most comprehensive work to date on cinctan systematics and stratigraphic distribution. In addition, the Spanish palaeontologist Prof. Bermudo Meléndez published a series of papers on Ordovician echinoderms from northern Spain (Meléndez, 1942–44, 1952, 1959; Meléndez and Hevia, 1947). The knowledge of Ordovician faunas was greatly improved by his work in collaboration with Jean Jacques Chauvel and Jean Le Menn (Chauvel et al. 1975), and more recently by Gutiérrez Marco et al. (1996a), who has collaborated with us in the preparation of this field guide.