Hauterivian

The Hauterivian is, in the

The Hauterivian was introduced in scientific literature by Swiss geologist Eugène Renevier in 1873. It is named after the Swiss town of Hauterive at the shore of Lake Neuchâtel.

The base of the Hauterivian is defined as the place in the

In the ammonite biostratigraphy of the Tethys domain, the Hauterivian contains seven ammonite biozones:

• zone of Pseudothurmannia ohmi
• zone of Balearites balearis
• zone of Plesiospitidiscus ligatus
• zone of Subsaynella sayni
• zone of Lyticoceras nodosoplicatus
• zone of Crioceratites loryi
• zone of Acanthodiscus radiatus

Climate

Some palaeoclimatological studies indicate that a brief ice age, known as the Hauterivian cold snap, occurred during this age. The Hauterivian cold snap appears to be associated with permafrost at high elevations and large ice sheets that potentially stretched as far south as the modern Iberian Peninsula, based on the existence of Hauterivian ice-rafted dropstones in Iberia. Cold conditions are also known to have existed in the Southern Hemisphere during the same time period, based on records from Australia. Similar cold periods with associated glaciations are also known from the earlier Valanginian and the later Aptian & early Albian periods, all contrasting with the typical image of the Cretaceous as a greenhouse period.^[4][5][6][7]

References

Notes