Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Spassov, Nikolai

Titel

Varshets and Slivnitsa – new localities of Villafranchian vertebrate fauna from Bulgaria (taxonomic composition, biostratigraphy and climatochronology)

Ist Teil von

• Geologica Balcanica, 1997-08, Vol.27 (1-2), p.83-90

Erscheinungsjahr

1997

Quelle

EZB Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Two recently discovered rich Bulgarian localities have been studied and described as localities of Villafranchian fauna - Varshets and Slivnitsa. They represent two faunistic complexes immediately succeeding one another in time. Varshets is a Late Pliocene locality. After its fauna it ought to be referred to the biochronological zone MNQ 17, that may be subdivided into two successive subzones. It seems that the fauna of this locality is earlier than that of the marker locality St.-Vallier. The fauna of Varshets numbers more than 100 taxa of vertebrates, including 18 species of Macromammalia. The faunistic complex presupposes a mosaic landscape of open spaces and forests or an open ("park") type of forests. After the climato-stratographic subdivision, the fauna falls at SCT12, or even more probably, at the beginning of SCT11. The locality of Slivnitsa refers to the the very end of the Pliocene and the Late Villafranchian. The fauna consisting of 19 species of Macromammalia too, times it to the beginning of the zone MNQ 18, which probably ought to be also divided into subzones – MNQ18a = Seneze Unit (Final Pliocene) and MNQ18b = Olivola Unit (probably Earliest Pleistocene). The time of this fauna corresponds to the intermediate cooling during the Beregovka warming that falls on the superclimatheme SCT10. The predominance of Bovidae, that are typical of the open spaces, indicates more aridic climate than Varshets. Slivnitsa and Seneze are the earliest localities where the first migration wave of Canis s.str. has appeared from the east. This wave having been spread in most regions of Europe at the beginning of the Pleistocene. It seems that Slivnitsa is also the earliest locality reflecting the appearance of the genus Panthera on the continent.