title: Early Cretaceous araucarian driftwood from hemipelagic sediments of the Puez area, South Tyrol, Italy.
abstract: We describe a calcareously permineralised fossil tree-trunk, preserved as driftwood, within hemipelagic sediments of the Cretaceous Puez Formation near Wolkenstein, South Tyrol, Italy. Planktic foraminiferal assemblages recovered from the marls containing the fossil wood indicate a latest middle Albian age. Based on its wood anatomy, the trunk is assigned toAgathoxylonand probably has an affinity with the conifer family Araucariaceae. The wood lacks pronounced tree-rings consistent with tree growth within the broad humid tropical belt that existed at that time. The trunk contains cylindrical chambers filled within faecal pellets, demonstrating that oribatid mites infested the tree, either during life, or shortly after death. Prior to final burial, the tree-trunk drifted out into the open sea for a considerable period as indicated by extensive borings assigned to the ichnospeciesTeredolites longissimusand produced by teredinid bivalves. Relatively little is known about the Cretaceous floras of Italy, so this new finding fills a gap in our knowledge of the composition and ecology of the vegetation of this region.
authors.affiliation: Naturmuseum Südtirol, Bindergasse 1, 39100 Bolzano, Italy.
authors.forename: Evelyn
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kustatscher
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK.
authors.forename: Howard
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Falcon-Lang
authors.affiliation: Natural History Museum, Geological-Palaeontological Department, Burgring 7, 1010 Wien, Austria.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lukeneder
keywords: Albian; Araucariaceae; Dolomites; Driftwood; Italy; Puez Formation; Teredolites longissimus