HATO NUEVO, Beds

UPPER CRETACEOUS (Santonian)

Departamento Magdalena, Colombia

Author of name: C. J. Maury.

Original reference: C. J. Maury, 1925, p. 412.

Original description: none.

The name "Hato Nuevo beds", as a supposedly Venezuelan formation appears in Maury (1925, p. 413):

"Upper Cretaceous, Santonian. —Hato Nuevo beds, western Zulia, in the Sierra de Perijá region, west of Lake Maracaibo, with Ostrea hippodium Nils., which is characteristic of Santonian and other lower Senonian formations of Europe and North Africa.

Correlation and identification, Gerhardt, 1898."

The locality of Hato Nuevo is in reality on the Colombian side of the frontier, so that it would not be appropriate as a type locality for a Venezuelan formation. Fortunately, no one since Maury appears to have used the name formally, though a reference to the locality appears in Liddle (1928, p. 176) who quotes the original reference by Gerhardt (1897-98, p. 6970), who was responsible for the localization of Hato Nuevo in Venezuela ("District of Maracaibo"). Liddle referred the beds to the Colon. Gerth (1935, p. 350) also mentions the locality, but notes that it is on the western side of the Perijá range. In 1946, Liddle rectifies that Hato Nuevo is in Colombia and mentions additional fossils collected by Sievers, 1888: here he calls the beds "black limestone and shale of La Luna and Colon formations". (Liddle, 1946, p. 226-267.)

Frances de Rivero