Thirty-seven species of corals from the Gulf of California and North PacificCoast are described and discussed. The list includes 14 new species and 6 genera not previously recognized in this area. For comparison a compiled list indicates at least 36 species in the Panamic area. No species was found common to the Gulf of California and North Pacific Coast faunas. Division between the two faunas occurs at Cape San Lucas. Nine of the 21 species from the Gulf of California also occur in the Panamic fauna. One deep-water cosmopolitan species, Desmophyllum crista-galli Milne Edwards and Haime, is found off both San Diego and Panama. Tables indicate, insofar as possible, the bathymétrie and thermal distribution of the species. Eight genera and 17 species belong to the reef-coral group, but the only reefs known in the area are monospecific, being composed of either Pocillopora robusta Verrill or Pontes californien Verrill. The generic affinities of the fauna are preponderantly Indo-Pacific. A chart shows the coral genera known from the Tertiary of California, Oregon, and Washington. The available Pacific Coast data indicate that the Atlantic and Pacific coral faunas were differentiated some time in the Miocene, which agrees with Vaughan's previous conclusion based on Caribbean coral faunas. The distribution of corals in the late Cenozoic of the Gulf of California area is also recorded and discussed. It is concluded that the generic relationships of the Imperial formation corals of southeastern California are not necessarily entirely with the Caribbean faunas, inasmuch as four of the six genera occur in earlier Pacific Coast Tertiary faunas. During part of the Pleistocene some reefcoral genera are found farther north in the Gulf of California than their present northern limit of distribution, indicating a warmer climate then. INTRODUCTION AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In the fall of 1940 the author was a member of the E. W. SCRIPPS Expedition to the Gulf of California. The Expedition was made possible by grants from the Penrose Bequest of The Geological Society of America and from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Although the Expedition was not primarily concerned with living fauna of the area, the author, wherever possible, made notes and collected both recent and fossil corals. Additional material was collected in cores and snapper samples from the bottom of the gulf. Since many new data were obtained a report on the corals of the area was prepared. Through the courtesy of the Peabody Museum of Natural History of Yale University all of Verrill's original types of species occurring in the Gulf of California were borrowed and examined. Dr. Elisabeth Deichmann of the Museum of Comparative order to make comparisons with the fauna north of Cape San Lucas it was necessary to study in detail corals of the North Pacific Coast, describe seven new species, and record three genera previously unreported in this area. For comparison, all available data on Panamic corals were summarized and descriptions of a few species included. Altho...
The Early Cambrian helicoplacoid echinoderms occur in the Cordilleran Geosyncline of western North America in strata correlated with the Atdabanian Stage of Siberia. Several higher taxa are recognized on the basis of inferred differences in the water vascular system, test organization, and external morphology. These are subclass Polyplacida Durham, with genus Polyplacus Durham; subclass Helicoplacida Durham and Caster, with n. family Helicoplacidae, type genus Helicoplacus Durham and Caster (with tubefeet emerging between two contemporaneous ambulacral plates); n. family Westgardellidae, with type n. genus Westgardella, type species H. curtisi (Durham and Caster) (with tubefeet emerging between two sequential ambulacral plates). The genus Waucobella Durham is also referred to Westgardellidae. Helicoplacus gilberti Durham and Caster, H. everndeni Durham, H. casteri n. sp., H. guthi n. sp., H. sp. a, and H. sp. b are assigned to Helicoplacidae. The genus Westgardella includes H. firbyi Durham, 1967, and W. blancoensis n. sp., in addition to the type species. No evidence of flooring plates separating the radial water vessel from the interior of the test is recognized. The mouth is at the top of the test in the interpretation adopted herein and not lateral as inferred by others; therefore, the ambulacral system is not triradiate. Illustration identified as Helicoplacus curtisi by Paul and Smith includes misidentified plates and should not be referred to this species.
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