Krömmelbein Mesozic ostracod collections

Extract

Karl Krömmelbein (1920–1979) worked on both Paleozoic and Mesozoic sequences but is best remembered for his pioneering work on late Jurassic–early Cretaceous ostracod assemblages from Brazil and West Africa, clearly demonstrating in a series of publications between 1961 and 1972 the presence of comparable marginal-marine and non-marine faunas in continental margin basins on each side of the modern South Atlantic. These ostracods and their biostratigraphical distributions have assumed great importance in recent years consequent on the discovery of hydrocarbons, especially offshore Brazil. All Krömmelbein's published and background material is housed the the Senckenberg Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum, Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany with the sole exception of the material figured in Krömmelbein & Weber (1971) which is housed in the Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe and Landesamt für Bergbau, Energie und Geologie, Hannover, Germany. Do Carmo et al. (2008) make a number of erroneous statements about the material, i.e., that material of Krömmelbein (1965) was moved from Hannover to Frankfurt, and that Do Carmo et al.'s figured specimens from the Krömmelbein Collection in Frankfurt are ‘types’ when they are exclusively topotypic and not primary types. A statement in Poropat and Colin (2012, p. 701) attempts to clarify this situation, however, Antonietto et al. (2012, p. 663) compound the confusion by stating that the holotype of Hourcqia angulata salitrensis Krömmelbein and Weber, 1971 is housed in the Senckenberg, which it is not. The confusion may have arisen as a result of a temporary loan of the Krömmelbein and Weber (1971) specimens to Senckenberg.