Controlled excavations in the Romualdo Member of the Santana Formation (Early Cretaceous, Araripe Basin, northeastern Brazil): stratigraphic, palaeoenvironmental and palaeoecological implications

The factors responsible for the variations in faunal composition and abundance patterns across the Araripe Basin remain largely unknown, and we hypothesize that climate and/or palaeogeography might be the major forcing agents. Only fine-scale stratigraphic and palaeontological investigations have the potential to solve this issue. In turn, this work marks the first step of an expanded research program that aims at explaining the spatio-temporal relationships between palaeocommunities and their palaeoenvironment in the Araripe Basin during Aptian/Albian times.