Paleobiogeographic distribution of Rudist bivalves (Hippuritida) in the Oxfordian-early Aptian (Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous)

In the Late Jurassic and Cretaceous the warm shallow water seas were marked, within benthic marine organisms, by rudist bivalves, a peculiar group of mollusks that originated in the Late Jurassic and became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous. In this paper their global distribution in neritic carbonates is considered since their first appearance in the middle Oxfordian up to the first main extinction event at the end of the early Aptian. The information and data regarding global rudist occurrences throughout neo-Tethys and paleo-Pacific oceans are critically reprised from literature and organized in an Oxfordian-early Aptian Rudist database (OXAP_RDB) that encompasses 235 rudist-bearing localities all across the world, with 845 total rudist occurrences, 34 valid genera and 148 species. Actual rudist geographic distribution is investigated in order to contribute to the identification of the paleobiogeographic pattern of these benthic organisms in the paleoclimatic and paleogeographic setting of neo-Tethys and paleo-Pacific oceans, allowing to reconstruct dispersal patterns and to define four broad paleobiogeographic Provinces in the Barremian–early Aptian.