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Science 7 April 1972:
Vol. 176. no. 4030, pp. 43 - 45
DOI: 10.1126/science.176.4030.43
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Articles

Ratite Eggshells from Lanzarote, Canary Islands

E. G. Franz Sauer 1 and Peter Rothe 2

1 Zoologisches Forschungs Institut, and Museum Alexander Koenig, and Universität Bonn, 53 Bonn 1, Germany
2 Laboratorium für Sedimentforschung, Universität Heidelberg, 69 Heidelberg 1, Germany

Struthious and aepyornithoid eggshells from Tertiary calcareous sediments on Lanzarote prove the presence, until about 12 million years ago, of large flightless birds. The calcarenite horizon is recognized as an old land surface. Mesozoic sedimentary rocks in the basement of the volcanic islands of Lanzarote and neighboring Fuerteventura indicate that at least part of the Canary Archipelago is underlain by continental crust. Separation of the eastern Canaries from Africa raight have been by rifting, and a land connection might still have existed in the lower Pliocene.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Late Mesozoic sedimentary rocks of Fuerteventura, Canary Islands: Implications for West African continental margin evolution.
A. H. F. Robertson and C. J. Stillman (1979)
Journal of the Geological Society 136, 47-60
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)