Microfossil Samples from the East Pisco Basin, southern Peru

The East Pisco Basin is one of several forearc basins situated on the coastal plain of Peru between the Andean Cordillera and Peru-Chile Trench. During the Cenozoic, successive marine transgressions across the East Pisco Basin deposited sequences of Paleogene and Neogene age. Biochronologic studies suggest that a hiatus of approximately 12 million years (~32-20 Ma) separates the youngest Paleogene deposits from the oldest Neogene deposits. A newly recognized lower Miocene sequence, provisionally named the Tunga Formation, shortens that hiatus. The following database provides location and description of samples from the East Pisco Basin, checklists of microfossil assemblages, and taxonomic notes for those assemblages.