LATE CRETACEOUS SILICEOUS SPONGES FROM THE MIDDLE VISTULA RIVER VALLEY (CENTRAL POLAND) AND THEIR PA LAEOE CO LOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE Ewa ŚWIERCZEWSKA-GŁADYSZ Geological Department o f the Łódź University, Narutowicza 88, 90-139 Łódź, Poland; e-mail:
[email protected] Świerczewska-Gładysz, E., 2006. Late Cretaceous siliceous sponges from the Middle Vistula River Valley (Central Poland) and their palaeoecological significance. Annales Societatis Geologorum Poloniae, 76: 227-296. Abstract: Siliceous sponges are extremely abundant in the Upper Campanian-Maastrichtian opokas and marls of the Middle Vis-ula River VaUey, situated in the western edge of the Lublin Basin, part of the Cre-aceous German-Polish Basin. This is also the only one area in Poland where strata bearing the Late Maastrichtian sponges are exposed. The presented paper is a taxonomic revision of sponges coUected from this region. Based both on existing and newly collected material comprising ca. 1750 specimens, 51 species have been described, including 18 belonging to the Hexactinosida, 15 - to the Lychniscosida and 18 - to Demospongiae. Among them, 28 have not been so far described from Poland. One new genus Varioporospongia, assigned to the family Ventriculitidae Smith and two new species Varioporospongia dariae sp. n. and Aphrocallistes calciformis sp. n. have been described. Comparison of sponge fauna from the area of Podilia, Crimea, Chernihov, and Donbas regions, as well as literature data point to the occurrence of species common in the analysed area and to the basins of Eastern and Western Europe. This in turn indicates good connections between particular basins of the European epicontinental sea dumg the Campanian-Maastrichtian.