An overview of Late Cretaceous and Early Palaeogene echinoderm faunas from Liege-Limburg (Belgium, The Netherlands)

With the exception of echinoids, echinoderm faunas from the type area of the Maastrichtian Stage still are more or less terra incognita. Material collected recently in the area by a group of professional and amateur palaeontologists comprises numerous new records, which have the added advantage of being well documented stratigraphically. Museum collections, and those pre-dating 1975 in particular, generally suffer from a lack of detail where slratigraphic provenance is concerned. Not only do these new collections considerably increase our knowledge of Late Cretaceous (Campanian-Maastrichtian) and Early Palaeogene (Danian) echinoderm faunas in the area, they also allow conclusions on diversification and extinction patterns prior to and across the K/T boundary to be drawn. In the present paper a brief overview is given of these echinoderm faunas, with emphasis on echinoids and asteroids