ABSTRACT: Core-samples from wells and an out crop located on the Voronesh Anticline in the southeastern part of the Russian Platform comain Late Cretaceous radiolaria. 83 species are described and illustrated (SEM and transmitted light images) from Santonian-early Campanian deposits, and two assemblages are distinguished. The older assemblage with Alievium galloway, Archaeospongoprunum bipartitum, Archaeospongoprunum cf. A. salumi as well as other less age-diagnostic taxa, is interpreted as Santonian correlative with the Euchitonia santonica-Alievium galloway Assemblage Zone of the Moscow Basin (Vishnevskaya 1993). The younger assemblage, of Santonian - early Campanian age, contains Patulibracchium cf. P. davisi, Crucella irwini, Cryptamphorella sphaerica, Praeconocaryomma californiensis, Dictyomitra lamellicostata among other species and is correlative with the Orbiculiforma quadrata-Lithostrobus rostovsteti Assemblage Zone of the Moscow Basin. ln terms of inter-regional faunal comparisons, both of the Voronesh Anticline radiolarian assemblages demonstrate relatively close affinities to coeval rocks from the Volga River region, but less similarity 10 the assemblages from the Moscow Basin. Only a few of the common endemic species of Siberian assemblages occur in our samples. On an inter-regional level the radiolarian assemblages described herein have similarities with assemblages reported from Japan and California. Index-species characteristic for the Santonian-Campanian radiolarian biozonations of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are not found in our collection. However, the presence of many cosmopolitan species known from the European Platform, Japan and California suggests a marine connection between the Voronesh Anticline region. the western Atlantic and eastern Tethys during Santonian-Early Campanian time.

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