Spook's Field, Coocoran Opal Field (Cretaceous of Australia)

Where: New South Wales, Australia (29.4° S, 147.8° E: paleocoordinates 59.3° S, 140.4° E)

• coordinate estimated from map

• local area-level geographic resolution

When: Coptospora paradoxa pollen zone, Wallangulla Sandstone Member (Griman Creek Formation), Early/Lower Cenomanian (99.6 - 93.5 Ma)

• "Finch clay facies" within the Wallangulla Sandstone Member of the Griman Creek Formation (Holmes and Senior 1976; Watkins 1984). The ‘‘Finch clay facies’’ or "opal dirt" is considered to be either early to middle Albian (Coptospora paradoxa spore-pollen Zone; Burger 1980), or middle Albian in age (Dettmann et al. 1992)

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: estuary or bay; mudstone

• Invertebrate fossils, vertebrate taphonomy and sedimentary evidence has been used to infer a freshwater deltaic to estuarine depositional setting, and plant/isotopic data indicates a seasonal, cool temperate climate (Dettmann et al. 1992).
• volcanogenic clays (60–65% silica-rich kaolinite, ~20% smectite with low alumina content, and 5% illite: Watkins 1984) that occur in discontinuous lenses up to 5 meters thick

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: cast, replaced with silica

Collected by Ormie Molyneux in the 1990s

Collection methods: quarrying,

• Discovered by opal miner Ormie Molyneux in the mid-1990s

•Cast in LRF collection, Australian Opal Centre, Lightning Ridge

Primary reference: E. T. Smith and B. P. Kear. 2013. Spoochelys ormondea gen. et sp. nov., an Archaic Meiolaniid-Like Turtle from the Early Cretaceous of Lightning Ridge, Australia. In D. B. Brinkman, P. A. Holroyd, J. D. Gardner (eds.), Morphology and Evolution of Turtles 121-146 [R. Benson/R. Benson/P. Holroyd]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 133650: authorized by Roger Benson, entered by Roger Benson on 20.09.2012

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names
Reptilia
 Testudinata -
Spoochelys ormondea
Spoochelys ormondea Smith and Kear 2013 turtle
LRF-TH450 cast of referred skull