Panoche Hills 5, UCMP V3735 (Cretaceous of the United States)

Also known as Sun Ray Gypsum mine, 2475 feet S. 68 degrees of the mine buildings, 22 miles west of Mendota

Where: Fresno County, California (36.7° N, 120.7° W: paleocoordinates 42.8° N, 96.2° W)

• coordinate stated in text

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Bulimina obtusa foram zone, Tierra Loma Shale Member (Moreno Formation), Maastrichtian (72.1 - 66.0 Ma)

• "about 520 feet above the contact with the Panoche sandstone."

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: marine; fine-grained, gray, blue shale

• "Clean, uniformly fine, blue-gray shale"; "which here is a brownish gray blocky shale that dries into angular fragments and dust. The fresh shale is velvety black, usually wet, and dries to a light chocolate color.... Many sandstone dikes cut the Moreno, usually perpendicular to the bedding planes, but sometimes parallel to them."

Size class: macrofossils

Collected by S. P. Welles, Tucker, Pavia in 1937

Collection methods: quarrying

Primary reference: S. P. Welles. 1943. Elasmosaurid plesiosaurs with description of new material from California and Colorado. Memoirs of the University of California 13:125-254 [R. Benson/R. Benson]more details

Purpose of describing collection: general faunal/floral analysis

PaleoDB collection 108392: authorized by Matthew Carrano, entered by Hallie Street on 29.04.2011, edited by Roger Benson

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Foraminifera
 Buliminoidea - Buliminidae
Bulimina obtusa2
~99% of foraminifera sampled belong to B. obtusa
Nodosariata
 Nodosariida - Nodosariidae
 Polymorphinida - Ellipsoidinidae
Nodosarella sp.2 Rzehak 1895
Globothalamea
 Rotaliida - Gavelinellidae
 Rotaliida - Anomalinidae
Foraminifera
  -
"Marginulina elongata" = Cristellaria (Marginulina)2
"Marginulina elongata" = Cristellaria (Marginulina)2
Chondrichthyes
 Hexanchiformes - Hexanchidae
Heptranchias sp.1 Rafinesque 1810 sevengill shark
UCMP 57551-2
Reptilia
 Squamata - Mosasauridae
Mosasauridae indet.2 Gervais 1852 mosasaur
caudal vertebrae
 Plesiosauria - Elasmosauridae
Hydrotherosaurus alexandrae n. gen. n. sp.2 Welles 1943 elasmosaur
UCMP 33912
Actinopteri
 Aulopiformes - Enchodontidae
Enchodus sp.1 Agassiz 1835
UCMP 33914