Gosford Quarry (BMNH coll) (Triassic to of Australia)

Also known as Railway Ballast Quarry

Where: New South Wales, Australia (33.4° S, 151.3° E: paleocoordinates 64.3° S, 137.2° E)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

When: Terrigal Formation (Narrabeen Group), Spathian to Spathian (251.3 - 242.0 Ma)

• a bed "5 ft 3 in thick". Upper part of the Terrigal Formation (formerly Gosford Formation), which is the uppermost unit of the Narrabeen Group. The Narrabeen Group extends from Late Permian–early Anisian, suggesting a late Spathian to early Anisian age for this locality (Warren & Marsicano 1998).

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: lacustrine; lithified, gray, muddy, sandy shale

• "some land-locked lake or sheltered estuary"
• "at the top of a group of flaggy hard sandstones, alternating with purplish grey shales with occasional bands of clay ironstone"; the sandstones are "strongly ripple-marked" and the bed itself consists of "Sandy shale and laminated mudstone, purplish grey" that is "immediately" overlain by "a lenticular band of coarse pebbles" interpreted as a flood deposit, later described as "a layer of dark grey shale"; "numerous plant remains" are variably said to be from the "intercalated shaly beds" or "the fine muds," suggesting that these are alternating laminations in the same bed

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: mold/impression, adpression

Collected by M. Blunt, A. Lambert; reposited in the BMNH

Collection methods: salvage, quarrying,

• discovered by "Mr. Blunt, Railway Contractor, when opening a quarry for railway balast"; some material was collected by A. Lambert and most by "the Geological Survey Collector"

•Specimens also in Australian Musuem and Geological and Mining Museum of the New South Wales Geological Survey

Primary reference: A. S. Woodward. 1890. The fossil fishes of the Hawkesbury Series at Gosford. Memoirs of the Geological Survey of New South Wales. Palaeontology 4:1-57 [M. Carrano/M. Carrano]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 131926: authorized by Matthew Clapham, entered by Priscilla Vazquez on 02.08.2012, edited by John Alroy and Richard Butler

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Chondrichthyes
  - Cestraciontidae
Cestraciontidae indet. Bonaparte 1838 bullhead shark
Osteichthyes
 Saurichthyiformes - Saurichthyidae
Belonorhynchus gigas n. sp., "Belonorhynchus gracilis n. sp." = Saurichthys gracilis
Belonorhynchus gigas n. sp. Woodward 1890 ray-finned fish
"Belonorhynchus gracilis n. sp." = Saurichthys gracilis Woodward 1890 ray-finned fish
 Dipnoi -
Gosfordia truncata n. gen. n. sp.
Gosfordia truncata n. gen. n. sp. Woodward 1890 lungfish
Amphibia
 Temnospondyli -
Parotosaurus wadei n. sp.1 Cosgriff 1972 tetrapod
AM MF.165, mould of skull roof (holotype)
 Temnospondyli - Brachyopidae
"Platyceps wilkinsoni n. gen. n. sp." = Platycepsion wilkinsoni2
"Platyceps wilkinsoni n. gen. n. sp." = Platycepsion wilkinsoni2 Stephens 1887 tetrapod
NSWGS 12572, skull and partial postcranium (holotype)
Actinopteri
 Semionotiformes - Semionotidae
Pristisomus crassus n. sp. Woodward 1890
Pristisomus gracilis n. gen. n. sp. Woodward 1890
Pristisomus latus n. sp. Woodward 1890
Semionotus tenuis n. sp. Woodward 1890
Semionotus australis n. sp. Woodward 1890
 Perleidiformes - Cleithrolepidae
Cleithrolepis granulatus Egerton 1864
BMNH P.6280-81 (by exchange, 1890)
? Cleithrolepis altus n. sp. Woodward 1890
 Pholidophoriformes - Pholidophoridae
Pholidophorus gregarius n. sp. Woodward 1890
 Peltopleuriformes - Peltopleuridae
? Peltopleurus dubius n. sp. Woodward 1890
BMNH P.6278, 6274 (by exchange, 1890)
Osteichthyes
 Palaeonisciformes - Redfieldiidae
Dictyopyge robusta n. sp. Woodward 1890
Dictyopyge symmetrica n. sp. Woodward 1890
Dictyopyge illustrans n. sp. Woodward 1890
 Palaeonisciformes - Palaeoniscidae
Myriolepis clarkei Egerton 1864
Myriolepis latus n. sp. Woodward 1890
Apateolepis australis n. gen. n. sp. Woodward 1890