Spring Creek, near Minhamite (Miocene of Australia)

Where: Victoria, Australia (37.9° S, 142.4° E: paleocoordinates 42.1° S, 141.5° E)

• coordinate estimated from map

When: Goodwood Formation, Messinian (7.2 - 5.3 Ma)

• Cheltenhamian stage. The age of the Goodwood Formation is late Miocene, 6.0–7.5 Ma (Tortonian–Messinian) based on molluscan biostratigraphy of the Spring Creek locality (Beu & Darragh 2001).

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: coastal; poorly lithified, fine-grained, pebbly, gray, green, calcareous sandstone

• No environment information provided, and none given in other sources. Stratigraphic section in Gill (1964) shows three beds: gray fine sand with fewer fossils (13 inches); greenish-gray to fawn marly sand with pebbles and numerous fossils (12 inches), and greenish marly fine sand and fossils (12-15 inches). It is possible that the middle bed is a storm-deposited shellbed, with the other two representing background sedimentation, in which case an offshore transition environment is plausible. That is somewhat speculative, although a shelf setting is highly likely.
• "green-grey marly fine sand with abundant pebbles" according to Park & Fitzgerald (2012).

Size class: macrofossils

Collected by E.D. Gill, H.E. Wilkinson

• Repository: National Museum of Victoria

Primary reference: A. G. Beu. 1973. Nautiloids of the genus Aturia from the uppermost Miocene of Australia and New Zealand. Science Reports of the Tohoku University. Second Series, Geology. Special Volume (Hatai Memorial Volume) 6:297-308 [M. Clapham/M. Clapham]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 50364: authorized by Mark Uhen, entered by Mark Uhen on 13.05.2005

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names
Aves
 Sphenisciformes - Spheniscidae
Pseudaptenodytes macraei
Pseudaptenodytes macraei Simpson 1970 penguin
Mammalia
 Cetacea - Balaenopteridae
Balaenoptera sp.
Balaenoptera sp. Lacépède 1804 rorqual
Cephalopoda
 Nautilida - Aturiidae
Aturia coxi
Aturia coxi Miller 1947 nautiloid