Zanda (ZD0740) (Pliocene of China)

Where: Tibet, China (31.6° N, 79.8° E: paleocoordinates 29.9° N, 80.3° E)

• coordinate stated in text

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Zanda Formation, MN 15 (4.2 - 3.2 Ma)

• near "the top of chron C2Ar with an estimated age of 3.7" Ma "in the middle Pliocene" (meaning MN 15)

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: "floodplain"; sandy siltstone and claystone

• the lower 200 m of the section consists of "Interbedded fine-grained sand and silt horizons showing extensive soft-sediment deformation and containing abundant mammal, gastropod and plant macrofossils are interpreted as marshy bog or overbank deposits within a low-gradient fluvial setting" and the middle 250 m of "an upward coarsening succession of lacustrine progradational parasequences" with "profundal lacustrine claystones and deltaic and wave-worked sediments, including evidence of occasional desiccation"; I assume most fossils are from the overbank facies

Size class: macrofossils

Reposited in the IVPP

Primary reference: T. Deng, X. Wang, M. Fortelius, Q. Li, Y. Wang, Z. J. Tseng, G. T. Takeuchi, J. E. Saylor, L. K. Säilä and G. Xie. 2011. Out of Tibet: Pliocene woolly rhino suggests high-plateau origin of Ice Age megaherbivores. Science 333:1285-1288 [J. Alroy/J. Alroy/J. Alroy]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 115617: authorized by John Alroy, entered by John Alroy on 02.09.2011

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names
Mammalia
 Perissodactyla - Rhinocerotidae
Coelodonta thibetana n. sp.
Coelodonta thibetana n. sp. Deng et al. 2011 wooly rhino