Carapook, near Casterton (Cretaceous of Australia)

Also known as Chelycarapookus arcuatus type locality

Where: Victoria, Australia (37.6° S, 141.5° E: paleocoordinates 76.2° S, 97.0° E)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Merino Group, Early/Lower Cretaceous (145.0 - 100.5 Ma)

• Orig. assigned to Pleistocene. From an ironstone bed, three feet from the surface... in this region, the Merino Group is a series of gently dipping arkosic sandstones of Lower Cretaceous age

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: fluvial; ferruginous, quartzose sandstone

• "...in this region, the Merino Group is a seris of gently dipping arkosic sandwtones of Lower Cretaceous age... the interfluves are commonly tablelands capped by a thin layer of lateric ironstone and the fossil, which is preserved as an ironstone cast with little bone remaining, almost certainly came from this ironstone horizon"

•

•"Kenly (op. cit.) has shown that the ferruginous capping layer is not a stratigraphic rock unit but most likely represents an old erosional surface and is, therefore, found in rocks of different age. In some areas the laterites are fossil soils... however, in the Parish of Carapook no Tertiary sediments have been recorded, although the W. portion of the Parish has been mapped in detail, and in at least one locality the ironstone horizon is seen to transgress the bedding in the Merino Group (P. R. Kenley, pers. comm.) and is, therefore, an alteration of that Group and of Lower Cretaceous age..."

•

•"in thin-section the matrix of the specimen is similar in its constituents and grain size to rock of the ironstone horizon, which is predominantly limonite with about 20 per cent quartyz grains (Kenley, pers. comm.)

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: cast

Collected by J. S. Macpherson

Collection methods: quarrying, surface (in situ),

• NMV, National Museum of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia

Primary reference: F. Chapman. 1919. New or little-known Victorian fossils in the National Museum. Part XXIV.—On a fossil tortoise in ironstone from Carapook, near Casterton. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria (New Series) 21(1):11-13 [M. Carrano/M. Carrano/M. Carrano]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 127655: authorized by Roger Benson, entered by Roger Benson on 21.05.2012, edited by Matthew Carrano

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names
Reptilia
 Testudinata -
Chelycarapookus arcuatus n. gen. n. sp.
Chelycarapookus arcuatus n. gen. n. sp. Warren 1969 turtle
NMV P13160 (cast of shell); "referred, with some reservation"