Old Frazier Borax Mine (Miocene of the United States)

Where: California (34.8° N, 119.1° W: paleocoordinates 33.8° N, 113.6° W)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: 4 Member (Plush Ranch Formation), Early/Lower Miocene (23.0 - 16.0 Ma)

• Possibly upper Oligocene

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: lacustrine - large; lithified, nodular, calcareous shale

• Extensional basin referred as the Plush Ranch basin, with an asymmetric basin shape that is consistent with a half-graben origin. Each of the basin-margin depositional systems grades basinward and to the east into lacustrine deposits that include organic-rich dark shale, evaporite, and limestone. The lacustrine deposits represent the central and eastern parts of the Plush Ranch basin, which received little coarse siliciclastic sediment. Chironomid flies, disarticulated fish, and coprolites indicate a more or less peramanent lake.
• Gray nodule of calcium carbonate in calcareous shale

Size class: macrofossils

Collected by T.G. McCulloh in 1954; reposited in the USNM

Primary reference: T. E. Snyder. 1955. A new fossil termite, Parastylotermes frazieri, from California (Isoptera, Rhinotermitidae). Proceedings of The Entomological Society of Washington 57:79-80 [M. Clapham/M. Clapham]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 152010: authorized by Matthew Clapham, entered by Matthew Clapham on 02.11.2013

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names
Insecta
 Blattodea - Stylotermitidae
Parastylotermes frazieri n. sp.
Parastylotermes frazieri n. sp. Snyder 1955 termite
USNM 62383