Fyansford (Mulder collection) (Miocene of Australia)

Where: Victoria, Australia (38.1° S, 144.3° E: paleocoordinates 46.5° S, 142.8° E)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Fyansford Formation, Serravallian (13.8 - 11.6 Ma)

• No stratigraphy details, but presumably from the middle Miocene Fyansford Formation. Chapman included it in the Janjukian, which he considered Miocene and younger than the Balcombian. Carter (1963) recorded Orbulina universa throughout the Fyansford section and thus regarded the whole as belonging to his faunal unit 11, the Bairnsdalian. Faunal unit (10), characterised by Orbulina suturalis and the equivalent of the Balcombian of Singleton, he recorded only from the 30' of clays overlying the Batesford Limestone at Batesford. The macrofaunas of the clays at Batesford and Fyansford do not differ, though, and both are represented at Balcombe Bay, so the author accepts Carter's correlation. The bulk of the regressive portion of the Fyansford Clay, including the whole of the Fyansford section is Bairnsdalian, belonging to faunal unit 11 of Carter.

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: offshore; poorly lithified, silty claystone

• At Fyansford (Orphanage Hill), Fossils are abundant in nearly all of the units. They are extremely well preserved and usually complete or only slightly broken. Many of the shells are concentrated in bands within the sediment, reflecting the presence of current activity. However, the fine grade of the sediment indicates that this was very gentle, and not capable of transporting shells far. Representing depths of 40 to 80 metres.
• Well bedded blue silty clays in units between 2' and 3'6" thick alternating with brown limonitic and more calcareous sandy silty clays. As pointed out by Bowler (1963) the variation in colour is largely due to weathering, since in fresh exposure the silty clays appear black, and the sandier more calcareous beds appear light grey.

Size class: macrofossils

Collected by J.F. Mulder

• Repository: National Museum of Victoria

Primary reference: F. Chapman. 1915. New or little-known Victorian fossils in the National Museum. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria 27:350-361 [M. Clapham/M. Clapham]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 179950: authorized by Matthew Clapham, entered by Matthew Clapham on 04.07.2016

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names
Cephalopoda
 Nautilida - Nautilidae
Nautilus geelongensis
Nautilus geelongensis Foord 1891 nautiloid