Roca Negra (Miocene of Peru)

Where: Peru (14.7° S, 75.6° W: paleocoordinates 15.6° S, 71.5° W)

When: Chilcatay Formation, Burdigalian (20.4 - 16.0 Ma)

• The holotype of Inticetus vertizi MUSM 1980 was discovered in layers of the Chilcatay Formation, the latter being dated based on diatoms, foraminifers and molluscs from the latest Oligocene–earliest Middle Miocene (Machar e et al. 1988; Dunbar et al. 1990; DeVries 1998, 2001). The stratigraphical section of the Roca Negra outcrop is dominated by fine and medium sandstones with minor amounts of silt and two 0.2 m-thick volcanic ash layers (Fig. 2). By combining data from silicoflagellates (Naviculopsis ponticula zone of Bukry 1981) found in a sample located about 5.5 m above MUSM 1980, diatoms from beds containing N. ponticula spinosa in another section of the Chilcatay Formation in the Pisco Basin (Pampa Chilcatay; Machar e et al. 1998), and the 40Ar/39Ar dating of an ash layer just below the erosional contact of the Chilcatay Formation with the Pisco Formation (Di Celma et al. 2017), a time interval between 18.8 and 18.0 Ma can be provided, corresponding to the late early Burdigalian (late Early Miocene).

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: marine; fine-grained, medium, silty sandstone

• fine and medium sandstones with minor amounts of silt and two 0.2 m-thick volcanic ash layers

Size class: macrofossils

Primary reference: O. Lambert, C. de Muizon, E. Malinverno, C. Di Celma, M. Urbina and G. Bianucci. 2017. A new odontocete (toothed cetacean) from the Early Miocene of Peru expands the morphological disparity of extinct heterodont dolphins. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology [M. Uhen/M. Uhen]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 188749: authorized by Mark Uhen, entered by Mark Uhen on 15.09.2017

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Mammalia
 Cetacea - Inticetidae
Inticetus vertizi n. gen. n. sp.
Inticetus vertizi n. gen. n. sp. Lambert et al. 2017 toothed whale
MUSM 1980