Haughs Quarry (I40/f0291B) ( of New Zealand)

Where: South Island, New Zealand (44.7° S, 170.6° E: paleocoordinates 50.5° S, 176.1° W)

• coordinate stated in text

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Maerewhenua Member (Otekaike Limestone Formation), Waitakian (25.2 - 21.7 Ma)

• Upper part of the Otekaike Limestone. The horizon is a few cm below the diffusely-bounded Protula-dominated shellbed in the upper Maerewhenua Member. A strontium isotope (87Sr/86Sr) determination from a smooth-shelled scallop Lentipecten hochstetteri, recovered by Fordyce from the top of the Protula shellbed, is 0.708294 (±2SE 0.000013) (D.A. Teagle, personal commun., 2005), equivalent to 22.28 ± 0.13 (22.41 to 22.15) Ma (lookup table of McArthur et al., 2012). Given that Vandenberghe et al. (2012) cited the Chattian-Aquitanian boundary as 23.03 ± 0.1 Ma, the Sr/Sr date puts the upper limit for O. huata in the lowermost Aquitanian, earliest Miocene. Foraminifera in matrix taken from the fossil dolphin braincase include rare small specimens of the planktic foraminiferan Globoturborotalita woodi, indicating the G. woodi woodi planktic foraminiferal zone of Jenkins (1965), in the middle of the New Zealand Waitakian stage. The next younger zonal species, Globoturborotalita connecta, was not found. For the Otiake Trig Z section 18 km to the south southwest, Graham, Morgans et al. (2000) identified the incoming of G. woodi woodi in the range 23.99 to 24.61 Ma, earlier than the Chattian-Aquitanian boundary. Thus, the age from strontium isotope and planktic foraminifera is in the range 22.28 to 24.61 Ma, straddling the Oligocene/Miocene boundary.

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: offshore shelf; massive, glauconitic, shelly/skeletal, green, yellow lime mudstone

• The setting is interpreted as below storm wave base and of mid- to perhaps outer shelf depth, given a grain size of very fine sand and the lack of bedding that might result from persistent traction currents.
• The lithology is a light green-yellow massive bioclastic limestone that is slightly glauconitic, slightly quartzose, slightly muddy, and contains occasional macroinvertebrates.

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: adpression

Collected by R.E. Fordyce, A. Grebneff, B.V.N. Black, O. Sarll in 1996; reposited in the OU

Collection methods: quarrying, mechanical

• Repository: Geology Museum, University of Otago (OU)

Primary reference: Y. Tanaka and R. E. Fordyce. 2015. A new Oligo-Miocene dolphin from New Zealand: Otekaikea huata expands diversity of the early Platanistoidea. Palaeontologia Electronica 18(2.23A):1-71 [M. Uhen/M. Uhen]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 216916: authorized by Matthew Clapham, entered by Matthew Clapham on 30.12.2020

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names
Mammalia
 Cetacea - Waipatiidae
Otekaikea huata n. sp.
Otekaikea huata n. sp. Tanaka and Fordyce 2015 toothed whale