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. 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; poorly lithified, massive, glauconitic, shelly/skeletal, green, yellow lime mudstone

Size class: macrofossils

Collected by M.K. Eagle

• Repository: Auckland University

Primary reference: M. K. Eagle. 2007. New fossil crinoids (Articulata: Comatulida) from the Late Oligocene of the Pentland Hills and Hurstlea, South Canterbury, New Zealand. Records of the Auckland Museum 44:85-110 [M. Uhen/M. Uhen]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 216919: authorized by Matthew Clapham, entered by Matthew Clapham on 30.12.2020

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)