Waitemata Brewery Dam - Otahuhu (Otahuhu Formation) (Pliocene of New Zealand)

Also known as GS 3612

Where: Auckland, New Zealand (36.9° S, 174.8° E: paleocoordinates 39.1° S, 175.4° E)

• coordinate stated in text

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Otahuhu Formation, Early/Lower Pliocene (5.3 - 3.6 Ma)

• Possibly correlated with Kaawa Formation (regional early Pliocene strata). Shellbed 84-98 ft below surface. Opoitian-Waipipian age. About 6 ft of soft, sandy mudstone appears at the base of this cut and this merges up - there is no sharp contact - into Pleistocene, puggy, carbonaceous clays and pumic clays. The Pliocene-Pleistocene contact is about 30 ft above high-water mark and about 20 ft below ground level.

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: coastal; poorly lithified, sandy mudstone

• Shallow water, inner shelf siliciclastic facies, possibly with estuarine influence.
• Soft, sandy mudstone.

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: cast

Collection methods: quarrying,

• Collected by Firth. Collections most likely reposited at GNS (NZ Geol. Surv.), Lower Hutt.

Primary reference: J. Marwick. 1948. Lower Pliocene Mollusca from Otahuhu, Auckland. New Zealand Geological Survey Paleontological Bulletin 16 [A. Miller/A. Hendy/A. Hendy]more details

Purpose of describing collection: biostratigraphic analysis

PaleoDB collection 45257: authorized by Austin Hendy, entered by Austin Hendy on 15.10.2004

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

• Taxonomy vetted by A. Hendy (10/2004).
Gastropoda
 Cerithioidea - Potamididae
Zeacumantus sp. Finlay 1926 horn snail
 Neogastropoda - Buccinidae
Cominella sp. Gray 1850 true whelk
Bivalvia
 Cardiida - Veneridae
"Dosinula sp." = Dosina Gray 1835 venus clam
 Cardiida - Mactridae
Mactra (Mactrula) sp. Linnaeus 1767 clam
 Cardiida - Tellinidae