White Cliffs (NSW) (Cretaceous of Australia)

Where: New South Wales, Australia (30.9° S, 143.1° E: paleocoordinates 69.8° S, 116.9° E)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Doncaster Member (Wallumbilla Formation), Aptian (125.0 - 113.0 Ma)

• Originally listed as the Coreena Formation. "The Doncaster Member of the Wallumbilla Formation is generally regarded as Early AptianeEarly Albian in age on the basis of palynological (Helby et al., 1987; Burger, 1988) and macroinvertebrate (Day, 1969) data. However, in the White Cliffs area, the unit is represented by rocks of predominantly Aptian age (see Burton and Mason, 1998). This broad age range is applied to all marine reptile fossils from the White Cliffs deposits and corresponds to the Cyclosporites hughesiie - lowermost Crybelosporites striatus spore-pollen zones, and Odontochitina operculatae-Diconodinium davidii dinoflagellate zones of Helby et al. (1987)."

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: coastal; siltstone

• "a predominantly near-shore-coastal shallow marine (possibly with anoxic bottom conditions) sequence"
• "The opal-bearing deposits of White Cliffs are typically characterised by weathering-bleached siltstones and claystones." (Kear, 2005)

Size classes: macrofossils, mesofossils

Preservation: replaced with silica

Collected by Etheridge in the 1890s

Primary reference: R. Etheridge Jr. 1897. An Australian sauropterygian (Cimoliosaurus), converted into precious opal. Records of the Australian Museum 3(1):19-29 [M. Carrano/H. Street/H. Street]more details

Purpose of describing collection: general faunal/floral analysis

PaleoDB collection 60762: authorized by Matthew Carrano, entered by Matthew Carrano on 22.05.2006, edited by Hallie Street and Jonathan Tennant

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Reptilia
 Ichthyosauria - Ophthalmosauridae
Platypterygius sp.1 von Huene 1922 ichthyosaur
vertebral centra
 Theropoda -
Theropoda indet.3 theropod
phalanx
 Plesiosauria -
Plesiosauria indet.2 de Blainville 1835 plesiosaur
propodials
 Plesiosauria - Polycotylidae
Cimoliasaurus leucoscopelus Etheridge 1897 plesiosaur
cervical vertebrae, humeri, teeth, rib fragments, phalanges
 Plesiosauria - Elasmosauridae
Cimoliasaurus maccoyi n. sp.1 Etheridge 1904 elasmosaur
vertebral centra, humerus
 Plesiosauria - Pliosauridae
Kronosaurus sp.2 Longman 1924 plesiosaur
teeth: AM L508, AM L1894