GS950 - Parson's Creek [Rifle Butts Fm] (Miocene of New Zealand)

Where: New Zealand (45.1° S, 170.9° E: paleocoordinates 49.9° S, 178.4° W)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• local area-level geographic resolution

When: Rifle Butts Formation (Kaierero Group), Altonian (19.0 - 15.9 Ma)

• STRATIGRAPHIC RELATIONS: From the Rifle Butts Fm, which gradationally overlies the Gee Greensand of the Kaierero Group, and is overlain by the Kurow Group. AGE: Hutchisonian-Awamoan in text of Gage (1957); late Altonian = Burdigalian-earliest Langhian; hereby assigned to the Altonian. STRATIGRAPHIC POSITION: Unknown position within the unit.

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: coastal; poorly lithified, glauconitic, shelly/skeletal, gray, green, sandy claystone

• ENVIRONMENT: Shallow marine, siliciclastic. Increasingly rapid accumulation of sediment in deepening water.
• SPECIFIC LITHOLOGY: "Sandy clays"; fine, glauconitic, greenish-grey sandstone containing brachiopods and molluscs grading up to a fine silt or mudstone. Concretionary bands and layers of tabular concretions indicate bedding in otherwise unstratified sediment. Fossils are disseminated through the silt, and also entombed in concretions and concentrated in shell-limestone lenses. LITHIFICATION: Poorly lithified, largely assumed, as no indication is given text of lithification state, except that concretionary layers are contrasted with the background lithology.

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: concretion

Reposited in the IGNS

Collection methods: quarrying,

• COLLECTOR: Collected by Park (1915-1916). REPOSITORY: New Zealand Geological Survey (now GNS Science, Lower Hutt, New Zealand).

Primary reference: M. Gage. 1957. The Geology of the Waitaki Subdivision. New Zealand Geological Survey Bulletin 55 [A. Hendy/A. Hendy]more details

Purpose of describing collection: biostratigraphic analysis

PaleoDB collection 67911: authorized by Austin Hendy, entered by Austin Hendy on 15.12.2006

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

• COVERAGE: Exhaustive for bivalvia, gastropoda, and polyplacophora. IDENTIFIER: Identifications compiled from previously published accounts and reassessments of NZGS collections, by various paleontologists. NOMENCLATURE: Somewhat antiquated but identified by specialist and often to subgeneric and species resolution.
Show authors, comments, and common names
Gastropoda
 Epitonioidea - Epitoniidae
Cirsotrema cf. lyratum
 Sorbeoconcha - Naticidae
Globisinum miocenicum, Tanea socia
Tanea socia moon snail
 Neogastropoda - Pseudomelatomidae
Comitas fusiformis
 Neogastropoda - Volutidae
Spinomelon parki
 Sorbeoconcha - Cassidae
Galeodea apodemetes
Bivalvia
 Pectinida - Limidae
Lima colorata
Lima colorata Hutton 1873 file clam
 Carditida - Carditidae
Venericardia awamoensis
 Cardiida - Veneridae
"Notocallista (Fossacallista) parki" = Fossacallista
"Notocallista (Fossacallista) parki" = Fossacallista venus clam
 Nuculanida - Malletiidae
Neilo awamoana