Branxton west railway cutting (Permian of Australia)

Where: New South Wales, Australia (32.7° S, 151.3° E: paleocoordinates 67.6° S, 161.3° E)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Fenestella Shale Member (Branxton Formation), Roadian (272.3 - 268.8 Ma)

• Brachiopods in the formation suggest the Echinalosia davidi brachiopod zone, equivalent to the middle part of APP3.3 palynomorph zone. Laurie et al. (2016) dated zircons from the Rowan Formation in the Sydney Basin (in the underlying upper Echinalosia preovalis zone, or upper APP3.2) as 271.60 and 271.89 Ma, constraining its upper part to Roadian, given a Roadian-Wordian boundary around 266.9 Ma (Wu et al., 2020). Strata in Western Australia assigned to APP4.1 yielded U-Pb ages of 269.25 Ma or younger, constraining the upper boundary of APP3.3 to the late Roadian (Laurie et al. 2016). As a result, APP3.3 appears to fall entirely within the Roadian. As a result, the E. davidi zone is most likely Roadian.

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: offshore; lithified shale

Size class: macrofossils

Primary reference: J. M. Crockford. 1941. Permian Bryozoa of eastern Australia, part I: a description of some previously-named species of Fenestrellinidae (Fenestellidae). Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales 74:397-418 [M. Clapham/M. Clapham/M. Clapham]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 90389: authorized by Matthew Clapham, entered by Matthew Clapham on 18.07.2009

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Stenolaemata
 Trepostomida - Stenoporidae
Stenopora rugosa n. sp.2 Crockford 1945
 Cryptostomata - Fenestellidae
"Fenestrellina altacarinata" = Levifenestella altacarinata1, "Fenestrellina granulifera n. sp." = Rectifenestella granulifera1
"Fenestrellina altacarinata" = Levifenestella altacarinata1 Crockford 1941
"Fenestrellina granulifera n. sp." = Rectifenestella granulifera1 Crockford 1941
 Cryptostomata - Septoporidae
"Polypora magnafenestrata n. sp." = Shulgapora magnafenestrata1, "Polypora linea" = Shulgapora linea1
"Polypora magnafenestrata n. sp." = Shulgapora magnafenestrata1 Crockford 1941
"Polypora linea" = Shulgapora linea1 Crockford 1941
 Cryptostomata - Acanthocladiidae
Polypora montuosa n. sp. Laseron 1918
Polypora virga n. sp. Laseron 1918