Kere River, Espiritu Santo (Pleistocene of Vanuatu)

Where: Vanuatu (15.6° S, 166.9° E: paleocoordinates 15.6° S, 166.9° E)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Ionian (0.8 - 0.1 Ma)

• Old age estimate: 25,280 ± 400 yrs. B.P. The same species of coral from the overlying deposit of Kere 1 gave an age of 133 +/- 5.5 ka. These reliable benchmarks suggest that the Kere sequence was deposited during the warmer Marine Isotope Stages MIS 5

•(Kere 1).

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: offshore; unlithified sandstone and unlithified siltstone

• The ahermatypic coral fauna ... is one typical of sandy or silty bottoms in moderately deep water (200 m).

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: original aragonite

Collection methods: mechanical,

• Material collected by Ladd

Primary reference: J. W. Wells. 1984. Notes on Indo-Pacific Scleractinian Corals. Part 10. Late Pleistocene ahermatypic corals from Vanuatu. Pacific Science 38(3):205-219 [W. Kiessling/W. Kiessling/P. Wagner]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 84453: authorized by Wolfgang Kiessling, entered by Wolfgang Kiessling on 20.10.2008

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Hydrozoa
 Stylasterina -
Distichopora nitida Verrill 1864 lace coral
Anthozoa
 Scleractinia - Fungiacyathidae
Fungiacyathus fragilis Sars 1872 stony coral
Fungiacyathus cf. stephanus Alcock 1893 stony coral
 Scleractinia - Fungiidae
"Diaseris distorta" = Cycloseris distorta
"Diaseris distorta" = Cycloseris distorta Michelin 1842 stony coral
worn
 Scleractinia - Oculinidae
Madrepora porcellana Moseley 1881 stony coral
Several more or less fragmentary pieces of small colonies
 Scleractinia - Caryophylliidae
Caryophyllia scobinosa Alcock 1902 stony coral
Acanthocyathus grayi Milne-Edwards and Haime 1848 stony coral
Heterocyathus aequicostatus Milne-Edwards and Haime 1848 stony coral
 Scleractinia - Flabellidae
"Flabellum paripavoninum" = Truncatoflabellum martensii, "Flabellum vanuatu n. sp." = Truncatoflabellum vanuatu
"Flabellum paripavoninum" = Truncatoflabellum martensii Studer 1878 stony coral
"Flabellum vanuatu n. sp." = Truncatoflabellum vanuatu Wells 1984 stony coral
 Scleractinia - Dendrophylliidae
Dendrophyllia subcornigera Eguchi 1968 stony coral
A number of fragments
Balanophyllia gigas v.d. Horst 1922 stony coral