Where: Tasmania, Australia (43.5° S, 146.1° E: paleocoordinates 43.5° S, 146.1° E)

• coordinate estimated from map

When: Late/Upper Pleistocene (0.1 - 0.0 Ma)

• Coniferous wood form the lens containing leaves has been 14C dated at 38800 +- 1300 B.P (S.U.A 5038). Part of a fossil Banksia infructescence has been dated at 34000 +- 500 B.P (S.U.A. 2947). Colhoun (1986) showed that older 14C dates from western Tasmania can significantly underestimate the age of the deposits due to contamination by younger organic material present in soil water. 14C ages should therefore be treated as minimum ages. Palynological evidence from the lens that contained the leaves is consistent with an interstadial climate possibly from the last glaciation (M.K. Macphail pers. comm.). The Melaleuca Inlet deposit is therefore at least 34000 years old and probably from an interstadial period of the last or second last glaciation. (Jordan et al.1991)

Environment/lithology: terrestrial; lithology not reported

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: adpression

Primary reference: G. J. Jordan. 1995. Early Middle Pleistocene leaves of extinct and extant Proteaceae from western Tasmania, Australia. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 118:19-35 [C. Jaramillo/A. Cardenas /C. Jaramillo]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 167029: authorized by Carlos Jaramillo, entered by Carlos Jaramillo on 06.03.2015

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)