Where: Tanzania (4.8° S, 34.3° E: paleocoordinates 12.6° S, 27.0° E)

• coordinate stated in text

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Lutetian (47.8 - 41.3 Ma)

• Harrison et al. (2001) report a middle Eocene (Lutetian) 206Pb/238U age of 45.83 ± 0.17 Ma from a single zircon crystal which was recovered from the stream bed at Mahenge in 1996. There are several arguments linking the respective crystal to the Mahenge diatreme. Recent catchment area of the stream crossing the Mahenge diatreme is small (7.2 km2). It covers Archaean metamorphics and plutonics and no other known diatreme. The catchment area can be expected not to have varied much since formation of the peneplain in the Cretaceous. Therefore, the crystal with a middle Eocene age found in the stream bed at Mahenge can most probably be related to the Mahenge eruptive event and could be only slightly older than the lake at Mahenge.

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: crater lake; lithified siltstone

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: mold/impression

Collection methods: Repository: Ditsong National Museum of Natural History (TMSA)

Primary reference: T. M. Kaiser, J. Ansorge, G. Arratia, V. Bullwinkel, G. F. Gunnell, P. S. Herendeen, B. Jacobs, J. Mingram, C. Msuya, A. Musolff, R. Naumann, E. Schulz, and V. Wilde. 2006. The maar lake of Mahenge (Tanzania) – unique evidence of Eocene terrestrial environments in sub-Sahara Africa. Zeitschrift der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Geowissenschaften 157:411-431 [M. Clapham/M. Clapham]more details

Purpose of describing collection: general faunal/floral analysis

PaleoDB collection 206377: authorized by Matthew Clapham, entered by Matthew Clapham on 13.11.2019

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)