Also known as I40:f0399

Where: South Island, New Zealand (44.7° S, 170.6° E: paleocoordinates 50.4° S, 176.5° W)

• coordinate estimated from map

When: Otekaike Limestone Formation, Aquitanian (23.0 - 20.4 Ma)

• OU 22744 was exposed by quarry ripping activity near the top of the workable limestone at Hakataramea Quarry (Figure 1). Many fragments were found scat- tered within a few square metres, but some bones were found in place in sparsely glauconitic limestone of the uppermost Otekaike Limestone; it is unclear

•whether the skeleton was articulated or not. The hor- izon is a loosely packed (sometimes dense) shell bed 15 m above the base of the section and within a thin (c. 20–50 cm) laterally extensive horizon with conspic- uous fossil tubeworms, Protula species. Foraminifera from the ‘Protula bed’ include the zonal planktic species Globoturborotalita connecta, which first appears in the upper Waitakian Stage elsewhere in New Zealand sequences (Hornibrook et al. 1989). A Lentipecten (scallop, Pectinidae) shell also from the Protula horizon at Hakataramea Quarry produced a 87Sr/86Sr ratio of 0.708294 (D. A. Teagle, pers. com- mun. to R. E. Fordyce, September 5, 2005), correspond- ing to an age of 22.28 ± 0.13 Ma (McArthur et al. 2012). For the nearby Otaio River reference section of the Canterbury Basin, Morgans et al. (1999, figure 13) indi- cated an age of c. 22.8 Ma for the incoming of G. con- necta. In summary, OU 22744 is from low in the G. connecta zone, upper Waitakian, and thus is lower Aquitanian, earliest Miocene, with a possible date range of 22.28 to 22.8 Ma based on planktonic forami- nifera and strontium isotopes. Incidentally, in com- ments on the age of another cetacean from Hakataramea Quarry, Otekaikea huata, Tanaka and Fordyce (2015) reported Globoturborotalita woodi (a zonal indicator for middle Waitakian) from shelly limestone with abundant invertebrates but rare Pro- tula; that horizon is interpreted here as the base of, or just below, the Protula bed.

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: marine; glauconitic limestone

Size class: macrofossils

Primary reference: R. W. Boessenecker and R. E. Fordyce. 2017. Cosmopolitanism and Miocene survival of Eomysticetidae (Cetacea: Mysticeti) revealed by new fossils from New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics [M. Uhen/M. Uhen]more details

Purpose of describing collection: general faunal/floral analysis

PaleoDB collection 189023: authorized by Mark Uhen, entered by Mark Uhen on 28.09.2017

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)