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InterdistributarydriftersaMiocenebayinNewZealandMikePole

MikePole

March 21, 2016 / comment 0 / Edit

InterdistributarydriftersaMiocenebayinNewZealand
One of the more evocative Miocene fossils you might pick up near Bannockburn, New Zealand, are
she-oak cones (see the featured image). The Latin name isCasuarina(but see Technical Details,
below).This is a plant that no-longer grows naturally in New Zealand, but is a tree in much of
Australia. Its cones, and sometimes its brush-like foliage, are one of the more common fossils in a
unit of shale. The shaleis a sedimentary rock that was deposited around 16-20 million years ago
(Mildenhall, 1989; Mildenhall and Pocknall, 1989). Its beds are dipping towards the road, but when it
was forming, theywould have been lying at, and under water.

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The shale.

There are quite a range of fossils in this shale mostly leaves. Some of the more common are beeches
(Nothofagus), a kind of hoop pine (Araucaria), perhaps some fragments of palm fronds, and even pea
pods. Many of these fossil leaves await to be named.

Miocene beech (Nothofagus) leaf fossil

Geologist Barry Douglas recognised this shale as having formed in an interdistributary bay. This is a
term used for the quiet parts of a river delta (think of the Mississippi), in between the mouths of the
narrow channels and their levees. Deltas are where rivers enter a standing body of water, and their
channels split. Often the only areas above water are the narrow levees on either side of the channels.
Flanking these was probably marsh, with little-more than extensive growth of reeds.These leaves
and fruits were more likely from trees on the higher ground growing on the levees. They would have
blown into the channels, washed down them, drifted around to the bay, then settled into the mud on
its bottom.

Schematic diagram illustrating the kind of

interdistributary bay that would have existed at
Bannockburn in the Miocene.
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The bay had its own life. New Zealands rst ever cray sh fossil comes from here. There are also the
shells of fresh water mussels, and quite frequently sh-bones.

Miocene sh vertebrae fossils

A Miocene freshwater mussel fossil

Miocene cray sh fossil

Collect enough of the leaves and you can work out their average length and this cantell
yousomething about the climate that they grew in. Go to a forest in the Catlins today, and the
average length of the leaves on the forest oor will be around 50 mm. In the shale at Bannockburn,
its closer to 60 mm. The average temperature was most likely adegree or two warmer than in forests
at this latitude today. It may even have been four or ve degrees higheror more.

Technical Stuff.
The shale is part of the Manuherikia Group. See Douglas (1986) below for an original description.
She-oaks all used to be called Casuarina, but a name-split means these ones are more likely Allocasuarina, or perhaps
even Gymnostoma.

References
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A link will take you to where you can download a pdf.

Douglas, B. J. 1986. Lignite resources of Central Otago. New Zealand Energy Research and
Development Committee Publication P104: Volume one, Volume 1.
Douglas, B. J. 1986. Lignite resources of Central Otago. New Zealand Energy Research and
Development Committee Publication P104: Volume one, Volume 2.
Feldmann, R., Pole, M.S., 1994. A new species of Paranephrops White, 1842: a fossil freshwater
cray sh (Decapoda: Parastaciadae) from the Manuherikia Group (Miocene), Central Otago, New
Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics 37, 163-167.
McGlone, M.S., Mildenhall, D.C., Pole, M.S., 1996. The History and Paleoecology of New Zealand
Nothofagus forests., in: Veblen, T.T., Hill, R.S., Read, J. (Eds.), Nothofagus: Ecology and Evolution. Yale
University Press, Yale.
Mildenhall, D.C., 1989. Summary of the age and paleoecology of the Miocene Manuherikia Group,
Central Otago, New Zealand. . Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 19, 1929.
Mildenhall, D.C., Pocknall, D.T., 1989. MiocenePleistocene spores and pollen from Central Otago,
South Island, New Zealand. New Zealand Geological Survey Palaeontological Bulletin 59, 1128.
Pole, M.S., 1993. Early Miocene ora of the Manuherikia Group, New Zealand. 8. Nothofagus. Journal
of the Royal Society of New Zealand 23, 329-344.
Pole, M. S. 1993: Early Miocene ora of the Manuherikia Group, New Zealand. 10. Paleoecology and
stratigraphy. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 23: 393-426.
Pole, M., 2014. The Miocene climate in New Zealand: Estimates from paleobotanical data.
Palaeontologia Electronica 17, 1-79, palaeo-electronica.org/content/2014/2780-miocene-climateof-new-zealand.

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Filed under: New Zealand paleobotany, New Zealand plant fossils

Tagged: Central Otago, Miocene, New Zealand, New Zealand paleobotany, New Zealand plant fossils

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