Foraminiferal Biostratigraphy of Marion Plateau Dredge Samples, Miocene to Pleistocene

Geoscience Australia Data provides a dataset on planktic and benthic foraminifera from dredge samples on the Marion Plateau, offshore Queensland. The data likely contains biostratigraphic age assignments for samples from northern and southern sites, revealing different depositional histories from the Early Miocene to Pleistocene. The dataset was last updated on 2026-04-30.

Use Cases

• Reconstructing paleoenvironmental conditions based on shallow-water faunal assemblages mentioned in the description.
• Dating periods of subaerial exposure and marine flooding events based on the described cavity-fill and boring sediments.
• Correlating geological events between northern and southern platform sites based on the differing Miocene to Pleistocene histories.
• Analyzing paleo-water depth and temperature trends based on the presence of hermatypic corals, Halimeda, and larger benthic foraminiferids.

Strengths

• Data covers a significant geological time range from Early Miocene to Pleistocene.
• Description provides specific biostratigraphic zones (e.g., Zones N.18 and N.22) for age calibration.
• Samples are from two distinct sites (northern and southern) allowing for spatial comparison.
• Faunal evidence includes both planktic and benthic foraminifera, offering multiple paleoenvironmental proxies.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data files are in PDF/HTML formats, which may require extraction for quantitative analysis.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Study of foraminifera in thin section from a suite of dredge samples.

Time Range

Miocene to Pleistocene

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-30 13:16:58.354589; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Marion Plateau, offshore Queensland, Australia