Palynology of the Oligocene-Miocene sequence in the Oakvale-1 corehole, western Murray Bas

South Australia's Oakvale-1 corehole provides palynological data from the marine Oligocene-Miocene Geera Clay and Renmark Group. The dataset contains diverse and well-preserved assemblages of spores, pollen, and dinoflagellate cysts, including records for extant Australian taxa like Acacia and the first Australian fossil records for Utricularia and Gardenia pollen. It was published by the Australian Ocean Data Network and last updated in May 2026.

Use Cases

• Reconstructing past vegetation and climate based on pollen and spore assemblages described in the sequence.
• Analyzing the evolution and diversity of specific plant families (e.g., Myrtaceae, Nothofagus, Cyperaceae) based on their fossil pollen frequencies.
• Correlating regional stratigraphy by comparing dinoflagellate cyst assemblages with coeval sequences from Europe.
• Studying the persistence and extinction of peridinioid dinoflagellate forms in the late Oligocene of this region.

Strengths

• Assemblages are described as 'diverse and well-preserved' throughout the sequence.
• Provides the first fossil record in Australia for pollen of Utricularia and Gardenia.
• Includes a statistically calculated quantitative zonation for the corehole sequence, dividing it into two major zones and four sub-zones.

Limitations

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

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Palynological analysis of core samples.

Time Range

Oligocene to Miocene

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-04 23:49:12.670927; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Oakvale-1 corehole, western Murray Basin, South Australia