Late Miocene-Early Pliocene Dinoflagellate Data for the Murray Basin

Dinoflagellate microfossils provide a reliable method for distinguishing Late Miocene-Early Pliocene sediments from older formations in the Murray Basin. The dataset, published by Geoscience Australia, identifies species like Melitasphaeridium aequabile and Tuberculodinium vancampoae as diagnostic for the Bookpurnong Beds. It contrasts these with species indicative of older units such as the Geera Clay and Winnambool Formation.

Use Cases

• Correlating Late Miocene-Early Pliocene sedimentary units based on diagnostic dinoflagellate species mentioned in the description.
• Distinguishing the Bookpurnong Beds from lithologically similar Oligocene-Middle Miocene facies using the listed fossil assemblages.
• Refining the biostratigraphic framework for the central west Murray Basin using species distribution data.

Strengths

• Identifies specific diagnostic fossil species for precise geological dating.
• Focuses on a defined geographic region (central west Murray Basin) and time period (Late Miocene-Early Pliocene).
• Published by the authoritative organization Geoscience Australia.

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

Geoscience Australia Data

Time Range

Late Miocene to Early Pliocene

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-30 12:36:40.489283; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Central west Murray Basin, Australia