Palynostratigraphy of Late Miocene-Early Pliocene Bookpurnong Beds in the Murray Basin

Dinoflagellate microfossils provide a reliable method for distinguishing Late Miocene-Early Pliocene sediments from older, lithologically similar deposits. The dataset identifies species like Melitasphaeridium aequabile and Tectatodinium psilatum as diagnostic for the Bookpurnong Beds, while Apteodinium australiense indicates older Murray Group formations. This data originates from Geoscience Australia and was last updated in May 2026.

Use Cases

• Correlating Late Miocene-Early Pliocene sedimentary units based on diagnostic dinoflagellate species mentioned in the description.
• Distinguishing Bookpurnong Beds from Oligocene-Middle Miocene facies like the Winnambool Formation using the listed fossil assemblages.
• Refining age models for marginal marine sediments in the central west Murray Basin using palynostratigraphic markers.

Strengths

• Identifies specific diagnostic dinoflagellate species for geological correlation.
• Focuses on a distinct geological time period (Late Miocene-Early Pliocene) and region (central west Murray Basin).
• Last updated 2026-05-14 04:50:54.971649, suggesting recent maintenance.

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-Early Pliocene

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-14 04:50:54.971649; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Central west Murray Basin