ammonites
Alexandria Formation - Birbury (Pliocene of South Africa)

Where: South Africa (33.5° S, 26.8° E: paleocoordinates 33.6° S, 26.4° E)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Alexandria Formation, Pliocene (5.3 - 2.6 Ma)

• STRATIGRAPHIC RELATIONS: From Alexandria Formation, which unconformably overlies Late Cretaceous Sundays River Fm in places, and is overlain by eolian calcarenites. AGE: Much discussed, although not clearly in text, to range from Miocene to Pleistocene, but also possible Eocene (see Haughton pers. comm., cited in text). Assigned here to a Pliocene age, based on more recent publications (King, 1972). STRATIGRAPHIC POSITION: From unknown position within formation.

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: coastal; poorly lithified, shelly/skeletal, calcareous limestone and lithified, shelly/skeletal, calcareous sandstone

• ENVIRONMENT: Shallow marine, probably siliciclastic (calcareous, and high in bioclastic material) facies.
• SPECIFIC LITHOLOGY: Compact, gritty limestones and calcareous sandstones containing abundant, mainly fragmented shells. LITHIFICATION: Poorly lithified, based on facies description, which is distinguished from "ccompact crystalline" and "porous, loosely-cemented" adjacent descriptions.

Size class: macrofossils

Collection methods: COLLECTOR: Unknown collector. REPOSITORY: Unknown repository.

Primary reference: A. Ruddock. 1966. The Tertiary limestone of the southern coastal regions of Cape Province, South Africa. Sedimentary Basins of the African Coasts 49-62 [A. Hendy/A. Hendy] more details

Purpose of describing collection: general faunal/floral analysis

PaleoDB collection 77526: authorized by Austin Hendy, entered by Austin Hendy on 14.01.2008

Creative Commons license: CC BY-NC-ND (attribution-noncommercial-no derivatives)