Palaeobiogeographical affinities and palaeoceanographical significance of late Cretaceous Ostracoda (Crustacea) from Voluta-1, Otway Basin, southeastern Australia

Abstract

A continental shelf to upper continental slope ostracod fauna is documented from the late Cretaceous (late Turonian to Santonian) Belfast Mudstone in Voluta-1 of the Otway Basin, southeastern Australia. The fauna has palaeobiogeographical affinities with mid-late Cretaceous ostracod faunas of Western Australia, New Zealand, the Antarctic Peninsula and the Falklands Plateau. This distribution pattern probably reflects dispersal influenced by the opening of the Australo-Antarctic Gulf, and by clockwise gyre currents in the proto Southern Ocean. The presence of Philoneptunus sp. in this fauna suggests that the Australo-Antarctic Gulf was an important locus for deep sea colonization by Gondwanan neritic ostracod clades.

Mark T. Warne* [[email protected]], Deakin University, Geelong, School of Life and Environmental Sciences & Centre for Integrative Ecology (Melbourne Campus), 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125 Australia. Stephen J. Gallagher [[email protected]] School of Earth Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 3010 Australia.

Keywords:

• Ostracoda
• Cretaceous
• marine
• Otway Basin
• Australia
• palaeobiogeography
• palaeoceanography

Acknowledgements

Mark Warne thanks Dr Michelle Guzel, formerly of Deakin University, for discussions on Australian Cretaceous Ostracoda. Mr John Ward of Deakin University assisted with SEM photography. Editor and reviewer comments enabled improvements to the original manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Funding was provided to S.J.G. by an ARC SPIRT Grant [C00106901] and the ARC Basins Genesis Hub [IH130200012]. M.T.W. acknowledges research support from Deakin University.