Abstract
The Northern Hemisphere dominates our knowledge of Mesozoic and Cenozoic fossilized tree resin (amber) with few findings from the high southern paleolatitudes of Southern Pangea and Southern Gondwana. Here we report new Pangean and Gondwana amber occurrences dating from ~230 to 40 Ma from Australia (Late Triassic and Paleogene of Tasmania; Late Cretaceous Gippsland Basin in Victoria; Paleocene and late middle Eocene of Victoria) and New Zealand (Late Cretaceous Chatham Islands). The Paleogene, richly fossiliferous deposits contain significant and diverse inclusions of arthropods, plants and fungi. These austral discoveries open six new windows to different but crucial intervals of the Mesozoic and early Cenozoic, providing the earliest occurrence(s) of some taxa in the modern fauna and flora giving new insights into the ecology and evolution of polar and subpolar terrestrial ecosystems.
Highlights
The Northern Hemisphere dominates our knowledge of Mesozoic and Cenozoic fossilized tree resin with few findings from the high southern paleolatitudes of Southern Pangea and Southern Gondwana
Other Late Cretaceous ambers have recently been reported from the Chatham Islands, New Zealand[2], representing internal plant resin canals, and small to minute amber fragments have been reported from the early Paleogene of western Tasmania[3], mid-Paleogene of Victoria[4] and strandline deposits of the southern coast of Australia from Victoria to the west coast[5] (Fig. 1)
The amber is found as small (≤1.5 mm long), mostly clear fragments with inclusions representing bark fragments, plant pieces, miniscule organic debris, and microbe-like inclusions within the top of the sequence in Unit 4, which is characterized by volcanic lithic sandstone and coal measures, containing distinct Late Triassic Dicroidium floras of inferred Carnian age (~230 Ma), dated by palynomorph biostratigraphy; these remains were deposited with sediments of high sinuosity rivers in a temperate climate with favorable seasonal growth[14]
Summary
The Northern Hemisphere dominates our knowledge of Mesozoic and Cenozoic fossilized tree resin (amber) with few findings from the high southern paleolatitudes of Southern Pangea and Southern Gondwana. Other Late Cretaceous ambers have recently been reported from the Chatham Islands, New Zealand[2], representing internal plant resin canals (no exuded amber), and small to minute amber fragments have been reported from the early Paleogene (early Eocene) of western Tasmania[3], mid-Paleogene of Victoria[4] and strandline deposits of the southern coast of Australia from Victoria to the west coast[5] (Fig. 1). High southern paleolatitude localities and associated significant bioinclusions are the focus of this paper These biostratigraphically well constrained, in situ amber sites with associated fossils are described below in sequence from oldest (Late Triassic) to youngest (mid-Paleogene), followed by the new records of animal, plant and fungus inclusions for Southern Pangea and Southern Gondwana
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