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4 December 2013 The Chinchilla Local Fauna: An Exceptionally Rich and Well-Preserved Pliocene Vertebrate Assemblage from Fluviatile Deposits of South-Eastern Queensland, Australia
Julien Louys, Gilbert J. Price
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Abstract

The Chinchilla Sand is a formally defined stratigraphic sequence of Pliocene fluviatile deposits that comprise interbedded clay, sand, and conglomerate located in the western Darling Downs, south-east Queensland, Australia. Vertebrate fossils from the deposits are referred to as the Chinchilla Local Fauna. Despite over a century and a half of collection and study, uncertainties concerning the taxa in the Chinchilla Local Fauna continue, largely from the absence of stratigraphically controlled excavations, lost or destroyed specimens, and poorly documented provenance data. Here we present a detailed and updated study of the vertebrate fauna from this site. The Pliocene vertebrate assemblage is represented by at least 63 taxa in 31 families. The Chinchilla Local Fauna is Australia's largest, richest and best preserved Pliocene vertebrate locality, and is eminently suited for palaeoecological and palaeoenvironmental investigations of the late Pliocene.

Copyright © 2015 J. Louys and G.J. Price. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Julien Louys and Gilbert J. Price "The Chinchilla Local Fauna: An Exceptionally Rich and Well-Preserved Pliocene Vertebrate Assemblage from Fluviatile Deposits of South-Eastern Queensland, Australia," Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 60(3), 551-572, (4 December 2013). https://doi.org/10.4202/app.00042.2013
Received: 8 April 2013; Accepted: 1 November 2013; Published: 4 December 2013
KEYWORDS
Australia
Darling Downs
Mammalia
Marsupialia
Pliocene
Queensland
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