Makoiamya cotterallae, a new genus and species of bivalve (Ceratomyidae) from the latest Triassic of New Zealand and New Caledonia

Abstract

The new genus and species Makoiamya cotterallae is erected for fossil bivalves previously informally identified as Anodontophora Alberti (= Unionites Wissmann) or a relative or Ochotomya Polubotko in the Late Triassic Murihiku Terrane of New Zealand and Téremba Terrane of New Caledonia (Norian and Rhaetian; Warepan and Otapirian local stages). Neither of these genera happily accommodates these shells and a new genus is considered necessary for them. Makoiamya fits most readily into the Ceratomyidae and members were burrowers in fine sand and silt, where they are generally preserved in life orientation.

The Late Triassic Extinction at the Norian/Rhaetian boundary: Biotic evidence and geochemical signature

“…1, 3). The Kiritehere section crops out on the western Tasman Sea coast of the central North Island (New Zealand), and it consists of a volcaniclastic sedimentary rock succession with slumps dominated by fine sandstone and siltstone rich in bivalve coquinas (Arawi Shellbeds Formation), grading into thin siltstones and shales (Ngutunui Formation), rich in bivalves (Grant-Mackie, 1981, 2013. This succession is interpreted to represent a mid-shelf environment that accumulated in an elongate forearc basin marginal to an active, subduction-related volcanic arc that lay to the west of Kiritehere, along the edge of Gondwana (Grant-Mackie, 2013) (Figs.…”