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Autre Publication Scientifique Année : 2021

Ghabah, Oman, an early Miocene fossil locality at the ocean-continent interface

Résumé

The fossiliferous strata at Ghabah, Oman (21°13’55’’N : 57°34’10’’E - Altitude 74-149 m), comprise interfingering marine and terrestrial deposits. The marine faunal remains from the sediments include a variety of gastropods and bivalves (abundant oysters) and various sawfish, shark and ray teeth. The terrestrial remains are diverse, including freshwater fishes, frogs, turtles and crocodiles, associated with terrestrial tortoises and a varanid lizard, accompanied by a range of mammals, dominated by proboscideans (gomphotheres, zygolophodonts and deinotheres) together with a tragulid, a small pecoran, a primitive giraffoid, an anthracothere, a rodent and a rhinocerotid. The Ghabah mammalian assemblage indicates a basal middle Miocene correlation, its affinities being closest to faunas from African localities such as Gebel Zelten, Libya, Moghra, Egypt, and Moruorot, Kenya (ca 16 +/- 1 Ma). The biogeographic affinities of the Ghabah mammals are strongly African, with three genera of proboscideans and ruminants that occur widely in that continent. « Ghabah » which means « forest » in Arabic, is today a steppic environment, meriting the name Ghabah because the wadis in the region are rich in scattered Acacia and other trees. During the early Miocene, in contrast, the region was more densely vegetated, being either thick woodland or forest, which could support three taxa of proboscideans, three of ruminants and one each of rhinocerotids, suids and anthracotheres. The Ghabah deposits have good potential for yielding additional fossil material, and the position of the area at the « crossroads » of Africa, Europe and Asia, makes them of particular relevance to the study of intercontinental dispersals of terrestrial faunas at the end of the early Miocene. The aim of this report is to provide an update of the marine, freshwater, amphibious and terrestrial palaeontological resources of Ghabah and to situate them in their biochronological, palaeoecological and palaeobiogeographic contexts.
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Dates et versions

hal-03799788 , version 1 (06-10-2022)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-03799788 , version 1

Citer

Martin Pickford, Dominique Gommery, Mohammed Al-Kindi. Ghabah, Oman, an early Miocene fossil locality at the ocean-continent interface. Proceedings of the first International Conference on Vertebrate Paleontology, 2021, pp.1-27. ⟨hal-03799788⟩
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