Acta Zoologica Cracoviensia, 36(2) 1993

Issue:

VOL 36(2) 1993

Keywords:

Fossil mammals, Proboscidea, stratigraphy, Miocene Poland

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Gomphotherium angustidens (Cuvier, 1806) (Proboscidea, Mammalia) from the Miocene of Bełchatów and the Proboscidean Datum in Poland

• Kazimierz KOWALSKI
• Henryk KUBIAK

Abstract:

Two isolated molars of Gomphotherium angustidens belonging to a destroyed skull have been collected from the coal seam in the brown coal mine of Bełchatów in Central Poland. This seam is situated directly below a tuffite dated at 18.1±1.7 MA. Limnic sediments of the same geological level as that bearing the mastodont teeth, knownas Bełchatów-С contain a rich fauna of small mammals pointing to mammalian zone MN 4. If the dating of the tuffite is correct, this discovery suggests that the Proboscideans appeared in Poland more than 18 MA ago.