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A couple of weeks ago now I stumped upon several outcrops of the Early Pleistocene Waccamaw Formation in South Carolina. I have been able to identify the various mollusk that I found except for these last three gastropods. Either the resources I have found don't include an example that matches these specimens or it was just too close of a call. I would love to get some opinions on what these might be. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much! #1- Petaloconchus sculpturatus? #2- Ilynassa sexdentata? #3- Phrontis sp.?

A few months back I won an auction from @sixgill pete and part of the lot was a bag of matrix from the Waccamaw Formation in Columbus County North Carolina. The Waccamaw Fm. is a marine sand and shell hash that has been correlated numerous different ways with a varying range of ages applied to it in the past, but as it is currently interpreted, it is Pleistocene in age (Gelasian and Calabrian Stages or Upper Blancan to Irvingtonian if you prefer the NA names) and found in South Carolina and southeastern North Carolina. The bag was chock full of molluscan goodies and I am steadily working through the identification of those. One thing that caught my eye amongst all the shells were these little saucer shaped bryozoans similar to Lunulites except that most had a little grain of sand at their center. They are small (generally 2-3 mm in diameter, largest one is 7 mm across), but there were several hundred of them. After staring at them under the microscope for long enough, I recognized that there were at least two different types in here. Here is a shot of my sorting tray with all of them in there. A quick check of the two great publications I have from the North Carolina Fossil Club gave me some excellent pictures but three different names. A check of WORMS showed me that only one of those names was currently accepted so I began my search to see what was what knowing full well that bryozoan identification can be difficult and involves a lot of terminology that I am not well versed in (I have to admit, when ID’ing my collections, I am prone to lump the Paleozoic bryozoans from a given locality in one container and just be satisfied with that). A search of threads on the Fossil Forum led me to a couple where they were mentioned, but no defining pictures or ID’s. Here are a few pictures of what we are dealing with and I will apologize right from the start for the poor quality pictures. I really have to get a better setup for taking microfossil pictures since I tend to deal with small stuff a lot. I have decent microscope where I can look at them, but it is not set up for pictures. These are the two more easily identifiable forms, the picture on the right shows two of the same species but in one you can see the sand grain that is the starting point for the bryozoan, it sometimes gets covered or lost in growth and/or fossilization. So, after gathering and reading through a bunch of references from the early 1900’s onward I think I have the correct ID and most current name, but am open to any suggestions from those familiar with these little creatures. At the very least, hopefully this can serve as a helpful guide to someone who may have come across these, but struggled to put a name to them. There is a great publication by Canu and Bassler (1923) called North American Later Tertiary and Quaternary Bryozoa which provides lots of information, plenty of descriptions and enough illustrations to find both of the forms I had recognized. Specifically, they identified a species called Cupularia denticulata from the Waccamaw Fm and its description matched the form on the right above (just to make things interesting, there was another genus of similar bryozoa called Cupuladria, yes, just one letter different – ugh!). From this publication I had a potential name for the two types, could see where the names in the NCFC publications were coming from, and just had to track down what had changed in the intervening almost 100 years.

Thought I would share a few things that I collected during a short trip into the Waccamaw Formation in south eastern North Carolina on Saturday. We only spent about 2 and a half hours at the site but some really nice items were found. First a Melitta cf.M. aclinensis. Usually the sand dollars are found only as isolated pieces at this location, occasionally a whole one is found on matrix that is crushed and broken. However I found this complete unbroken one on matrix and another person found a complete unbroken one without matrix. I have started prepping this one out since the pic, it is coming along nicely. Another Melitta sp. I found. Cannot ID for sure as to species as it is broke, but complete and covered with matrix. Will also prep this one out as much as possible to try to ID to species. Next a block of matrix containing a rare Rhyncholampas sabistonensis echinoid. This is an irregular echinoid from the Pliocene / Pleistocene. I have found pieces of these before(and one today) but this is my first complete one. Even crushed and in poor shape I am happy with the find. Top of the matrix the echinoid itself and the bottom I am going to try and expose as much of this echinoid also. Without making it come apart. Double valve bivalves for the day .......

I finally had the opportunity and time to take a trip to an amazing quarry! I have not had many times to do this in the last year. Just awesome to be at this quarry and to be able to see our friends and visit. The best part of the day is that my son was able to experience the area again and have a blast collecting fossils! The area we hunted was Pleistocene, Waccamaw Formation, North Carolina. It is such special area and I am so happy of the times we are able to go there. Being able to hunt in an area where you are actually on an ancient sea bed is priceless and then captivating. Whenever we are at this quarry I can close my eyes and take a deep breath, I think of the life which was in this area and then look at the piles and layers of beautiful gastropods and other the marine life which existed two million years ago. I see gastropods all clustered together, broken sand dollars, slipper shells and many fractured shells. I think of what have must have happened millions of years ago for such a mass areas of demise. We all know what caused it, so interesting researching it all! My son thought this was the "coolest thing ever". Moving on with our trip, we hunted there for a good portion of the day. There is a big field in the back of the quarry which has wild plants growing. There was wild Honey Suckle, beautiful ferns and then an interesting tree with what looks like "bottle brush" type bloom. On the way home we just had to stop at an area which in on the Brunswick River, NC. We always search for Eastern Woodland Indian artifacts....we found some! Topographic Map Exercise FA15.docx

Well folks, I took a day off from the grinds of the job and made a rare Monday trip into the Waccamaw Formation of Southeastern North Carolina. I met up with a few old friends and made a couple of new ones. The new friends have been doing a traveling fossil trip and were kind enough to share a few of their finds with us new friends. Mine was this beautiful (at least to me) large Texas ammonite; anyone have an idea on the species? Anyways, we met early and took of for the site. Some of our forum members I know are familiar with this particular pit, but it was my first time there. It is well known for it's very rich molluscan fauna, the occasional great white tooth and the odd surprise. Upon arriving, I dug right in; no pun intended. This was my total take home for the day. I could have brought out lots and lots more, but many of the bivalves, I already had through gifts and others bringing me buckets of matrix. I also left countless cone and olive shells for the next person. I did find this rather nice great white, no root but very very few of the great whites from this site has roots. But it has great serrations and measures in at 1 3/8" I also found this very cool crab claw, quite a surprise. It measures at 1 3/8", the same as the great white so it must have been a large crab. I know it is hard to ID crabs from just a claw, but if you have any thoughts .............. I am in the process now of trying to ID these finds, something I am still learning how to do with bivalves and gastropods. I am going to start with 6 gastropods and 2 bivalves, some I am fairly confident of ID, others not so. Please feel free to correct any ID I may give. I will add others as I have the time to photograph and put up. So, lets get on with it. First what I believe is Fusinus (Heilprinia) caloosaensis, 1 7/8 inch a my favorite of the day. A real beauty. Euspiria sayana, 1 1/16" ......... Terebra dislocata, 1 11/16" ...... then this cool little thing. a Argopecten vicenarius cemented inside of a Anomia simplex by matrix ........... Trachycardium emmonsi; 1 3/8 long by 1 3/4 wide .......

I need to identify this sponge. Waccamaw fm., Pliocene from Brunswick County, North Carolina Thats all I have to go on. If you know this species/genus or know someone who might I would appreciate it. Regards, Jim Wyatt Houston, Texas