Whiskey Bridge Ostracods

[ClearLake]

Last week in a thread by @WyomingRocks! about Whiskey Bridge, a Middle Eocene Claiborne Group site in Texas, @historianmichael asked about ostracods from there.  I said I would post some pictures, so here I go.  I brought home a bunch of matrix from the site a couple years ago and have broken much of it down and pulled out the larger fossils, but I had not really gone through the micro stuff until recently.  I sieved it through a series of screens and found the ostracods primarily on the 60 mesh screen.  I have only gone through a tiny amount of it, but wanted to answer his question as I tend to wander off in all fossil directions and who knows when I'll get back to Eocene Ostracods - haha.  I picked over two dozen specimens from several different species out of less than 1/2 TBSP of matrix.  I wonder what all is in the quart bag of it that I have!!  Artusy in his thesis (see below) recognized 46 species of ostracods, I have a long way to go.

 

A few years ago @jkfoamposted an ostracod or two from this location in this thread:

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/11079-the-arthropod-that-cant-get-any-respect/page/2/

There may be other posts on the forum as well, but Eocene ostracod threads are not a huge topic!

 

I am not an ostracod expert by any stretch, so others that are more knowledgeable (like @Acryzona) can feel free to correct or update any of my ID's.  The literature that I found dealing with ostracods from this site is limited and somewhat old, but that is what I have.  I'm sure there are more recent publications on portions of the fauna, but I have not tried to wade through that.  I primarily used:

The Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology Part Q (1961),

a thesis by Raymond Artusy (1960) Ostracoda of the Stone City Beds at Stone City Bluff, Texas, 

Bulletin 114 of the Mississippi Geological Survey by William Moore (1970) The Jackson Eocene Ostracoda of Mississippi

 

              

 

 

        

 

 

             

 

 

         

 

I know some of the pictures are not totally focused, but unfortunately at this magnification, there is a pretty limited depth range that is in focus until I learn how to do photo stacking.  I hope you can get the idea of what they look like though, some of them are really intricate and wonderful looking.  The last few pictures are really intricate specimens and I'm sure with some effort, I could get a more precise ID, but the differences are all in the details of the ornamentation and subtle shape differences and I haven't taken the time yet to master that.   Enjoy!

 

 

 

[historianmichael]

These are so cool! Thank you for sharing.

[Oxytropidoceras]

For other people interested in Stone City ostracods, PDFs of pertinent 

publications are available for:

 

Artusy, Raymond Longino, 1960. Ostracoda of the Stone City Beds at Stone 

City Bluff, Texas." (1960). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 590. 

https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1589&context=gradschool_disstheses

https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/590/

 

Huff, W.J., 1960. The Jackson Eocene Ostracoda of Mississippi. Rice University.

https://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/18305

 

Huff, W.J., 1970. The Jackson Eocene Ostracoda of 

Mississippi. Mississippi Bureau of Geology, Geological 

Survey Division. Bulletin, 114, p.289.

https://www.mdeq.ms.gov/geology/work-areas/publications-and-map-sales/categories/bulletins/the-jackson-eocene-ostracoda-of-mississippi-19785/

 

Related publications are:

 

Hendricks, J.K., 2019. Shallow Water Methane-derived 

Carbonates in Siliciclastic Settings: Cretaceous Tepee 

Buttes and Eocene Stone City Bluff (Doctoral dissertation).

https://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/handle/1969.1/188742

https://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/bitstream/handle/1969.1/188742/HENDRICKS-DISSERTATION-2019.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

 

Zuschin, M. and Stanton Jr, R.J., 2002. Paleocommunity 

reconstruction from shell beds: a case study from the Main 

Glauconite Bed, Eocene, Texas. Palaios, 17(6), pp.602-614.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237423083_Paleocommunity_Reconstruction_from_Shell_Beds_A_Case_Study_from_the_Main_Glauconite_Bed_Eocene_Texas

 

Yours,

Paul H.

Edited November 13, 2022 by Oxytropidoceras
corrected format

[ClearLake]

1 hour ago, Oxytropidoceras said:

For other people interested in Stone City ostracods, PDFs of pertinent 

publications are available for:

Thanks Paul, glad you provided those links. I’ll have to check out a couple of those related pubs. 

[WyomingRocks!]

Thanks for showing these! Most people, probably 99%+, never see these due to the size. And your pics were good.

[Acryzona]

Nice photos.  It still amazes me that spines that thin and small are still preserved after millions of years.  Those spiny ostracods will look awesome with some photo stacking!  Combine-z is a free stacking software.  I started with that and later switched to Helicon Focus.  Let me if you have questions; happy to share my experience.

[AngieM357]

I love this thread. I've found so many of them and didn't realize what they were. I'm from College Station but moved recently, and I already miss my Brazos Valley hunting spots!