Fridays Quarry Trip; a few more interesting items

[sixgill pete]

Here are a few of the more interesting items from last Fridays trip to a southeastern N.C. Quarry. I have already posted the C. auriculatus tooth and Plesiosaur vert I found in separate posts.  

 

First a very small Hardouinia aequoria echinoid. This echinoid is very uncommon and is from the Cretaceous PeeDee Formation.  This one is broken on the top and at 17mm is on the small side. It is differentiated from the much more common Hardouinia mortonis by the shape of the pericproct which is elongated instead of circular. 

 

 

 

 

 

Next is a Cretaceous oyster also from the PeeDee Formation. This oyster; Flemingostrea subspatulata is so well preserved it looks like it has just been shucked and eaten. It is a very small (1 3/8") one but an excellent example of the species. 

 

 

 

Also from the Cretaceous PeeDee Formation a very nice bivalve. Bivalves are normally not well preserved from the PeeDee, so I was thrilled to find this one. I believe it is Anomia sp. but if I am wrong please feel free to correct me. 

 

 

 

and finally from the Eocene Castle Hayne Formation I just wanted to share these couple of bryzoan encrusted bivalves because of the excellent preservation of the bivalves in them. I believe the bryzoan is Parasmittina collum. The first pics are of it encrusting an oyster, Plicatula filamentosa.

 

 

 

The next set is of it encrusting a small pecten. Chlamys cookei. 

 

 

[FossilDAWG]

That's an amazing shell for the PeeDee!

 

Don

[sixgill pete]

1 hour ago, FossilDAWG said:

That's an amazing shell for the PeeDee!

 

Don

 

Absolutely Don. 

[Darktooth]

Great finds! Thanks for sharing with us!

[Al Dente]

Don

your well preserved shell is a type of Anomia. I'm not sure which one. Anomia are made of calcite instead of aragonite so they tend to preserve better than aragonitic shells. In NCFC's volume 2 there is a similar one named Anomia forteplicata.

[MikeR]

Hi Don

 

I think your oyster might be an immature Flemingostrea subspatulata.  Flemingostrea cretacea is a Santonian species.  I find it in the Tombigbee Sand Member of the Eutaw Formation in Alabama.  The PeeDee is Maastrichtian with maybe some Late Campanian.

 

Mike

[sixgill pete]

1 hour ago, MikeR said:

Hi Don

 

I think your oyster might be an immature Flemingostrea subspatulata.  Flemingostrea cretacea is a Santonian species.  I find it in the Tombigbee Sand Member of the Eutaw Formation in Alabama.  The PeeDee is Maastrichtian with maybe some Late Campanian.

 

Mike

 

 

Mike, I appreciate your response and as always I value your opinions. The resource I am using to ID these oysters is the NCFC Vol. 2 "Mollusks". Page 54 shows Flemingostrea cretacea as present in the PeeDee. So I am confused. I do want to make sure what I have in my collection is labelled as correctly as I possibly can.  The area these oysters are coming from is the white sugar sand from the base of the PeeDee. The majority of them are extremely well preserved. The same sand contains Hardouinia mortonis and kellumi. These are also extremely well preserved. Some of the mortonis still have spines on them. There are also Phymotaxis tournoueri with spines attached. 

I am attaching a picture of another oyster about 4 1/2 inches that I identified as F. subspatulata, it is strikingly similar. 

 

 

I have plenty of these oysters and would be more than glad to mail a few to you for in hand I.D. if needed to clear this up for me.

 

 

 

So, I guess my questions are; is F. cretacea present in the PeeDee or could it only possibly be found in N.C. in the Cape Fear or Pleasant Creek Formations? And if so, and I am sure you don't have this answer; why is it included in the book as present in the PeeDee? 

[sixgill pete]

4 hours ago, Al Dente said:

Don

your well preserved shell is a type of Anomia. I'm not sure which one. Anomia are made of calcite instead of aragonite so they tend to preserve better than aragonitic shells. In NCFC's volume 2 there is a similar one named Anomia forteplicata.

 

 

Thanks Eric, I did in fact consider Anomia as my first guess, knowing that they are more likely to survive fossilization. I did look at A. forteplicata on page 64. It does have some similarity. I then looked at Anadara because of the similar shape. It is on page 41. The Anadara sp. from the Belgrade Formation is almost a dead ringer for this. There is an Anadara sp. on the same page from the PeeDee that is strikingly similar. That is how I came to my possible ID. Now I am wondering which way to go on this. 

[Al Dente]

19 minutes ago, sixgill pete said:

 

 

Thanks Eric, I did in fact consider Anomia as my first guess, knowing that they are more likely to survive fossilization. I did look at A. forteplicata on page 64. It does have some similarity. I then looked at Anadara because of the similar shape. It is on page 41. The Anadara sp. from the Belgrade Formation is almost a dead ringer for this. There is an Anadara sp. on the same page from the PeeDee that is strikingly similar. That is how I came to my possible ID. Now I am wondering which way to go on this. 

 

Anadaria is an ark shell, they have straight hinges that are toothed. Anomia have one valve with a large hole in the back and another valve without the hole. I think yours is the valve with the large hole.

 

I've noticed the mollusc book has a lot of the Cretaceous shells as occurring in the Peedee when other publications don't mention Peedee Formation as an occurrence. Exogyra is an example. My version of the book has all the NC types of Exogyra as occurring in the Peedee. I'm pretty sure this is incorrect since Exogyra can be used as an index fossil for some of the other formations.

[Plax]

what Eric said. Exogyra ponderosa for instance is definitely not part of the Peedee fauna. This type of error may be from copying and pasting when formatting a publication. As far as aragonitic mollusk shells you might also see some at the Rocky Point Member / Island Creek Member contact of the Peedee as dolomitic pseudomorphs. Thought I had pics of these on this computer but apparently not. the pseudomorphs are smooth and accurate representations of the aragonitic mollusks but are fragile and break into sugar or sand like fragments.

[Plax]

I think your H. aequorea is actually a juvie kellumi and the first one I've seen. All my little aequorea are elongated pup tent shaped echinoids. This thing is almost round. Note that this comment isn't meant to be the final word. Just making a suggestion...

[MikeR]

1 hour ago, sixgill pete said:

The resource I am using to ID these oysters is the NCFC Vol. 2 "Mollusks". Page 54 shows Flemingostrea cretacea as present in the PeeDee.

 

So, I guess my questions are; is F. cretacea present in the PeeDee or could it only possibly be found in N.C. in the Cape Fear or Pleasant Creek Formations? And if so, and I am sure you don't have this answer; why is it included in the book as present in the PeeDee? 

 

I can't attest to the complete accuracy of the NCFC mollusk edition as I do not agree with all of the identifications however the best resource for North Carolina Cretaceous inverts would be William Lloyd Stephenson's work LINK.  He reports Ostrea (now Flemingostrea) cretacea from the Black Creek Group.  To date it further he restricts it to the Exogyra upatoiensis zone and lower portion of the E. ponderosa zone which referring back to my first point is Santonian.

 

Mike

[Plax]

What Mike R said and

Looks can be deceiving. The oyster you show actually has a smooth or lumpy from the surface lower valve and an ornate flat spined upper valve. For years I thought these were an undescribed oyster as they don't look very much like subspatulata. Once I saw all the variations though I realized they must be the same. Environment and age has a big effect on their morphology.

  F. cretacea is attached from Mike's reference. It wouldn't let me extract the page in acrobat so this is scanned from a paper print.

[sixgill pete]

7 hours ago, MikeR said:

Hi Don

 

I think your oyster might be an immature Flemingostrea subspatulata.  Flemingostrea cretacea is a Santonian species.  I find it in the Tombigbee Sand Member of the Eutaw Formation in Alabama.  The PeeDee is Maastrichtian with maybe some Late Campanian.

 

Mike

 

5 hours ago, Al Dente said:

 

Anadaria is an ark shell, they have straight hinges that are toothed. Anomia have one valve with a large hole in the back and another valve without the hole. I think yours is the valve with the large hole.

 

I've noticed the mollusc book has a lot of the Cretaceous shells as occurring in the Peedee when other publications don't mention Peedee Formation as an occurrence. Exogyra is an example. My version of the book has all the NC types of Exogyra as occurring in the Peedee. I'm pretty sure this is incorrect since Exogyra can be used as an index fossil for some of the other formations.

 

5 hours ago, Plax said:

what Eric said. Exogyra ponderosa for instance is definitely not part of the Peedee fauna. This type of error may be from copying and pasting when formatting a publication. As far as aragonitic mollusk shells you might also see some at the Rocky Point Member / Island Creek Member contact of the Peedee as dolomitic pseudomorphs. Thought I had pics of these on this computer but apparently not. the pseudomorphs are smooth and accurate representations of the aragonitic mollusks but are fragile and break into sugar or sand like fragments.

 

4 hours ago, MikeR said:

 

I can't attest to the complete accuracy of the NCFC mollusk edition as I do not agree with all of the identifications however the best resource for North Carolina Cretaceous inverts would be William Lloyd Stephenson's work LINK.  He reports Ostrea (now Flemingostrea) cretacea from the Black Creek Group.  To date it further he restricts it to the Exogyra upatoiensis zone and lower portion of the E. ponderosa zone which referring back to my first point is Santonian.

 

Mike

 

3 hours ago, Plax said:

What Mike R said and

Looks can be deceiving. The oyster you show actually has a smooth or lumpy from the surface lower valve and an ornate flat spined upper valve. For years I thought these were an undescribed oyster as they don't look very much like subspatulata. Once I saw all the variations though I realized they must be the same. Environment and age has a big effect on their morphology.

  F. cretacea is attached from Mike's reference. It wouldn't let me extract the page in acrobat so this is scanned from a paper print.

 

 

One of the things I like the very best about this forum is the free flow of information, knowledge and thought out opinions. This enables us all to learn more as we go. From this post I have learned much about Cretaceous species and where they fit in to the time picture. I have edited the post as I am, after a little more research on my own, in full agreement with all of you guys. Thanks for e=helping me to learn some new things today.

[sixgill pete]

4 hours ago, MikeR said:

 

I can't attest to the complete accuracy of the NCFC mollusk edition as I do not agree with all of the identifications however the best resource for North Carolina Cretaceous inverts would be William Lloyd Stephenson's work LINK.  He reports Ostrea (now Flemingostrea) cretacea from the Black Creek Group.  To date it further he restricts it to the Exogyra upatoiensis zone and lower portion of the E. ponderosa zone which referring back to my first point is Santonian.

 

Mike

 

 

And Mike thank you for the link.

[sixgill pete]

5 hours ago, Plax said:

I think your H. aequorea is actually a juvie kellumi and the first one I've seen. All my little aequorea are elongated pup tent shaped echinoids. This thing is almost round. Note that this comment isn't meant to be the final word. Just making a suggestion...

 

 

Don, I am wondering about this. The peristome is what made me think it was aequoria and not kellumi. It seams to be more open than I would expect from a kellumi.

[Plax]

16 hours ago, sixgill pete said:

 

 

Don, I am wondering about this. The peristome is what made me think it was aequoria and not kellumi. It seams to be more open than I would expect from a kellumi.

I'd get up with George Phillips at MMNS to see what he thinks. Surely there must be juvie kellumi though none of us has ever seen one that I know of. Have found tiny mortonis, about half the diameter of a dime in the same sediments as kellumi so why no juvie kellumi? Curiously there are mortonis the size of kellumi in the latest sequence of the Peedee in Brunswick County but no kellumi that I know of. Am thinking there was a paper that suggested that aequoria were juvie kellumi but that was refuted in a later paper. You'll have to do some googling or get up with an expert for better details on the lit.

[masonboro37]

Great day and excellant finds Don.

[sixgill pete]

This echinoid was found in the dark PeeDee dirt that the crab concretions come out of. There were actually two others found that day. I have another one that is just the half showing the pericproct. And one by another person. It was broken at the top like the one I have pictured.

[sixgill pete]

2 hours ago, masonboro37 said:

Great day and excellant finds Don.

 

 

Thanks Libby. I t was a most excellent day.

[Plax]

On 12/9/2016 at 0:28 PM, sixgill pete said:

This echinoid was found in the dark PeeDee dirt that the crab concretions come out of. There were actually two others found that day. I have another one that is just the half showing the pericproct. And one by another person. It was broken at the top like the one I have pictured.

Aequorea were found in clay sediment at East Coast Limestone back in the day also. Must be a habitat preference for the species.

[sixgill pete]

Don, do you have George Phillips e-mail info? If so, could you Pm it to me? I would like to send him some photo's and get his opinion on the Hardouinia.

[Plax]

On 12/7/2016 at 0:08 PM, Plax said:

what Eric said. Exogyra ponderosa for instance is definitely not part of the Peedee fauna. This type of error may be from copying and pasting when formatting a publication. As far as aragonitic mollusk shells you might also see some at the Rocky Point Member / Island Creek Member contact of the Peedee as dolomitic pseudomorphs. Thought I had pics of these on this computer but apparently not. the pseudomorphs are smooth and accurate representations of the aragonitic mollusks but are fragile and break into sugar or sand like fragments.

here's a link