USGS 21778 - Courbaril Member, Point Courbaril: Early Pliocene, Trinidad and Tobago

List of taxa
Where & when
Geology
Taphonomy & methods
Metadata & references
Taxonomic list
Scaphopoda - Dentaliida - Dentaliidae
Bivalvia - Arcida - Arcidae
Bivalvia - Arcida - Noetiidae
Bivalvia - Pectinida - Anomiidae
Anomia simplex d'Orbigny 1845
Bivalvia - Pandorida - Pandoridae
Pandora sp. Bruguière 1797
Bivalvia - Cardiida - Veneridae
misspelled: Pitar (Lamellinconcha) cicinatus
Bivalvia - Cardiida - Chamidae
[entered as Chama macrophylla]
    = Chama cf. macerophylla Gmelin 1791
Rosenberg 2005
Bivalvia - Cardiida - Semelidae
Abra cf. aequalis (Say 1822)
Semele proficua (Pulteney 1799)
Bivalvia - Cardiida - Tellinidae
Bivalvia - Cardiida - Cardiidae
Bivalvia - Lucinida - Lucinidae
Bivalvia - Carditida - Carditidae
Gastropoda - Lepetellida - Fissurellidae
Gastropoda - Naticidae
Gastropoda - Neogastropoda - Marginellidae
Gastropoda - Neogastropoda - Volutidae
Gastropoda - Neogastropoda - Muricidae
    = Chicoreus (Triplex) cornurectus Guppy 1876
Landau and Marques da Silva 2010
Gastropoda - Neogastropoda - Columbellidae
Gastropoda - Neogastropoda - Melongenidae
Melongena melongena (Linnaeus 1758)
Gastropoda - Cerithiidae
Gastropoda - Turritellidae
see common names

Geography
Country:Trinidad and Tobago
Coordinates: 10.2° North, 61.6° West (view map)
Paleocoordinates:10.4° North, 60.4° West (Wright 2013)
Basis of coordinate:based on nearby landmark
Geographic resolution:outcrop
Time
Period: Neogene Epoch: Pliocene
Stage: Zanclean 10 m.y. bin: Cenozoic 6
Key time interval: Early Pliocene
Age range of interval: 5.333 - 3.6 m.y. ago
Stratigraphy
Formation:Morne l'Enfer Member:Courbaril
Local section:Point Galba
Regional section:Brighton
Stratigraphic resolution:bed
Stratigraphy comments: Collection is from the Courbaril Sand and Clay Member of the Upper Morne l'Enfer Formation. The Courbaril fauna is considered to be of early Pliocene age and is probably slightly older than the Matura fauna.
Lithology and environment
Primary lithology: poorly lithified sandstone
Secondary lithology: claystone
Includes fossils?Y
Includes fossils?Y
Lithology description: Poor reporting of lithologies. Named as the "Courbaril Sand and Clay Member", so these lithologies are assigned.
Environment:shoreface
Geology comments: The assemblage as a whole points to a nearshore environment, with some brackish influence (compared with Melajo Clay assemblages).
Taphonomy
Modes of preservation:body
Size of fossils:macrofossils
Preservation of anatomical detail:good
Collection methods and comments
Collection excludes:some macrofossils,some microfossils
Collection methods:selective quarrying,field collection
Reason for describing collection:taxonomic analysis
Museum repositories:PRI,USNM
Collection method comments: All material descibed in this report is reposited in the Naturhistorisches Mueum, Basel, or the USNM. Additional material collection from this unit is found at PRI.
Taxonomic list comments:Exhaustive for Mollusca. Crab claws, corals, fish teeth, and scarce foraminifera also exist in the unit, though are not listed. Van de Bold (1963) also lists ostracords from several localities.
Metadata
Database number:60649
Authorizer:A. Hendy Enterer:A. Hendy
Research group:marine invertebrate
Subset of collection #:60409
Created:2006-05-19 08:45:32 Last modified:2025-02-22 15:12:02
Access level:the public Released:2006-05-19 08:45:32
Creative Commons license:CC0
Reference information

Primary reference:
17317. P. Jung. 1969. Miocene and Pliocene mollusks from Trinidad. Bulletins of American Paleontology 55(247):293-697 [A. Miller/A. Hendy]

Secondary references:

36423 B. Landau and C. Marques da Silva. 2010. Early Pliocene gastropods of Cubagua, Venezuela: Taxonomy, palaeobiogeography and ecostratigraphy. Palaeontos 19:1-221 [A. Hendy/A. Hendy]
19419 G. Rosenberg. 2005. Malacolog 4.0: A database of Western Atlantic marine Mollusca. [WWW database (version 4.1.0)] URL http://data.acnatsci.org/wasp [A. Hendy/A. Hendy]