Where: Cayman Islands (19.8° N, 79.7° W: paleocoordinates 19.8° N, 79.8° W)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Late/Upper Pleistocene to Late/Upper Pleistocene (0.1 - 0.0 Ma)

• Patton refers the age of the lower levels of this site to the early Holocene. This age is reasonable based upon preservation of the fossils and upon comparisons with fossil faunas from other West Indian caves. Recently we dated three samples of land snails from Patton's Fissure, using the single-species methodology of radiocarbon age determination on land snails developed for Jamaican species. Our samples of Caymanian snails (Hemitrochus caymanensis) should provide a fairly accurate estimate of the age of Patton's Fissure, for H. caymanensis is an arboreal snail that does not feed on the ground. Therefore, this species should incorporate little if any "dead carbon" into its shell through ingestion of limestone. The age determinations are (in years BP, with lab number): 11,180 ± 105 (Layer5,SI-6518); 13,230 ± 135 (Layer 7, SI-65 19); and 13,850 ± 135 (Layer 9, SI-6520). These concordant results represent maximum ages, depending upon the level at which the dated snails had incorporated environmental carbonate into their shells during life. The radiocarbon data suggest an age of latest Pleistocene or earliest Holocene for the fauna from Layers 5-9 of Patton's Fissure.

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: fissure fill; carbonate

Size class: macrofossils

Reposited in the FMNH

Primary reference: D. W. Steadman and G. S. Morgan. 1985. A new species of bullfinch (Aves: Emberizinae) from a late Quaternary cave deposit on Cayman Brac, West Indies. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 98:554-553 [M. Clapham/M. Clapham]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 194598: authorized by Matthew Clapham, entered by Matthew Clapham on 23.06.2018

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)