Where: Hampton County, Virginia (37.0° N, 76.4° W: paleocoordinates 37.1° N, 75.5° W)

• coordinate estimated from map

When: Morgarts Beach Member (Yorktown Formation), Zanclean (5.3 - 3.6 Ma)

• Turritella alticostata Zone (Zone 2) of Mansfield (1944), Orionina vaughani zone of Hazel (1971) molluscan M-5 Zone of Blackwelder (1981) and planktonic Zone N19 of Blow (1969).

•

•The layer of the Yorktown Formation that yielded the specimen reportedly falls into planktonic foraminiferal zone N19 [51] and the Orionina vaughani ostracod assemblage zone [52, 53]. Whereas zone N19 correlates with the latest Messinian–early Zanclean [54], the Orionina vaughani zone is seemingly restricted to the Zanclean (starting at 5.3 Ma), and correlates with the uppermost part of nannofossil zone NN12 and zones NN13–15 on the one hand, and foraminiferal zones N19–20 [53: fig. 4] on the other. K-Ar dating of a sample typical of the Orionina vaughani zone indicates an age of 4.4 ± 0.2 Ma [53], roughly coincident with the top of zone N19 [54]. Strontium dating suggests an age of 4.9 Ma for the base of the Yorktown 4.9 Ma [55]. Taken together, these observations indicate an age bracket of 4.9–4.4 Ma for B. ricei. Note that, while the exact position of the horizon that

•12

•yielded B. ricei within the Yorktown Formation is unknown, Westgate and Whitmore speculated that the specimen was recovered from the Morgarts Beach Member [50]. The latter has been strontium dated to 3.0–2.8 Ma [55], thus seemingly precluding its correlation with zone N19 – although the top of N19 still falls within the range of uncertainty of the Sr dates. The type specimen might therefore have been derived from the somewhat older Rushmere Member of the Yorktown Formation, which has been strontium dated to 4.9–4.6 Ma [55] and is also exposed in Rice‟s pit. (Marx and Fordyce, 2015)

• member-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: shallow subtidal; fine-grained, argillaceous, sandy siltstone

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: original phosphate

Reposited in the USNM

Collection methods: surface (in situ),

Primary reference: J. W. Westgate and F. C. Whitmore. 2002. Balaena ricei, a new species of bowhead whale from the Yorktown Formation (Pliocene) of Hampton, Virginia. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 93:295-312 [M. Uhen/M. Uhen]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 58986: authorized by Mark Uhen, entered by Mark Uhen on 03.03.2006, edited by Marko Manojlovic and Evangelos Vlachos

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)