Where: Smith County, Mississippi (32.0° N, 89.4° W: paleocoordinates 32.3° N, 82.9° W)
• coordinate based on nearby landmark
• outcrop-level geographic resolution
When: Mint Spring Formation, Rupelian (33.9 - 28.1 Ma)
• The Mint Spring Formation consists of fossiliferous sands that lie disconformably above the estuarine clays and sands of the Forest Hill Formation. This contact is characterized by shell gravels that are largely comprised of the bivalve "Callista", by lithified clay clasts bored by the bivalve "Jouannetia", and by shark and ray teeth. Lithified clay clasts are especially common at the base of the Mint Spring Formation along the Chickasawhay River in Wayne County. Here clay clasts are numerous enough to have produced a cobble bottom on the Mint Spring sea floor. These clasts formed a hard substrate utilized by a variety of encrusting organisms. The sands of the Mint Spring are moderately clean and often show cross-bedding. These sands indicate a near-shore shelf enviroment. At localities 89 and 90 in Smith County these marine sand facies have well-preserved fossils.
• formation-level stratigraphic resolution
Environment/lithology: offshore; poorly lithified, conglomeratic, calcareous limestone and wackestone
Size class: mesofossils
Preservation: original aragonite, original calcite
Collection methods: bulk, mechanical,
• bivalves only.
Primary reference: D. T. Dockery. 1982. Lower Oligocene Bivalvia of the Vicksburg Group in Mississippi. Mississippi Department of Natural Resources Bureau of Geology 123:1-261 [L. Ivany/S. DeLong/M. Uhen]more details
Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis
PaleoDB collection 5941: authorized by Linda Ivany, entered by Sarah DeLong on 01.01.2000
Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)
Taxonomic list
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•Categories are listed in the comments field, absolute abundances are given in the abundance field.
•Since taxa with greater than 99 specimens were not counted with absolute abundances, these were reported with category "A" for abundant.
unclassified | |
Gastropoda | |
Sablea minuta snail | |
Serpulorbis sp. Sasso 1827 worm shell | |
"Tropiscurcula caseyi" = Tropisurcula
"Tropiscurcula caseyi" = Tropisurcula snail | |
"Oliva mississippiensis" = Agaronia mississippiensis
"Oliva mississippiensis" = Agaronia mississippiensis Conrad 1848 snail | |
Agatrix mississippiensis, "Olssonella elongata n. sp." = Axelella
Agatrix mississippiensis nutmeg
"Olssonella elongata n. sp." = Axelella snail | |
Microsurcula mentha n. sp. ribbed mitre | |
Acteon menthafons n. sp., Acteon punctatus n. sp.
Acteon menthafons n. sp. snail
Acteon punctatus n. sp. snail | |
Scaphopoda | |
Dentalium opaculum tusk shell | |
Bivalvia | |
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"Venericardia carsonensis" = Venericardia (Rotundicardia) carsonensis
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Astarte menthifontis n. sp.
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Tellina subprotexta n. sp.
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Agnocardia glebosum, Trigoniocardia silvacollina n. sp., "Nemocardium diversum" = Nemocardium (Nemocardium) diversum, Laevicardium leptorimum n. sp., Trachycardium eversum
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"Diplodonta eburnea" = Diplodonta (Diplodonta) eburnea
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Kelliella rufaripa n. sp.
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Corbula engonata, "Corbula laqueata" = Varicorbula laqueata
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"Eburneopecten subminutus" = Eburneopecten (Eburneopecten) subminutus, "Chlamys menthifontis" = Chlamys (Lyropecten) menthifontis
"Eburneopecten subminutus" = Eburneopecten (Eburneopecten) subminutus Aldrich 1903 scallop C category
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Crenella fenestra n. sp.
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Merisca aequistriata | |
"Tellina lintea" = Merisca aequistriata
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