UCMP IP12603, Cowlitz River (Eocene of the United States)

Where: Lewis County, Washington (46.4° N, 122.9° W: paleocoordinates 47.3° N, 109.4° W)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Cowlitz Formation, Bartonian (41.3 - 38.0 Ma)

• Cowlitz Formation in its type area spans upper P12 to P14 foram zones. Calcareous nannoplankton most precisely age this unit, placing the Cowlitz fauna in nannoplankton zones NP16 and NP17 (Martini, 1971) and upper CP14 (Oklada and Bukry, 1980), which correlates to the late middle Eocene (40-43 Ma) age (Berggren et al., 1992). Molluscan biostratigraphy suggests a "Tejon" stage age or "Cowlitz-Coaldeo" molluscan stage = Middle Eocene. Collection is assigned to the Bartonian=late Middle Eocene. Tuff bed in unit 3 of the Cowlitz Formation dated to 38.9± 0.1 Ma (39Ar/40Ar) (Irving et al.,1996) and three 39Ar/40Ar age dates of 38.64±0.40 (south Abernathy Mtn.), 37.44±0.45 (west Bebe Mtn.), and 36.85 ± 0.46 Ma (east Bebe Mtn.) from the overlying Grays River volcanics bracket the upper age of the formation.

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: offshore; lithified, bioturbated, glauconitic mudstone

• Upper part Cowlitz unit 4 of Payne (1998), outer shelf to upper bathyal on the basis of molluscan assemblages in Nesbitt (1979).

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: mold/impression

Collected by J. Wyatt Durham; reposited in the UCMP

Primary reference: A. K. Miller and H. R. Downs. 1950. Tertiary nautiloids of the Americas: supplement. Journal of Paleontology 24:1-18 [M. Clapham/M. Clapham]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 180392: authorized by Matthew Clapham, entered by Matthew Clapham on 15.07.2016

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Cephalopoda
 Nautilida - Hercoglossidae
Cimomia hesperia n. sp. Miller and Downs 1950 nautiloid