NMB Locality 15910 - Rio Gurabo (Miocene of Dominican Republic)

Where: Dominican Republic (19.5° N, 71.2° W: paleocoordinates 19.4° N, 70.4° W)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

When: Sandstone Member (Cercado Formation), Late/Upper Miocene (11.6 - 5.3 Ma)

• Overlying Formation: Gurabo Formation. Underlying Formation: Unconformably overlies the Baitoa Formation. Thickness: 158m. (Saunders et al., 1986; McNeill et al., 2012; Lutz et al., 2008).

Environment/lithology: shoreface; coarse-grained, shelly/skeletal, silty sandstone

• The Cercado Formation on Rio Gurabo represents nearshore to shallow shelf, or nearshore, lagoon to reef settings with deposition of no more than 20 meters. More specifically, there are seagrass-associated gastropods that most likely lived in thickets of Thalassia on the sea bottom, possibly associated with sand shoals, as well. Coral reefs were also present, and were ultimately buried by siliciclastic material. (Abdollahian 2015; Saunders et al., 1986; McNeill et al., 2012; Vokes 1989a; Waller 2011).
• Saunders et al., 1986, describes this locality as being a "20-25 cm thick, silty band full of mollusks." The locality is in the upper section of the Cercado Formation at Rio Gurabo, which is dominated by sands and silty sands. The sands are often course-grained and show scour structures and planar cross-bedding. Amphistega are common and often concentrated along the cross-beds where they stand out as lines. Bioturbation is intense, and there are frequent burrows with shell debris.

Size class: macrofossils

Primary reference: J. S. H. Collins, R. W. Portell, and S. K. Donovan. 2009. Decapod crustaceans from the Neogene of the Caribbean: diversity, distribution and prospectus. Scripta Geologica 138:55-111 [A. Hendy/A. Hendy]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 228610: authorized by Joanna Wolfe, entered by Arthur Lynch on 17.12.2022

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names
Malacostraca
 Decapoda - Calappidae
Calappa flammea
Calappa flammea Herbst 1794 box crab
 Decapoda - Aethridae
Hepatus guraboensis
Hepatus guraboensis Collins 2009 crab
 Decapoda - Leucosiidae
Persephona prepunctata
Persephona prepunctata Rathbun 1919 crab
 Decapoda - Diogenidae
Petrochirus inequalis
Petrochirus inequalis Rathbun 1919 hermit crab