Molluscan Zone 5, Rushmere Mbr, Yorktown Fm - Sunken Meadow Creek (Pliocene of the United States)

Where: Surry County, Virginia (37.2° N, 76.9° W: paleocoordinates 37.3° N, 76.3° W)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Rushmere Member (Yorktown Formation), Late/Upper Pliocene (3.6 - 2.6 Ma)

• Unit D in Ward 1992 (Fig. 11), ~2.0 m of sand. Collection from Rushmere Mbr of Yorktown Fm, which overlies a 2 m thick unit of Sunken Meadow Mbr, Eastover Fm and underlies Pleistocene sand gravel.

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: coastal; unlithified, shelly/skeletal sandstone

• No geologic or environmental data provided in text. Presumably accumulated during a successive transgression following post Eastover Fm regression. Appears to contain a normal marine fauna although of low diversity.
• Sand, shelly, fine, slighly phosphatic.

Size class: macrofossils

Reposited in the USNM

• Most material appears to be reposited in USNM and USGS collections

Primary reference: L. W. Ward. 1992. Molluscan biostratigraphy of the Miocene Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain of North America. Virginia Museum of Natural History 2 [A. Miller/A. Hendy]more details

Purpose of describing collection: biostratigraphic analysis

PaleoDB collection 59298: authorized by Austin Hendy, entered by Austin Hendy on 25.03.2006

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

• Probably not exhaustive, but a summary of the common and abundant forms from unit. Modern nomenclature utilized with species level assignments.
Show authors, comments, and common names
Bivalvia
 Pectinida - Pectinoidae
Chesapecten madisonius
Chesapecten madisonius Say 1824 scallop
 Ostreida - Ostreidae
Conradostrea sculpturata, Ostrea compressirostra
Conradostrea sculpturata Conrad 1840 oyster
Ostrea compressirostra Say 1824 oyster
Subspecies: O. compressirostra raveneli