Potomac River - at Bull Bluff (Paleocene of the United States)

Also known as USGS Locality 26340

Where: King George County, Virginia (38.3° N, 77.3° W: paleocoordinates 39.0° N, 58.9° W)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Paspotansa Member (Aquia Formation), Late/Upper Paleocene (58.7 - 55.8 Ma)

• 25 feet thick bed; Section has been modified from Clark and Martin (1901) because of the present slumping at the locality

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: coastal; unlithified, fine-grained, glauconitic, black, green sandstone

• Sand, olive-black (5 Y 2/1), fresh near water level, glauconitic, fine; Turritella numerous in several beds; Ostrea sinuosa, Crassatellites alaeformis, and Cucullaea gigantea common

Size class: macrofossils

Reposited in the USGS

Primary reference: L. W. Ward. 1985. Stratigraphy and Characteristic Mollusks of the Pamunkey Group (Lower Tertiary) and the Old Church Formation of the Chesapeake Group-Virginia Coastal Plain. United States Geological Survey Professional Paper (1346)1-77 [A. Miller/D. Buick]more details

Purpose of describing collection: biostratigraphic analysis

PaleoDB collection 60952: authorized by Arnold Miller, entered by Devin Buick on 28.05.2006

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Gastropoda
 Cerithioidea - Turritellidae
Turritella sp. Lamarck 1799 turret shell
Bivalvia
 Ostreida - Ostreidae
 Arcida - Cucullaeidae
Cucullaea gigantea Conrad 1862 clam
 Carditida - Crassatellidae
"Crassatellites alaeformis" = Bathytormus alaeformis
"Crassatellites alaeformis" = Bathytormus alaeformis Conrad 1830 clam