Cayo Agua Island: Piacenzian, Panama

List of taxa
Where & when
Geology
Taphonomy & methods
Metadata & references
Taxonomic list
Malacostraca - Decapoda - Parthenopidae
Platylambrus spinulatus Collins and Todd 2005
Malacostraca - Decapoda - Diogenidae
Petrochirus bouvieri Rathbun 1918
see common names

Geography
Country:Panama State/province:Bocas del Toro
Coordinates: 9.2° North, 82.0° West (view map)
Paleocoordinates:9.1° North, 81.6° West
Basis of coordinate:estimated from map
Time
Period:Neogene Epoch:Pliocene
Stage:Piacenzian 10 m.y. bin:Cenozoic 6
Key time interval:Piacenzian
Age range of interval:3.60000 - 2.58000 m.y. ago
Stratigraphy
Formation:Cayo Agua
Stratigraphy comments: Underlying/Overlying/Equivalent Unit(s): The Cayo Agua Formation is equivalent in age to the upper part of the Shark Hole Point and the lower part of the Escudo de Veraguas Formations and represents a shallower water facies. No contacts are known. Thickness: 293 m according to Section 19 in Coates (1999). (From LeBlanc 2021).
Lithology and environment
Primary lithology:bioturbation,coarse,pebbly,volcaniclastic,shelly/skeletal muddy,silty sandstone
Lithology description: This locality is located in the very upper part of the lower Cayo Agua Formation (Practically the middle according to Coates et al, 2005). It consists lithologically of pervasively bioturbated, muddy, shelly, pebbly, silty sandstone with common horizons of abundant thick-shelled mollusks and ahermatypic corals. Occasional horizons of pebble conglomerate and very coarse grained volcaniclastic sandstone are common in the middle of the formation. Compared to the Shark Hole and Escudo de Veraguas formations, the Cayo Agua Formation is consistently coarser-grained, with common basalt grains and granules, phosphatic pebbles, and wood fragments. A distinctive marker bed of corals occurs near the top of the formation and is well exposed at Tiburon Point and the unnamed point to the south. (Coates et al., 2005; Todd and Collins, 2005).
Environment:marine indet.
Geology comments: The formation as a whole represents shallow onshore and offshore siliciclastic shelf sediments deposited anywhere between 10-80 m. The lack of discernible bedding, with mollusks being deposited in all different orientations, suggests a slump deposit from the post-mortem transport of mixed assemblages from various paleoenvironments. Middle neritic conditions and carbonate shoal have also been suggested. (Todd and Collins, 2005; Vermeij and Collins, 1988; Coates et al., 2005; Collins et al., 1993).
Taphonomy
Modes of preservation:body
Size of fossils:macrofossils
Collection methods and comments
Reason for describing collection:taxonomic analysis
Metadata
Database number:228686
Authorizer:J. Wolfe Enterer:A. Lynch
Modifier:A. Lynch
Created:2022-12-27 21:06:13 Last modified:2022-12-28 22:12:53
Access level:the public Released:2022-12-27 21:06:13
Creative Commons license:CC BY
Reference information

Primary reference:
32674. J. A. Todd and J. S. H. Collins. 2005. Neogene and Quaternary crabs (Crustacea, Decapoda) collected from Costa Rica and Panama by members of the Panama Paleontology Project. Bulletin of the Mizunami Fossil Museum 32:53-85 [A. Hendy/A. Hendy]