Checklist of Megafossils From the James City Formation (Lower Pleistocene) at Johnson Point, Craven County, North Carolina

Abstract

Richly fossiliferous beds exposed along the northern edge of Johnson Point, south shore of the Neuse River (Figure 1), have been the focus of several recent studies (Miller, 1986a, 1986b; Zullo and Miller, 1986; Woods, 1987; Miller and DuBar, 1988). The locality was first described by DuBar et al. (1974, p. 111) as the site of an extensive Crepidula fornicata biostrome within the James City Formation. Because of the interest being lavished on the locality it is important to have a catalogue available of all the mega fossil remains that have been collected to date. Moreover, in a geographic area where fossil localities in river banks are notoriously evanescent, full documentation of species occurrences at significant sites like Johnson Point is clearly desirable. The purpose of my note is to provide this documentation in the form of a stratigraphic checklist (Table 1) together with illustrations of the more common species (Plate I). The list includes rare faunal elements not reported in paleoecologic studies (Zullo and Miller, 1986· Miller and DuBar, 1988). Illustrations should be useful in the recognition of James City beds in isolated outcrops in the Neuse River valley. All fossils in this list came from a series of one-litre bulk sediment samples taken from one part of the outcrop in 1982 after undercutting of the river bank had exposed unweathered beds. The aim at that time was to sample each bedding unit present in the fresh exposure. Figure l shows the sampled action and Table 1 contains fossil inventories for each of the samples. Additional collecting in this way no doubt would lengthen the roster, but the present compilation al least provides a preliminary checklist.