Age and Stratigraphic Correlation of the Raysor Formation, Late Pliocene, South Carolina

Abstract

Mollusks and foraminifers from the type section of the Raysor Formation in the Coastal Plain of South Carolina were obtained from collections in the National Museum of Natural History. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.. and the Charleston Museum, Charleston, South Carolina. Analysis of the molluscan taxa shows the unit to be correlative with the Rushmere and Morgarts Beach Members of the Yorktown Formation in Virginia and North Carolina. Planktic foraminifers in the Raysor indicate an equivalency with Blow's (1969) Zone N20 [=Berggren, et al. (1983) Zone PL3]: this equivalency would suggest that the unit is lower upper Pliocene. The Raysor was deposited on a shallow shelf in a setting that was temperate at first, but which quickly warmed to subtropical.