Pascagoula fossil site:
The first significant vertebrate fossil site in the
Pascagoula Formation was discovered at a location in the Tunica
Hills in southeastern Louisiana during June, 2005. A mastodon
palate with teeth was initially reported to Judith Schiebout by
Kerry Dicharry, an amateur naturalist. Subsequent field surveys
revealed abundant large and medium sized mammal remains, including
two mastodon tusks associated with the palate (one nearly
seven-foot-long) and an associated humerus, femur, pelvis, ribs
and part of the tail of Teleoceras, a large, short legged
rhinoceros. Other animals tentatively identified include a dwarf
rhinoceros, two taxa of horses, a small llama-like artiodactyl, a
pronghorn-like antilocaprid, and fishes, turtles, and alligators.
In a novel application, Brooks Ellwood is attempting to use
resistivity surveying to locate buried large bones.
Preliminary examination of the blue-green, clayey silt lithology and trace fossils (e.g., burrows and trails) of the Pascagoula Formation at the Tunica Hills Site suggest that the depositional paleoenvironment was an estuary. Palynomorphs and phytoliths are under study by John Wrenn and may shed light on the flora, paleoenvironment, diet of the animals, and age.
The Pascagoula Formation in Louisiana has been dated on stratigraphic position because no fossils have been reported from it. The dwarf rhino suggests an age no younger than Miocene, as these animals became extinct in North America at the end of the Miocene. The vertebrate fauna so far is consistent with a late Miocene age, probably younger than Miocene vertebrate sites in the Castor Creek Member of the Fleming Formation on Fort Polk in western Louisiana.
