Deep Cut (Cretaceous of the United States)

Where: New Castle County, Delaware (39.5° N, 75.7° W: paleocoordinates 39.0° N, 45.7° W)

• coordinate estimated from map

When: Merchantville Formation (Matawan Group), Early/Lower Campanian (83.5 - 70.6 Ma)

• formation-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: marine; fine-grained, glauconitic, micaceous, gray, blue, silty sandstone

• Dark gray to dark blue, very micaceous, glauconitic, sandy silt and silty fine sand. This formation has many burrows made by benthic organisms and contains numerous siderite nodules. It has an extensive invertebrate macrofauna has yielded large ammonites and numerous arthropods. The veretebrate remains are sparse but include many important finds including turtles, mosasaurs, pterosaurs, bony fish, as well as shark material. The sediments were deposited in an open marine, shallow water environment.

Size class: macrofossils

Primary reference: E. M. Lauginiger and E. F. Hartstein. 1983. A guide to fossil sharks, skates, and rays from the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal area, Delaware. Open File Report - Delaware Geological Survey 21:1-63 [M. Uhen/M. Shalap/M. Shalap]more details

Purpose of describing collection: general faunal/floral analysis

PaleoDB collection 126599: authorized by Mark Uhen, entered by Margaret Shalap on 09.04.2012, edited by Matthew Carrano and Matthew Clapham

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names
Reptilia
 Squamata - Mosasauridae
Halisaurus platyspondylus1
Halisaurus platyspondylus1 Marsh 1869 mosasaur
Chondrichthyes
 Rajiformes - Sclerorhynchidae
Ischyrhiza mira
Ischyrhiza mira Leidy 1856 ray
 Lamniformes - Mitsukurinidae
Scapanorhynchus texanus
Scapanorhynchus texanus Roemer 1852 goblin shark
 Lamniformes - Otodontidae
"Cretolamna appendiculata" = Cretalamna appendiculata
"Cretolamna appendiculata" = Cretalamna appendiculata Agassiz 1835 mackerel shark
Cephalopoda
 Ammonitida - Diplomoceratidae
Chesapeakiceras nodatum2
Chesapeakiceras nodatum2 Kennedy and Cobban 1993 ammonite
Cirroceras conradi (NJSM GP23099) in Lauginiger et al. (2014)
Gastropoda
 Sorbeoconcha - Naticidae
Gyrodes supraplicatus2
Gyrodes supraplicatus2 Conrad 1858 moon snail
1Gallagher 1993; 2Gane et al. 2016