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A Pre-Illinoian Pleistocene Fossil Assemblage from Near Connersville, Southeastern Indiana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Barry B. Miller
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242
Donald F. Palmer
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242
William D. McCoy
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geography, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 10039
Alison J. Smith
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242
Mona L. Colburn
Affiliation:
Illinois State Museum, Springfield, Illinois 62706

Abstract

A fossil assemblage containing molluscs, ostracodes, and fish has been recovered from lacustrine sediments from near Connersville, southeastern Indiana. The reversed remanent magnetic signature of the sediments and the extent of isoleucine epimerization in molluscan shell protein indicate a pre-Illinoian age for the fossils. The fauna includes four taxa of fish, Coregonus sp., cf. Prosopium sp., cf. Thymallus arcticus, and Catostomus sp.; four taxa of ostracodes, Cytherissa lacustris, Candona caudata, Cyclocypris ampla, and Candona sp.; and 28 taxa of molluscs. Elements of the aquatic molluscs, fish, and ostracodes suggest a cool-water lake (8° to 16°C). The terrestrial molluscs include boreal species that now reach the southern limits of their range in the Great Lakes region near the north shore of Lake Superior and imply average summer temperatures of about 15°C near the lake margins. The lake may have been formed when West Lebanon ice advanced into the Anderson-New Castle Buried Valley system which drained northwest as a tributary of the Lafayette Bedrock Valley System.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
University of Washington

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