05/14/2026
🤯DID YOU KNOW....
⏳During the Eocene larger benthic foraminifera used to live in carbonate platforms, where we now know as Florida state?
Recently published:
BIOSTRATIGRAPHY AND DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEMATICS OF LARGER BENTHIC FORAMINIFERA FROM THE OCALA LIMESTONE, SOUTH FLORIDA
The diagnostic systematics and stratigraphic ranges of larger benthic foraminifera from a section of the Ocala Limestone were reviewed and compared with their other occurrences in the Americas and Caribbean.
Eighty-four meters of the upper member, as indicated by the lithology,were recovered from a core drilled in Highlands County in the northwestern part of the South Florida region. The mud-dominated facies is late Eocene, highest Priabonian, as shown by calcareous nannofossil biostratigraphy and Sr isotope ages.
The absence of the lower member could be explained by a late Eocene southward transgression as far as present-day northern South m Florida. The 112 samples of larger benthic foraminifera represent a shallow marine assemblage that includes Heterostegina ocalana, Lepidocyclina ocalana varieties, L. chaperi, L. pustulosa, Nummulites willcoxi, N. striatoreticulatus, N. floridensis, Pseudophragmina cf. P. flintensis, and P. cf. P. citrensis. Composite stratigraphic records of the taxa show middle late Eocene ranges for all but Lepidocyclina chaperi, which is apparently restricted to the late Eocene to earliest Oligocene in the Floridian-Caribbean region and thus a potential age indicator for the neotropics to subtropics.
🤓WANT TO KNOW MORE?
Journal of Foraminiferal Research, 55(4), 356-374.
Powell, J. B., Robinson, E., & Collins, L. S.
(2025). Biostratigraphy and diagnostic systematics of larger benthic foraminifera from the Ocala Limestone, South Florida.
https://doi.org/10.61551/gsjfr.55.4.356