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Age And Paleontology Of The Turin Pit Locality, Monona County, Iowa, Samantha Wright

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Turin Pit locality (Monona county, Iowa) has been known to paleontologists since 1908, yet the age of the fauna has been unclear. Early paleontologists considered Turin Pit to date to a pre-Illinoian interglacial (the “Aftonian).” Subsequent researchers suggested it dated to the last glaciation. This study provides a partial list of mammals in the Turin Pit fauna, and together with stratigraphic information, uses the known age ranges of taxa to estimate an age for the assemblage. The presence of Mammuthus, Aenocyon, and Castoroides combined with a magnetically-reversed till located stratigraphically above fossil-bearing deposits, suggest the Turin Pit …