Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Stratigraphic And Paleontologic Studies Of Paleocene And Oligocene Carbonate Facies Of The Eastern Gulf Coastal Plain, Jonathan Russel Bryan

Doctoral Dissertations

Shallow marine Paleogene carbonates of the Eastern Gulf Coastal Plain contain a variety of unique and largely undocumented facies. The Late Paleocene Salt Mountain Limestone of southwestern Alabama is a coral-algal-sponge buildup composed of large foram-algal packstone, algal bindstone, and sponge-coral bafflestone. Abundant coralline algae and a low diversity coral fauna are characteristic of Paleocene reefs, but sponges are rare in earliest Tertiary sediments. Their abundance in the Salt Mountain could indicate an opportunistic response of sponges as reef constructors after the extinction of rudist-coral communities in the Late Cretaceous.

The Bridgeboro Limestone, a rhodolith and coral-bearing limestone in southwestern …