BIVALVE  CRINKLE  BED

 

The term crinkle bed has been used to refer to some bivalve shell pavements.  The bedding plane shown below is a good example.  This is a weathered, friable mudshale derived from the Mississippian-aged Hinton Formation of West Virginia, USA.  The surface is packed with decalcified clam shell fossils that appear to be consistent with Modiolus (Mollusca, Bivalvia, Pteriomorphia, Mytiloida, Mytilidae) and Septimyalina (Mollusca, Bivalvia, Pteriomorphia, Pterioida, Pteriina, Myalinidae).  Low-diversity, high-abundance fossil surfaces such as this are often inferred to be from marginal marine facies.

 

Stratigraphy: Hinton Formation, middle Chesterian Series (= lower Namurian Series), Upper Mississippian.

 

Locality: Oakvale School outcrop - roadcut through Divide Ridge, on western side of Rt. 112, across from Oakvale School, immediately south of Rt. 460, far-southeastern Mercer County, far-southern West Virginia, USA.

 

Bivalve crinkle bed (above & below; ~12 cm across) - a decalcified bivalve shell pavement.

Above: high-angle illumination

Below: low-angle illumination 

 


 

Bivalve crinkle bed (low-angle illumination; ~6 cm across) - a decalcified bivalve shell pavement.

 


 

Bivalve crinkle bed (low-angle illumination; ~7 cm across) - a decalcified bivalve shell pavement.

 


 

Hinton Formation - Oakvale School outcrop in southern West Virginia, looking west (Ohio State University geologists for scale).  The bivalve crinkle bed shown above is from this roadcut.  The rocks here are overturned beds of the Hinton Formation (Upper Mississippian).  Stratigraphic up is to the right (north).  Rocks are dipping ~50° to the south.  The beds are mostly reddish and greenish-gray mudshales with some resistant siltstone & sandstone interbeds.  Some of the sandstones have shale rip-up clasts.  Well-defined burrows can be found in some of the hard mudshales and sandstones.  Observed body fossil occurrences here include bivalve pavements (see above) and poorly defined, carbonized plant fossil fragments in the shales.  Some loose shale & sandstone samples have fault slickenlines.

 


 

Some info. from:

 

Hoare (1993) - Journal of Paleontology 67(3).

 

Vance et al. (2006) - Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 38(7): 67.

 


 

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