Coon Creek Formation
Geologic formation located in the U.S. / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Coon Creek Formation or Coon Creek Tongue is a geologic unit and Konservat-Lagerstätte located in western Tennessee and extreme northeast Mississippi.[1] It is a sedimentary sandy marl deposit, Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) in age, about 70 million years old. The formation is renowned for its pristine fossils of Late Cretaceous marine invertebrates, including gastropods, bivalves, decapod crustaceans, and ammonites, particularly at Coon Creek in McNairy County, Tennessee, which the formation is named for. It is also known for producing fosslis of marine vertebrates, such as mosasaurs and plesiosaurs. Notable fossils from this formation is the gastropod Turritella, the bivalve Pterotrigonia thoracica (the state fossil of Tennessee), as well as other fossils such as crabs.
Coon Creek | |
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Stratigraphic range: Early Maastrichtian | |
Type | Formation or member |
Overlies | Selma Chalk |
Lithology | |
Other | Limestone, marl, sand, clay |
Location | |
Coordinates | 34.4°N 88.9°W / 34.4; -88.9 |
Approximate paleocoordinates | 38.0°N 66.2°W / 38.0; -66.2 |
Region | Tennessee, Mississippi |
Country | USA |
Type section | |
Named for | Coon Creek (Mississippi) |
Named by | B. Wade |
It is alternately considered its own geologic formation (as the Coon Creek Formation) or a distinct member of the wider Ripley Formation (as the Coon Creek Member or the Coon Creek Tongue).[1][2]