Carolinapecten eboreus (Conrad, 1833)

Pliocene, Piacenzian Age, Duplin Formation

Collection Location: Eagle Point Pit, Stokes Sand and Gravel, Darlington County, South Carolina

Dimensions: Length - 57 mm, Height - 55 mm

Identification - Pleiocene Fossils of South-Carolina (1855-1856) (1974 PRI Reprint): Page 28, Plate 11(Pecten)
Report of the North-Carolina Geological Survey (1858): Page 279, Figure 197(Pecten)
Florida Geological Survey Bulletin 8 (1932): Page 60, Plate 12(Chlamys (Plagioctenium) eboreus eboreus)
USGS PP 199 (1944, 1948): Page 36, Plate 7(Chlamys (Aequipecten) eborea)
Virginia Publication 127 (1993): Page 24, Plate 4

#2308 Pectinacea / Pectinidae

I sent an email to Dr. Campbell to ask about the identity of this scallop because I though the ribs looked more like the Argopecten comparilis.  Dr. Campbell sent the following reply on 8/10/05 and I changed the ID on this website:

Your illustrated specimen is Carolinapecten eboreus.  This is the only scallop species I have discovered in true Duplin localities.  The Eagle Point locality I first judged to be Duplin (3.2 million years old), but the more species I recover, the stranger it gets.  Scallop diversity such as I listed earlier this morning is more typical of the Raysor fauna (>3.8 million), and the Glycymeris americana abberans is otherwise known only from the Raysor and its equivalents.  However there are major mixed signals provided by the “index” species, some loudly claiming “Duplin”,  others declaring “Raysor”.  Were the “Raysor” elements worn, we could conclude stratigraphic mixing,  but sometimes the “older” is fresh shell, and the “younger” is worn and broken. Unlike the Berkeley Quarry Raysor with chalky shell preservation and much loss of species to disintegration, Eagle Point preserves unaltered aragonitic shell.  Maybe we are seeing true Raysor fauna, maybe we have an intermediate fauna, perhaps dating in the 3.4 million range.

Yours,  Lyle Campbell

In another email on 8/10/05, Dr Campbell shared the following information:

We have single specimens of

Amusium mortoni

Euvola hemicyclicus

Chlamys sp.

Argopecten comparilis

And small fragments of Chesapecten sp.