Paleocommunities of the Yorktown Formation (Pliocene) of Virginia

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Paleocommunities of the Yorktown Formation (Pliocene) of Virginia i TITLE Paleocommunities of the Yorktown Formation (Pliocene) of Virginia Gwen M. Daley Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Geological Sciences Richard K. Bambach (Chair) J Bret Bennington Lauck W. Ward Arnold I. Miller Michal Kowalewski August 6th, 1999 Blacksburg, Virginia Keywords: Paleocommunity, Molluscan Paleoecology, Yorktown Formation Copyright 1999, Gwen M. Daley ii Paleocommunities of the Yorktown Formation (Pliocene) of Virginia by Gwen M. Daley R.K. Bambach, Chairman Department of Geological Sciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (ABSTRACT) The fossiliferous Yorktown Formation (Pliocene) of Virginia was used as a natural laboratory for testing predictions of ecological and evolutionary theories. Specifically, coordinated stasis and ecological locking models have testable elements that can be analyzed using data from the Yorktown Formation. The ecological locking model requires that species within an ecosystem have strong interactions in order to stabilize morphologies of multiple lineages over millions of years. Species intereactions that are strong enough to do this should also be strong enough to be a major ordering force on the composition of paleocommunities. Single and replicate samples were taken from 30 cm stratigraphic intervals within the Rushmere and Morgart's Beach Members at several localities. A total of 142 samples were collected from 5 localites, which yielded 29,000 specimens belonging to 140 species of bivalves, gastropods, and other taxonomic groups. Principle components analysis, ANOVA, MANOVA, and other analyses were used to test the occurence and recurrence of local paleocommunities, paleocommunities, and paleocommunity types. Three paleocommunity types which occured under specific paleoenvironmental conditions were defined: rubbly bottom, transitional, and muddy bottom. Within a single locality samples from the same paleocommunity type yielded very similar faunal compositions, based on the relative abundance of the contained species. However, samples from the same paleocommunity type but different localities displayed low similarity values. This is consistant with local paleoenvironmental control of paleocommunity composition being more important than strong species interactions. The pattern predicted by the model of ecologic locking is absent from these Yorktown paleocommunities. iii A guild analysis was performed on the data to test whether the same types of organisms recurred in a predictable fashion under similar paleoenvironmental conditions. While the guild structure of the rubbly bottom paleocommunity type did recur at several localities, the guild structure of the other paleocommunity types varied greatly from place to place. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The gentlemen that agreed to serve on my committee have my deepest appreciation for their service. I would like to thank my chairman, Richard Bambach. It wasn't easy, and it frequently wasn't fun, but somehow you got me through it all. Thanks are also due to Buck Ward of the Virginia Museum of Natural History for being there from the beginning. I would like to thank Gerald Johnson, Ken Eriksson, and Norm Gilinsky for serving on my committee and helping to shape my research project, even if we did not finish together. My deepest appreciation goes to J Bret Bennington, Arnie Miller, and Michal Kowalewski for coming in to pinch hit in the late innings. Many of the other graduate students at Virginia Tech lent support and pitched in when I needed help. My special thanks go to Anne Davis, for more reasons than I have room to list. Thanks are due to Sam Peavy and Jim Dixon for numerous baseball games and other things. Amy Parker has my thanks for help with field work, and a constant stream of the funniest stories I have ever heard. My Yorktown-studying colleagues Susan Barbour and Bob Van Gundy have my thanks for sharing their insights. Rod Brame and Bob Taylor served as sounding boards, as did Brian Coffey, Aus Al'Tawil, Taury Smith, and a cast of thousands. I would like to thank Andy Bush for being a good colleague and friend. Without support from my family, I would not have reached this point. My mother and father have always supported me in whatever I wanted to do, even when they were at a loss as to why. The relationship I have developed with my sister since we grew up has been a source of strength for me. Listing the reasons which I have to thank my husband would be a dissertation in itself, starting with his willingness to follow me to both Cincinnati and Blacksburg, and continuing with a laundry list of ways in which he has supported me in my studies over the years. Finally, I would like to send a special thanks to the folks associated with the Roanoke Express professional hockey team of the East Coast Hockey League (in no particular order): Karen H., Tommy B., Pierre P., Barbara M., Mitch P., Tim H., Tim W., Chris A., Darren A., Shad R., Tom and Vicki H., and the rest of the crew. I became the website manager for the team during my time at Virginia Tech, and you made it a privilege. Funding for this project came from a number of small grants from the Geological Society of America and the Paleontological Society. v TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE ...............................................................................................i ABSTRACT........................................................................................ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................................................iv TABLE OF CONTENTS .........................................................................v TABLES ............................................................................................ix FIGURES ..........................................................................................xiii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ...........................................................1 History and Overview...........................................................1 Definitions ........................................................................2 Life and Fossil Assemblages ..........................................3 Local Communities and Local Paleocommunities...................4 Communities and Paleocommunities .................................5 Community Types and Paleocommunity Types.....................6 Coordinated Stasis and Ecological Locking .........................6 Brief Outline of the Dissertation................................................15 Chapter 2: The Yorktown Formation.................................15 Chapter 3: Species Accumulation Analyses..........................15 Chapter 4: Diversity of Yorktown Samples..........................15 Chapter 5: Paleocommunity Analysis................................15 Chapter 6: Guild Analysis .............................................16 Chapter 7: Summary and Conclusions ...............................16 CHAPTER 2: THE YORKTOWN FORMATION ............................................19 Prehistory of the Yorktown Formation........................................19 Yorktown Biostratigraphy ......................................................21 Tectonic Setting of the Atlantic Coastal Plain.................................23 Paleoclimatology of the Pliocene...............................................25 Relative Sea Level Record of Atlantic Coastal Plain Strata .................26 Collection and Processing ......................................................31 CHAPTER 3: SPECIES ACCUMULATION..................................................40 Sampling for Completeness ....................................................40 Analysis...........................................................................41 Discussion ........................................................................46 CHAPTER 4: DIVERSITY OF YORKTOWN FOSSIL ASSEMBALGES................62 Diversity ..........................................................................62 Analysis...........................................................................64 vi Discussion ........................................................................69 CHAPTER 5: PALEOCOMMUNITY ANALYSIS OF THE YORKTOWN ..............89 Overview of Statistical Analyses...............................................89 Species constancy................................................................89 Principle Components Analysis................................................90 The Correlation Matrix ..........................................................92 MANOVA ........................................................................93 Analysis...........................................................................94 PCA of Entire Data Set..........................................................94 Paleocommunity Classification and Analysis.................................96 Rubbly Bottom Paleocommunity Type (RBPT) .............................97 PCA ......................................................................98 Correlation Analysis....................................................99 Constancy Index ........................................................101 MANOVA ...............................................................102 The Muddy Bottom Paleocommunity Type (MBPT)........................103 PCA ......................................................................105 Correlation Analysis....................................................106
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