A GUIDE TO THE FRANKSTOWN VERTEBRATE FOSSIL LOCALITY (UPPER CRETACEOUS), PRENTISS COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI Earl M. Manning and David T. Dockery III Plates illustrated by David B. White CIRCULAR 4 MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY OFFICE OF GEOLOGY S. Cragin Knox Director Jackson, Mississippi 1992 A GUIDE TO THE FRANKSTOWN VERTEBRATE FOSSIL LOCALITY (UPPER CRETACEOUS), PRENTISS COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI Earl M. Manning and David T. Dockery III Plates illustrated by David B. White CIRCULAR 4 MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY OFFICE OF GEOLOGY S. Cragin Knox Director Jackson, Mississippi 1992 Cover Illustration: Upper anterior tooth of the goblin shark Scapanorhynchus raphiodon texanus (Roemer, 1852). This is the most common tooth found at the Frankstown site. Suggested catalogingdata by the Office ofGeology Manning, Earl M. A guide to the Frankstown vertebrate fossil locality (Upper Cretaceous), PrentissCounty, Mississippi. (Circular 4/Mississippi Office of Geology) 1. Paleontology—Mississippi—Prentiss County. 2. Paleontology—Cretaceous—Mississippi. 3. Vertebrates, Fossil—Mississippi. 1. Dockery, David T. III. QE129 557.62 (QE 841) MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY Commissioners Thomas L. Goldman, Chairman Meridian HenryWeiss, Vice Chairman Columbus Earl F.Boyd Tylertown AlvisHunt Jackson Henry F. Laird, Jr Gulfport R. B. (Dick) Rowers Tunica C Gale Singley Moss Point EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR J. I. Palmer, Jr. OFFICE OF GEOLOGY Administration S. Cragin Knox Director and State Geologist Michael B. E. Bograd Assistant Director Jeanlnman Business Manager Charlotte Davidson Map Sales Virginia Traweek Accounting/Auditing Tech. Gwen Davis Secretary Carolyn Woodley Librarian Surface Geology Mining and Reclamation David T. Dockery III Division Director Kevin E. Cahill Division Director George Puckett Geologist William H. Moore Geologist David Thompson Geologist Jay Duckworth Geologist Stephen L. Ingram Geologist Milton Everett Engineer Frank Inman Environmental Scientist Angie Herrington Secretary Environmental Geology Energy and Coastal Geology Curtis W. Stover Division Director Jack Moody Division Director John C Marble Geologis Rick Ericksen Geologist James C. Crellin Geologist Ed Sticker Geologist Scott Mixon Driller John Warner Geologist Archie McKenzie Driller Steve Oivanki Geologist Robert Ervin Environmental Aide Lindsey Stewart Geologist Barbara Yassin GIS Specialist STATE OF MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY JAMES I. PALMER, JR. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL June 4, 1992 Mr. Thomas L. Goldman, Chairman, and Members of the Commission Department of Environmental Quality Commissioners: The Office of Geology is pleased to transmit to you Circular 4, entitled "A Guide to the Frankstown Vertebrate Fossil Locality (Upper Cretaceous), Prentiss County, Mississippi," by Earl M. Manning and David T. Dockery III. This circular reports on fossils exposed during and after the excavation of the Highway 45 bypass around Frankstown, Mississippi. The abundance of fossil shark teeth uncovered at this excavation attracted national attention and drew people from distant states, as well as all parts of Mississippi, to collect fossils. The faculty of Booneville High School made a large collection of fossils from the Frankstown site and obtained a National Science Foundation SGER (Small Grants for Exploratory Research) grant to utilize this site as a laboratory for teaching their students about natural history. This was the first such grant ever to be awarded a high school. April 26, 1991, was designated as the day the Booneville High School students would collect fossils from the Frankstown excavation, and ABC News was present to film the event. This story was given national coverage on the ABC Sunday evening news (June 16, 1991). The publicity given to Booneville High School's Frankstown field trip did not go unnoticed by Booneville Mayor Nelwyn Murphy, who awarded keys to the city to the writers and others who contributed to the project. Booneville High School teacher Patsy Johnson played a major role in the school's involvement with the Frankstown site and has been recognized by the National Association of Geology Teachers as the "1992 Outstanding Earth Science Teacher for Mississippi." The Highway 45 excavation at Frankstown provided opportunities for professional scientists as well as for students and hobbyists. It opened a window into Mississippi's past to a time 75 million years ago when dinosaurs roamed the land and OFFICE OF GEOLOGY, P. Q BOX 20307, JACKSON, MS 39289-1307, (601) 961-5500, FAX (601) 961-5521 giant reptiles called mosasaurs .swam the oceans. Remains of these animals, which lived during the Campanian Stage of the Cretaceous Period, were deposited in the coastal sediments of the Frankstown area. Fossils from the Frankstown site are illustrated by artist drawings in twelve plates. They provide a means for both professionals and hobbyists to identify fossils collected from the site. The text gives information concerning 64 different fossil taxa listed from Frankstown as well as details on the local geology. Earl Manning, who has ten years experience with the American Museum of Natural History and nine years with the Louisiana State University Museum of Geoscience, is responsible for the discussion of the fossils. Both writers contributed to the discussion of the site's geology. This circular is written to be utilized by secondary students and the lay public. Respectfully submitted, S. Cragin Knox Director and State Geologist TABLE OFCONTENTS Page Introduction 1 Location of the Site 1 Stratigraphy 1 Ageof theSite 3 Collecting Methods 5 The Faunas 5 Listof the OysterBedBiota 6 List of the Shark Tooth Bed Biota 6 The OysterBed Biota 7 Microfossils 7 Larger Invertebrates 7 The Shark Tooth Bed Biota 8 Plants 8 Larger Invertebrates 8 Vertebrates 9 Chimaeroid 9 Sharks 10 Rays 11 Bony Fish 12 Reptiles 13 Taphonomy 14 Paleoecology 16 Acknowledgments 16 References 17 Plates 19 LIST OF FIGURES Page 1. Geologic time represented by the Frankstown site 2 2. Geologic mapof the Prentiss County area 3 3. Measured section on Highway 45 construction site 4 4. Petrified wood withpholad clam borings 9 5. Tooth ofthelarge Cretaceous bonyfish Xiphactinus 12 6. Shell fragment ofapleurosternid (?) turtle 13 7. Progressive weathering and dissolution ofshark teeth 15 TABLE 1. The biotas of the Frankstown site 6 A GUIDE TO THE FRANKSTOWN VERTEBRATE FOSSIL LOCALITY (UPPER CRETACEOUS), PRENTISS COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI Earl M. Manning David T. Dockery III INTRODUCTION raised roadbed on the north side. That kept the highway at an even grade, and lifted it above the This handbook was originally written for the flood plain. What made this road construction students of Booneville High School to help them different from that at other sites was that the top of understand the nature of the Frankstown site - its the hill contained two very concentrated beds of geological setting and its fossil faunas. Booneville fossils. Just below the graded surface of the roadbed High School recieved a grant from the National at the top of the hill, collectors discovered a bed full Science Foundation in 1990 to use the construction of shark teeth. Just above that layer, on the hillside siteon Highway 45at Frankstown as a laboratory for at the side of the road, an oyster bed could be seen. geological education in their school. This site has In spreading material from the hilltop containing gained both local and national attention for its fossil these two beds (mixed with less fossil-rich beds) vertebrates, mostly shark teeth, uncovered during across the bottom in the road construction, the road the highway construction. We hope that by using crew also made available a huge concentration of this handbook, students and collectors will be able to fossils over a mile-long stretch of roadbed. Through answer some of the questions they have about the the kindness of the construction company, the site, such as: What's been found there? Where can I roadbed was made available to Booneville High look for more fossils? Why are there so many fossils School students and fossil collectors from April 22 to here? How old are the fossils? How did land animals May 2,1991, to study and collect. It was later graded like dinosaurs get mixed with ocean animals like and the roadside was covered with soil and seeded sharks? Why are fossils like these only found in one with grass. small corner of Mississippi? Finally, and most Most fossil collectors who visited the important, howcan I identify the fossils I find at the Frankstown site collected from the surface of the raised roadbed north of Twenty Mile Creek. Fossils site? Though the excavation of Highway 45 at the here are out of place and do not show their Frankstown site has been completed and the roadbed is stratigraphicposition. To understand the geology of paved and the roadcuts are grassed over, future the site, in-placebeds need to be examined. excavations may again expose the shark tooth layerin the Frankstown area or in surrounding counties. This STRATIGRAPHY handbook will be useful also to those who have collected shark teeth and other vertebrate fossils Stratigraphy is the study of the layers, or strata, elsewhere in beds of similar age in northeastern of sediment or rock that make up the crust of the Mississippi. earth. Geologists, the people who study the earth's physical properties, divide rocks into three basic LOCATION OF THE SITE types: sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous. Igneous rocks are "fire" formed - lava and ash from Most fossils from the site have been either dug volcanoes, and rock cooled from molten rock deep in out of or picked up from the roadbed of the new the earth. Metamorphic rocks are heat and pressure extension of Highway 45,about seven milessouth of formed - those that have been altered by the Booneville, near the community of Frankstown, in processes of mountain building: slates, marbles, western Prentiss County, northeastern Mississippi. schists. Because of the nature of igneous and Going north, the road crosses the top of a hill, passes metamorphic rocks they rarely contain fossils.