Foraminifera from Paleocene Clayton Formation Lithostratotype, Barbour County, Alabama

Richard H. Fluegeman, Jr.

A detailed search of the Clayton lithostratotype for microfossils has produced the first significant foraminifera fauna from that section and only the second occurrence of foraminifera in the Clayton Formation in eastern Alabama. The fauna is well preserved, but low in abundance and diversity; all assemblages are dominated by species of Anomalinoides. No planktonic species were identified in the studied samples. The benthic assemblages bear little resemblance to the more diverse foraminifera faunas of the Pine Barren and McBryde Members of the Clayton in western Alabama. The fauna from the Clayton lithostratotype closely resembles an assemblage collected from a sand unit within the middle part of the Porters Creek Formation of Butler County, Alabama. Biostratigraphic info mation is presently unavailable for the Clayton Formation in eastern Alabama; therefore, we cannot determine whether the Clayton and Porters Creek are time-equivalent units. However, occurrences of like foraminiferal assemblages imply equivalent paleoecologic conditions, and similarities in lithology are found between the Clayton Formation at its stratotype and the Porters Creek in Butler County, both of which indicate that both units represent the same depositional aspect of the early Paleocene transgressive-regressive cycle.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91043©1986 AAPG Annual Convention, Atlanta, Georgia, June 15-18, 1986.