CETACEAN REMAINS FROM THE LOWER OLIGOCENE OLD CHURCH FORMATION OF VIRGINIA

Remains of six types of Oligocene cetaceans have been recovered from the outcrop region of
the Old Church Formation in the Atlantic Coastal Plain of east-central Virginia. These remains provide the
first glimpse of the cetacean fauna that lived north of modern Cape Hatteras during the Oligocene. Two kinds of mysticetes are represented (aff. Coronodon sp. and Micromysticetus sp.), and four kinds of odontocetes (cf. Ankylorhiza sp., cf. Xenorophus sloanii, Xenorophidae aff. Cotylocara and Echovenator, and aff. Eosqualodon sp.). In detail, the mysticete portion of this fauna is different and somewhat less advanced than the mysticete fauna found in the Givhans Ferry Member of the Ashley Formation, indicating that the Old Church Formation probably is correlative with either the middle or lower member of the Rupelian Ashley Formation in South Carolina. The odontocete portion of this fauna is also compatible with the middle or lower members of the Ashley Formation, except for Eosqualodon sp. which probably came from a Chattianage “phantom unit” that is correlative with the Chandler Bridge Formation of South Carolina but now eroded away.