Ellisdale Fossil Site
 |
|
 Dig site
Approximate location of the dig site.
|
|
| Location | near Ellisdale, New Jersey |
|---|---|
| Region | the border of Monmouth and Burlington Counties |
| Coordinates | 40°9′19.969″N 74°38′47.249″W / 40.15554694°N 74.64645806°WCoordinates: 40°9′19.969″N 74°38′47.249″W / 40.15554694°N 74.64645806°W |
| Type | Fossil bed |
| Part of | Marshalltown Formation |
| History | |
| Periods | Appalachia (Mesozoic) |
| Site notes | |
| Ownership | Monmouth County Park System |
| Management | New Jersey State Museum |
| Public access | Restricted - Private ownership (land) |
The Ellisdale Fossil Site is a fossil bed located near Ellisdale in the valley of the Crosswicks Creek, in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. The site has produced the largest and most diverse fauna of Late Cretaceous terrestrial animals from eastern North America, including the type specimens of the teiid lizard Prototeius stageri and the batrachosauroidid salamander Parrisia neocesariensis. The site occurs within the basal portion of the Marshalltown Formation, and dates from the Campanian Stage of the Late Cretaceous. The site is classified as a Konzentrat-Lagerstätten resulting from a prehistoric coastal storm.
The Ellisdale site was discovered in 1980 by two avocational paleontologists, Robert K. Denton Jr. and Robert C. O'Neill, who brought it to the attention of David C. Parris, the Director of the Bureau of Natural History at the New Jersey State Museum. Parris encouraged the two collectors to continue monitoring the site, and within a few years hundreds of disarticulated bones of dinosaurs, crocodilians, turtles and fish had been donated to the New Jersey State Museum, which is the repository for the collection. The significance of the Ellisdale Site was recognized by the National Geographic Society which sponsored research under Society grants in 1986 and 1987. To date over 20,000 specimens have been collected. The Ellisdale Site is currently owned by Monmouth County Park System and is under the management of the New Jersey State Museum. Fossil collecting by the general public is prohibited.
The Ellisdale site occurs within the basal portion of the Marshalltown Formation, of the Late Cretaceous Matawan Group of New Jersey. The exposures of the Marshalltown Formation at Ellisdale have basal lenticular bedded estuarine clays underlain by crossbedded coastal sands of the Englishtown Formation. The estuarine clays are overlain by well-sorted, crossbedded sand and offshore glauconites, respectively. The entire sequence is interpreted as preserving the landward migration of a barrier beach/backbay/estuarine/deltaic complex during the Marshalltown transgression. Vertebrate fossils are concentrated with rip-up clasts near the base of the estuarine clay sequence in a lag deposit consisting of siderite pebbles, poorly graded sand, and lignite. The fossil layer is considered a single-event storm deposit based on sedimentology and stratigraphy. The upper (marine) member of the Marshalltown was formerly considered latest Campanian in age, due to the presence of the foraminifer Globotruncana calcarata; however the G. calcarata zone has since been redated as Middle Campanian in age (75-76 ma). A recent study of fossil pollen from the estuarine strata enclosing the fossil layer has determined an Early to Mid-Campanian age for the stratum (76 - 80 ma) and a fresh or brackish water tidal marsh environment of deposition.
...
Wikipedia