PARENT SESSION
Oral Session # 99: Late-Breaking Newsworthy Presentations.
Presiding: E Preisser and G Larocque
Friday, August 8. 8:30 AM to 12:00 PM, SITCC Meeting Room 205.

Paleocology of the drowned Atlantic Coastal Plain.

Garrison, Ervan^*,,

ABSTRACT- The paleoecology of the present -day continental shelf is that of the last glacial maximum's (LGM) coastal plain. Fossil remains of both extant and extinct faunal communities have been identified in studies of the sediments of Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary, 30 km seaward of Sapelo Island, Georgia. Systemmatic field survey, mapping and recovery of this taphocenose plus radiometric dating of its components indicates the assemblage is largely late Pleistocene in character. Bison, Mammuthus and Equus have been identified as the larger browsers/grazers. In the deposits, estuarine and near-shore bivalve species have been excavated from sediment facies dated using optical luminescence techniques. Fossil pollen and plant remains, from sediments, hint at a open-forest savannah ecology for late Pleistocene coastal Georgia.

Key words: Paleoecology, Gray's Reef , Gerogia, Pleistocene