Bone Valley Formation

[swim]

Is Bone Valley an actual formation? I don't see it on any official geologic maps.

[Hogtownfossil]

Is Bone Valley an actual formation? I don't see it on any official geologic maps.

Actually it is a member of the Hawthorne Group, this from the official Florida Geologic survey:

The Bone Valley Member(originally the Bone Valley Formation of Matson and Clapp, 1909), Peace

River Formationoccurs in a limited area on the southern part of the Ocala Platform in Hillsborough,

Polk and Hardee Counties. Throughout its extent, the Bone Valley Member is a clastic unit consisting of

sand-sized and larger phosphate grains in a matrix of quartz sand, silt and clay. The lithology is

highly variable, ranging from sandy, silty, phosphatic clays and relatively pure clays to clayey,

phosphatic sands to sandy, clayey phosphorites (Webb and Crissinger, 1983). In general,

consolidation is poor and colors range from white, light brown and yellowish gray to olive gray

and blue green. Mollusks are found as reworked, often phosphatized casts. Vertebrate fossils

occur in many of the beds within the Bone Valley Member. Shark’s teeth are often abundant.

Silicified corals and wood are occasionally present as well.

The Bone Valley Member is an extremely important, unique phosphate deposit and has

provided much of the phosphate production in the United States during the twentieth century.

Mining of phosphate in the outcrop area began in 1888 (Cathcart, 1985) and continues to the

present."

I can send you the entire survey pdf if you want, it's should be online somewhere

[swim]

If you could post a link or email it I would greatly appreciate it.

[Hogtownfossil]

maps are here:

http://sofia.usgs.gov/publications/maps/florida_geology/

and the text to go with it:

http://sofia.usgs.gov/publications/maps/fl...ology/OFR80.pdf

[siteseer]

Is Bone Valley an actual formation? I don't see it on any official geologic maps.

There is also a review of the formation in:

Morgan, G.S. 1994.

Miocene and Pliocene Marine Mammal Faunas from the Bone Valley Formation of Central Florida. In A. Berta and T.A. Demere (eds.) Contributions in Marine Mammal Paleontology Honoring Frank C. Whitmore, Jr. Proc. San Diego Soc. Nat. Hist. 29: 239-268.