COMATULID CRINOIDS FROM THE CASTLE HAYNE LIMESTONE, SOUTHEASTERN NORTH CAROLINA

The middle Eocene Castle Hayne Limestone in North Carolina is well known for its abundant and varied invertebrate fauna. While much work has been done on echinoids found within the Castle Hayne Limestone, other echinoderm taxa such as ophioroids, asteroids, and crinoids have been collected by several workers but not published upon. This may be due in part to the small size of the non-echinoid echinoderms and the difficulty of isolating, recognizing, and identifying these faunal elements.

With the exception of the description of Microcrinus conoideus and Democrinus, crinoids from the Castle Hayne Limestone have been virtually overlooked. Careful examination of prepared bryozoan-echinoid calcirudite from the Martin Marietta Quarry near Castle Hayne, New Hanover County, North Carolina has yielded numerous centrodorsals and brachials from several comatulid crinoid species.

In all, seven comatulid crinoids, Palaeantedon caroliniana, Microcrinus conoideus, Hertha plana, Himerometra bassleri, Amphorometra parva, Glenotremites carentonensis, and Placometra n. sp., have been identified from the Martin Marietta Quarry near Castle Hayne, New Hanover County, North Carolina. Identification of Hertha plana, Amphorometra parva and Glenotremites carentonensis, though possibly reworked from sediments below the Eocene Castle Hayne Limestone from North Carolina, extends the paleobiogeographic range of European species to southeastern North America. Extension of the paleobiogeographic ranges of these three species has implications for timing Tethyan influence upon distribution of comatulid taxa.