A RETROSPECTIVE OF MIOCENE AND PLIOCENE STRATIGRAPHY OF THE VIRGINIA COASTAL PLAIN

In 1980, I published, with B. W. Blackwelder, a stratigraphic revision of the Miocene and Pliocene beds along the James River in Virginia as U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1482-D. This work was accomplished after several misfires and after extensive field negotiations with such stratigraphic notables as Norman Sohl, Joseph Hazel, Robert Mixon, and Wayne Newell, all of the U.S.G.S., and last but not least, Gerald Johnson, Professor of Geology at The College of William and Mary. All of these people contributed in their own special ways to this revision, but none as much as did Jerre Johnson. His encouragement and suggestions helped to improve this work, in which the Eastover Formation and its members, the Claremont Manor and the Cobham Bay, were recognized and in which the Yorktown Formation was divided into four members, in ascending order: Sunken Meadow, Rushmere, Morgarts Beach, and Moore House. This revision, product of the author's work from 1961-1980, supplemented by Jerre Johnson's first big work on the James River, "Guidebook to the Geology of the Lower York-James Peninsula…" produced in the Fall of 1969. That early work, where he mapped sedimentary facies in Surry and Isle of Wight Counties, did more than any previous work to map the beds along the James River. Johnson's work in the last 20 years has served to test and improve upon this stratigraphic framework. Members of the Eastover and Yorktown Formations have been and are being mapped as far south as the Neuse River in North Carolina. South of that river, the various members of the Yorktown cannot be differentiated and are placed in the Duplin Formation. Mollusks within the Duplin reflect a subtropical assemblage while the Yorktown units to the north are mild-temperate with a few subtropical exotics. It is clear that the rigid inspection and testing of this stratigraphy, principally by Jerre Johnson, has proved its validity and helped it to survive the test of time.