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Southeastern Section - 58th Annual Meeting (12-13 March 2009)

Paper No. 5
Presentation Time: 2:50 PM

COMPARISON AND DIFFERENTIATION IN FOSSIL AND RECENT SPECIMENS OF THE MELONGENID SUBGENUS REXMELA IN FLORIDA


PLETKA, Crystal R.1, PETUCH, Edward2 and MESTER, Zachary Samuel2, (1)Department of Earth and Environment, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199, (2)Department of Geosciences, Florida Atlantic University, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton, FL 33431, zmester@fau.edu

The Floridian subgenus Rexmela is newly evolved, dating back 1.6 million years, to the Ayer's Landing Member of the Caloosahatchee Formation. This subgenus has highly variably shell morphology and has led to the erection of several species and subspecies. In order to provide a quantitative manner with which to differentiate between populations, samples of Recent and fossil populations were collected and measured for a variety of parameters, including length, width, spire height, and several angles. These parameters allowed for a discriminate analysis to be completed. The analysis supported the distinction of several of the populations as ecophenotypes. Paleoenvironments of the fossil populations were then recreated using analogues of Recent populations.

Session No. 10

T11. Paleobiology of the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains
Thursday, 12 March 2009: 1:30 PM-5:30 PM
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 41, No. 1, p.16
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