NEW PALEONTOLOGICAL RESOURCES REPORTED AT FORT PULASKI NATIONAL MONUMENT, CHATHAM COUNTY, GEORGIA, USA

Fort Pulaski National Monument (FOPU) in Georgia is best known for its namesake Civil War-era fortification, the site of a battle employing the first use of rifled canons in military history. Located across Cockspur and McQueens Islands and inside the mouth of the Savannah River, the monument itself preserves over 200 years of cultural history, but it is not known for its fossil resources. To begin filling this gap in knowledge at the request of the park staff, two field investigations were conducted on targeted park areas during 2023 to provide baseline paleontological resource data for FOPU and better understand its paleontological history.

Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene, and Quaternary stratigraphic units have been recorded in the subsurface at Cockspur Island. Previously recovered fossils from FOPU include foraminifers and calcareous microfossils from Early Pliocene units as well as diatoms, phytoliths, sponge fragments, and mollusks from Quaternary sediments. Fossil shark teeth, Pleistocene mammals, and various invertebrate fossils have been found in nearby areas, but none had previously been documented at FOPU. The most recent field paleontological resource inventory resulted in the addition of several new fossil taxa to the list of those known at FOPU. The most common vertebrate fossils recovered were chondrichthyan teeth representing genera including Carcharhinus, Carcharodon, Galeocerdo, Negaprion, and Sphyrna. Other notable fossil discoveries include a drum fish pharyngeal tooth plate, the mouth plate of a diodontid fish, Equus cheek teeth, and a portion of the tusk of an American mastodon (Mammut americanum), as well as several bone fragments not yet fully identified. No in situ deposits were discovered during the most recent field investigations, so the recovered fossil resources lack associations with specific geologic units. More details on paleontological resources at FOPU as well as opportunities for increased park interpretation and management strategies related to fossils will be incorporated into a final report for the park.