Paleogene sporomorphs from south carolina and quantitative correlations with the gulf coast

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents the observed stratigraphic ranges of 99 sporomorph (spore and pollen) taxa in the lower Paleocene to upper Oligocene part of the core from the U.S. Geological Survey Clubhouse Crossroads corehole 1 near Charleston, South Carolina. Morphologic and taxonomic data are given for some of these taxa, and three new species are proposed: Nyssapollenites paleocenicus, Osculapollis? colporatus, and Triporopollenites microgranulatus. Fifty‐four sporomorph taxa in the core samples also are found in significant numbers in Gulf Coast Paleogene deposits. The Gulf Coast Paleogene section is divided into 18 provisional sporomorph assemblage zones by using occurrence data from the literature on these 54 taxa. Each South Carolina sample is compared numerically with each Gulf Coast assemblage zone, producing a binary SCMC (presence‐absence Similarity Coefficient Matrix Contour) diagram. Use of this method indicates that sporomorph correlation of “packages”; of Paleogene strata is generally feasible between South Carolina and the Gulf Coast with the data now available. Sporomorph correlations are also possible using a binary Shaw diagram and a ranked relative‐frequency SCMC diagram, but neither of these two methods suggests such detailed correlations as the binary SCMC diagram.