Some Middle Eocene, Lower Eocene, and Paleocene foraminiferal faunas from west Florida

This discussion of the lithology and microfauna of the clastic facies of the Ecocene and Paleocene rocks of Florida is based mainly on data obtained from the study of many cores taken in the Oil City corporation Walton Land and Timber Co. well 1, Walton County, Fla. Although the fauna of the middle Eocene rocks in western Florida is composed mainly of species that have been reported from rocks of equivalent age in the western Gulf Coast, its distinctive species, and poor representation of a few species that are diagnostic in the western area. The assemblages of small Foraminifera in the lower Eocene rocks are composed, mainly, of specimens of species that have been described  from outcrops of the Wilcox Group in Alabama. The microfauna of the clastic facies of the Paleocene in western Florida is informally called the "Tamesi' Fauna" in this report. This Fauna is particularly important because it contains abundant Glorotalia velasconesis, a diagnostic species of the Velasco (Paleocene) Formation of Mexico, is also diagnostic of the "Tamesi fauna." On the basis of the environmental preference of Recent analogous pelagic forms, the preferential environment of the containing sediments, it is inferred that the "Tamesi fauna" developed in a subtropical, open sea environment.  

The Effect of the temperature, salinity, bathymetry, and associated factors on the distribution of Recent pelagic species of Foraminifera has been discussed by several authors. Similar controls were probably effective during Paleocene time. The presence of certain species of pelagic Foraminifera in one Paleocene unit, and their absences in another, is therefore not necessarily an index to the relative position of the units in the vertical time sequence. The stratigraphic distribution of the benthonic species of the "Tamesi Fauna" in western Florida is usually accord with their stratigraphic distribution in the Paleocene beds in other parts of the Gulf coast. Consequently, on the basis of the foregoing enviromental and distributive data, it is suggested that the "Tamesi Fauna" of the clasttic lithofacies of the Paleocene in western Florida respresents an interval of geologic time that is equivalent to the represented by the Clayton, Porters Creek, and Naheola formations of Alqabama and Correlative stratigraphic units in other parts of the Gulf region. It is believed that the outer neritic Paleocene sediments of west Florida grade northward into the inner-neritic Paleocene sediments that crop out in Alabama. Fifty seven species of Foraminifera that are characteristic of the cored Paleocene section in the Walton well, and recorded from 37 other wells distributed across northwestern Florida and southern Georgia, are discussed and figured. Two species are describes as new: Epoides libertyensis and Cibicides libertyensis.