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COQUINAS OF THE NEUSE FORMATIONFigure 5. Modern latitude ranges for the molluscan fauna fromthe Neuse Formation of Snows Cut, New Hanover County,North Carolina (34°× 3’14” N; 77°× 54’23” W).trarium, and Nassarius obsoletus. Other identified mollusksare listed in Figure 5 and Richards (1936), Fallaw (1973),and (Dockal 1995b). The foraminifera fauna is dominated byOuinqueloculina and Hanzawaia (Fallaw, 1973) The twocorals present are, Septastraea crassa which is quite commonthough always greatly abraded and Siderastrea radianswhich is rare but always well preserved, lacking abrasion,and encrusting other bioclasts. The barnacle Balanus improvisushas been described from the strata (Zullo and Miller,1986). Flat echinoid fragments are common and an occasionalwhole specimens of the sand dollar, Millita sp., arefound. Small fish teeth and crab claws are readily found inthe finer fractions and shell fillings. Mammalian bones andteeth are infrequently encountered. These include mastodon(Richards, 1936), bison (Wilmington Star News, February4,1995), camel and deer.AGE OF THE COQUINAS AND RELATED STRATAThe age of the coquina has generally been considered tobe Late Pleistocene (Fallaw and Wheeler, 1969). Thecoquina contains Anadara brasiliana (Lamarck), a molluskswhich is characteristic of Blackwelder's (1981) upper Pleistoceneand Holocene Yongesian Substage of the LongianMolluscan Stage. The present near sea level topographicposition of these deposits suggest deposition in associationwith a sea level high stand above the altitude of the presentsea level but below that of the high stand associated with thenearby 7-meter (25 foot) terrace. The Yongesian Substagedesignation for the coquina, its geomorphic position east orseaward of what is possibly the Suffolk Terrace, and the elevationof the strata relative to sea level suggests assignmentto Stage 5 of the oxygen isotope base sea level curve ofChappel and Shackleton (1986). Wehmiller and others(1988), applying amino acid racemization, found a mean D/L Leu value of 0.52 from two specimens of Mercenaria sp.which were collected at Snows Cut. This value correspondsto amino zone Illd of Wehmiller and others (1988) whichapparently has an age in excess of 220 ka.. Recent work byWehmiller and others (1995) notes the additional amino acidanalysis of 16 specimens of Mercenaria sp. from Snows Cut.The AI I values of these "cluster into two apparent aminozoneswith mean values of approximately 0.46+/-0.025(n=4) and 0.34+/-0.025 (n= 12)" (Wehmiller and others,1995, p.331). The lower ratio corresponds to oxygen isotopestage 5 the higher ration to stages 7 to 9 (Wehmiller and others,1995, figure 2). Dockal (1995b) argued that the abundanceof fossils reworked from older units and the presenceof purple colored Mercenaria, which elsewhere in the regionhave lower A/l values than 0.34, would imply that even lowerA/l values should be obtainable from the Snows Cut strataand therefore they should represent an age younger thanstage 5. Uranium series dating conducted by Prosser (1993)on Mercenaria sp. shells from the shell hash at Snows Cutindicate an age of 62 ka BP. Radiocarbon evaluation of avariety of shells from the same site and stratum at Snows Cutfound an apparent age of 24 to 29 ka BP (Dockal 1992,1995b). However, as Dockal (1995a) pointed out radiocarbonassays giving this range of apparent age may have beenaffected by an extreme enhancement of the cosmic ray fluxand thus may represent an age closer to 60 ka BP. Withoutadditional and improved geochronologic work it is probablysafest to assume that the coquina and related strata at SnowsCut and Fort Fisher were deposited before the most recentglaciation, isotope stage 2, yet sometime after isotope stage5. This would best correspond to a slight warming period andsea level high stand belonging to isotope stage 3 or 75 to 55ka BP.ENVIRONMENT OF DEPOSITIONThe molluscan fauna suggest deposition under climaticconditions similar to that found today along the southeasternAtlantic seaboard between 34 and 36 degrees north latitude(Figure 5). Fallaw (1973) considered the molluscan fauna ofthe Neuse Formation as a whole to indicate climate conditionssimilar to those of today but with slightly higher watertemperatures than present. Part of the evidence of this wasthe presence of Cardita floridana, Pyramidella crenulata,and Cantharus cancellarius. The present northern limit ofthe range of the former is Florida and the later two is South15