458


Journal of Paleontology 92(3):442–458


collected from the Murray Gap area. Unfortunately, the exact location of the original fossil-bearing site in the Murray Gap area cannot be determined from the available documentation. Comparison of modern and historical maps reveals that the present-day position of roads (and thus roadcuts) is not precisely congruent with the distribution of trails that would have pro- vided access to the ridge crest in the late 19th Century. During reconnaissance of the area, SJH discovered an exposure of the Murray Shale alongside an old, disused bridleway (Fig. 3.2, Locality MG1; GPS coordinates 35°37.732'N, 083°57.266'W) ~700m west of the present-day road junction at Murray Gap. Much of the lower third of the Murray Shale, including the basal contact with the underlying Nebo Quartzite, is exposed. It is conceivable, but not certain, that the original collection men- tioned by Walcott (1890) and Keith (1895) was sourced from this outcrop because the present-day Happy Valley Road did not exist at that time (Keith, 1895 topographic map).No fossils were observed at the site during a brief visit in 2016.


Murray Gap Roadcuts.—Laurence and Palmer (1963) and Wood and Clendening (1982) described fossils collected from the Murray Shale at a series of roadcuts that were excavated in 1962. One of these roadcuts, on Happy Valley Road (Fig. 3.2, Locality MG2; GPS coordinates 35°37.845'N, 083° 56.911'W), was found during reconnaissance by the authors in


December 2016 to be mostly obscured by soil and leaves. Asecond, much larger, roadcut alongside the Foothills Parkway (Fig. 3.2, Locality MG3; GPS coordinates 35°37.897'N, 083°56.678'W) exposes a spectacular section through much of the Murray Shale, and offers the potential for detailed paleon- tological and sedimentological study. Both these roadcuts are located within the bounds of the Foothills Parkway National Park, and a permit is required to conduct work at either site. A roadside cliff at the intersection of Happy Valley Road


and Flats Road (Fig. 3.2, Locality MG4; GPS coordinates 35°37.781'N, 083°56.552'W) exposes ~30m of the Murray Shale. To our knowledge, this site has not been mentioned by previous workers. Numerous hyolith and bradoriid specimens and abundant trace fossils were observed at this site during reconnaissance by the authors in December 2016. The position of this fossiliferous interval within the Murray Shale cannot be directly measured because formational contacts are not exposed at this locality. However, if the as-yet-unidentified bradoriid is Indota tennesseensis, then a position within the lower part of the Murray Shale could be hypothesized based on constrained stratigraphic occurrences of that taxon in the nearby roadcuts (Laurence and Palmer, 1963;Wood and Clendening, 1982).


Accepted 19 December 2017


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