ABSTRACT
The two members of the Eastover Formation, the lower Claremont Manor and the upper Cobham Bay, contain very different-appearing molluscan assemblages. The Claremont Manor Member, deposited during the late Tortonian cool time, contains a fauna that resembles an impoverished version of the St. Mary’s (Windmill Point Member) molluscan fauna. The Cobham Bay, put down during the Messinian warm time, contains a much richer molluscan fauna and more closely resembles assemblages seen in the subsequent Pliocene Yorktown Formation. The Cobham Bay is of special significance in that it contains the last members of several classic Transmarian genera, including gastropods such as the turritellid Mariacolpus, the muricid Mariasalpinx, the buccinid whelk Bulliopsis, the busycon whelk Coronafulgur, and the auger shell Laevihastula, and the bivalve Isognomon (Hippochaeta). Both members of the Eastover Formation are still relatively unexplored paleontologically, and any intensive collecting is bound to yield many new species.
