Teredolites driftwood from the Arkadelphia Formation–Midway Group Contact (K–Pg), Malvern, Arkansas, USA

Abstract

Partially carbonized driftwood recovered from a lag deposit at the Arkadelphia Formation–Midway Group Contact (K–Pg) near Malvern, Arkansas contains an abundance of macrobioerosion. Macroborings are oriented perpendicular and oblique to the wood grain, straight to sinuous in shape, ≤8 cm long, may have calcitic linings, and belong to Teredolites clavatus (Kelly & Bromley, 1984). The abundance and tightly spaced position of borings on all driftwood surfaces suggests the wood was afloat and/or exposed on or near the seafloor in a shallow marine setting for an extended period of time before becoming buried. Transverse, radial, and tangential thin section analysis of the driftwood identifies distinct growth rings, tracheid and ray cells, ray pits, and resin canals of the bald cypress genus, Taxodium. The presence of Taxodium wood in addition to a diverse and abundant assemblage of transitional to shallow marine vertebrates in the Gulf Coastal Plain of southwestern Arkansas indicate that brackish water swamps were in proximity to the ancestral shoreline around the K–Pg boundary and that these remains were concentrated into a lag deposit as the result of storm events, sea-level cyclicity, and possibly impact generated tsunamis.

Keywords:

• Arkadelphia Formation–Midway Group contact
• Arkansas
• driftwood
• K–Pg boundary
• Malvern
• Teredolites

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank R. Bara, R. Scimeca, B. Danielson, D. Pagano, and R. Farmer for assistance with field work. R. Scimeca is also thanked for assistance with graphic design and C. Kline, M. Gingras, and two anonymous reviewers are thanked for improving an earlier version of this manuscript. B. Buckley, N. Davi, and P. Cherubini of Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory Tree-Ring lab, Columbia University are thanked for their assistance with identifying the Malvern driftwood and R. Portell is thanked for creating a repository at the FLMNH.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported in part by Assigned Release time to MAB and a CUNY Doctoral Student Research Grant awarded to HMM.