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Site content related to keyword: "Mount Laurel Formation"








Vertebrates: Phylum Chordata

Phylum Chordata includes the vertebrates. Although not as common as the invertebrates, teeth and bones from different classes of vertebrate animals can be found at Canal sites.

Starfish and Urchins: Phylum Echinodermata

Echinoderms are "spiny-skinned" invertebrate animals that live only in marine environments. Two major divisions are recognized by biologists: principally attached, usually stalked forms of the Pelmatozoa; and unattached free-moving forms of the Eleutherozoa.

Insects and Crustaceans: Phylum Arthropoda


Segmented Worms: Phylum Annelida


Clams, Snails, and Squid: Phylum Mollusca, Class Cephalopoda


Clams, Snails, and Squid: Phylum Mollusca, Class Pelecypoda

Pelecypoda is the group of molluscs referred to as the bivalves. Most pelecypods have a pair of hinged shells of generally equal size. Clams, oysters, and scallops are well-known types. Pelecypods can be abundant in the sediments of the C & D canal area.

Clams, Snails, and Squid: Phylum Mollusca, Class Gastropoda

Gastropoda is the scientific name for the group of animals more commonly called snails. Gastropods have a single coiled or uncoiled shell and are common fossil types in the Cretaceous sediments of the C & D canal area.

Mt. Laurel Formation



Lamp Shells: Phylum Brachiopoda

Brachiopods are shelled invertebrate that look somewhat like bivalved molluscs. However, the animal living in the shell is a filter feeder that collects food with a special organ called a lophopore (bryzozoa also have lophophores).

Moss Animals: Phylum Bryozoa

Bryozoans, sometimes referred to as "moss animals," are a type of simple colonial animal that mostly lives in marine environments (a few inhabit freshwater). Bryozoans feed by means of a lophophore, a small ring of tentacles covered with tiny cilia that are used to filter food from the water. Bryozoan colonies are protected with a covering of organic materials or calcium carbonate. Some calcium carbonate forms may be found as fossils in the Cretaceous strata near the C & D Canal.

Corals and Jellyfish: Phylum Cnidaria

Cnidarians are soft-bodied animals that include corals, jellyfish, and sea anemones. These soft-bodied animals have saclike digestive cavities and tentacles containing rows or stinging cells used for defense and capture of food. Many secrete calcium carbonate to support and partly enclose the soft parts; the most familiar of these are corals. The only members of the phylum found at the Canal are solitary corals. One of these corals, Micrabacia, may be the most common fossil found. Another common fossil found there, a solitary horn-shaped coral, has been given different names by different authors.

Sponges: Phylum Porifera

Phylum Porifera is a group of simple animals that includes the sponges. Porifera have no internal organs, nervous tissue, circulatory system, or digestive systems, making them the most primitive of the multi-cellular animals. To support and protect their soft bodies, sponges produce skeletons of calcium carbonate, silica, or a soft organic material called spongin. The most common fossil sponge in the Cretaceous sediments of Delaware is the genus Cliona. Cliona sponges lived on rocks and shells of the seafloor and commonly bored holes in these objects, in which it lived. To obtain food, the sponges filtered the water around them as it passed through tiny pores located on their outer walls. The sponge is common in the Mount Laurel Formation along the Canal.

One-celled Organisms: Phylum Protozoa

Protozoans are one-celled organisms that include the amoeba. One group of protozoans, the Foraminifera ("forams"), are among the most common fossils found in the Cretaceous of Delaware -- but are hard to study without a microscope. Forams build a hard outer covering -- some by secreting calcium carbonate or opaline silica, some by cementing sand grains -- in order to provide support and protection. The resulting many-chambered shells, which are commonly called "tests," are the parts preserved as fossils. Some are very simple, and others are very ornate.

Cretaceous Fossils Overview





This map shows the saturated thickness of the water-table aquifer. This aquifer consists of the deposits of the Columbia Formation and those portions of the Magothy and Englishtown-Mt. Laurel formations, and Rancocas Group that are hydraulically connected with the Columbia deposits (see Groot, Demicco, and Cherry, 1983). For example, large, saturated thicknesses in the zone trending northeast-southwest near Townsend reflect the addition of the sands of the Rancocas Group to the total thickness of the sands of the overlying Columbia Formation.






Fossil collectors have been attracted to Delaware since the late 1820s when the excavation of the Chesapeake and Delaware (C&D) Canal first exposed marine fossils of Cretaceous age. Since then, many technical and nontechnical works have been written about the fossils. However, there has not been a single source for casual or student collectors to turn to for help in the identification of typical finds. This paper is written to fill that void as well as provide general information about fossils and specific information on geologic formations and collecting localities at the Canal. This report is not designed to be an encyclopedia on the fossils of the Canal but focuses on those fossils found most frequently. The majority of the fossils collected today are from the spoil areas in the vicinity of the Reedy Point Bridge. Thus, the chapter on classification concentrates on the fossils of the Mount Laurel Formation, the stratigraphic unit dredged in that area.

Coastal Plain Rock Units (Stratigraphic Chart)
