6 
Donald Baird and John R. Horner 
“Finally a littoral stratification is found only immediately beneath the 
Peedee Formation. Strata are of pale sand with a median thickness of 2.5 
feet, varying from 1 to 22 feet. . . . These beds are actually lenses when 
seen in large enough outcrops.” 
Given such varied circumstances of deposition, the ecologically heter- 
ogeneous nature of the Black Creek vertebrate fauna is understandable. 
Thus the thanatocoenosis at Phoebus Landing combines the remains of 
fully terrestrial dinosaurs (carnosaurs and ornithomimids) with those of 
amphibious, presumably paludal and lagoonal forms (hadrosaurs, 
sauropods and giant crocodiles) and these in turn with remains of marine 
mosasaurs and sharks. 
Time relationships of the Black Creek Formation were interpreted by 
Brett and Wheeler (1961: 102) as follows. “The stratigraphic situation 
along the Cape Fear River indicates an onlap condition during Upper 
Cretaceous time with an encroachment of the ocean onto a gently sloping 
coastal plain. . . . Upstream and updip from Elizabethtown the Black 
Creek Formation was, without doubt, deposited during Taylor time 
represented by the Exogyra ponderosa zone (or older near the base); 
downstream and downdip from Milepost 60 to at least Milepost 49, both 
the Black Creek and Peedee Formations were also deposited during 
Taylor time.” Thus the dinosaurs discussed in this report are Tayloran, 
i.e. Campanian, late Cretaceous, in age. 
SYSTEMATIC DESCRIPTIONS 
Order SAURISCHIA 
Suborder THEROPODA 
Infraorder CARNOSAURIA 
Family TYRANNOSAURIDAE 
cf. Dryptosaurus Marsh, 1877, or Albertosaurus Osborn, 1905 
Figs. 2A, 3A, 4B-B 1 
Two teeth from Phoebus Landing were assigned the tentative iden- 
tification of Gorgosaurus ? by Miller (1967: 233): USNM 7199 (previously 
cited as £ atomis ? [sic] by Stephenson 1912: 120) and the fragmentary 
ANSP “15331” (actually 15332, two teeth, Fig. 2A). Aside from being 
carnosaurian these teeth show no characteristics that would permit 
generic identification. They are as similar to Dryptosaurus aquilunguis 
(Cope) as to Gorgosaurus (i.e. Albertosaurus) ; and indeed, Stephenson’s in- 
vocation of the Triassic tooth-genus gjatomus is not so far-fetched as it 
sounds, for all carnosaurian cheek teeth are essentially alike. 
