Cretaceous Dinosaurs 
5 
analyses of this locality were provided by Brett and Wheeler (1961 : 67-69, 
“Station 2”) and Heron and Wheeler (1964: 46, “Locality 12”). 
(4) Phoebus Landing, south bank of the Cape Fear River below 
Milepost 68, about 5 air miles (8 km) east-southeast of Elizabethtown, 
Bladen County. The source of most of the dinosaur bones described in 
this paper, Phoebus Landing was discussed by Stephenson (1912: 120; 
1923: 10), Miller (1967), and Heron and Wheeler (1964: 42, “Locality 
8 ”). 
THE BLACK CREEK FORMATION 
A succinct analysis of this formation was provided by Heron and 
Wheeler (1964) in their guide to the Cretaceous strata along the Cape 
Fear River. For the convenience of readers who lack ready access to the 
guidebook we abstract pertinent passages here. 
“The Black Creek Formation consists of poorly indurated, laminated 
or thin-bedded clayey silts and silty clays, dark clays, and loose, coarse 
light gray, well sorted sand, as well as thick lenses of this sand. These 
sands, silts and clays contain substantial quantities of glauconite, lignite, 
shell material, iron sulphide, and some amounts of phosphate, amber, 
and marine microfossils. . . . Lignitized wood . . . occurs as logs and large 
branches which may be partly silicified, or as mats of twigs and other 
vegetable matter, as scattered fragments, and, rarely, as very thin layers 
in some sands. Many sands are locally cemented and stained by ferric 
iron. 
“[Donald J. P.] Swift [unpubl. dissert., 1964] has distinguished four 
types of stratification in the Black Creek: a fluvial stratification recognized 
by nearly perfect separation of sediment into sand and clay, grouping of 
strata into strata sets, sand beds with imperfectly developed third order 
stratification of thin beds and laminae of sand separated by very thin 
laminae of finer sand, and sands with an impoverished transition zone 
suite of accessory minerals (glauconite and Foraminifera sparse or lack- 
ing)- 
“In fluviomarine bedding the sands are finer-grained, darker and more 
clayey, the grouping of strata into strata sets is not as pronounced, and 
strata sets are relatively continuous whereas the individual strata tend to 
lens and bifurcate. The sediments carry a transition zone suite of ac- 
cessory minerals, including Foraminifera, Ostrea fragments and up to 15% 
of glauconite. Though marine, their stratification is controlled by river 
flooding. 
“A lagoonal stratification ranges from a lenticular thinly bedded type to 
varieties where bedding is obscured by mottling produced by burrowing 
invertebrates. 
