The Inglis quarry or Inglis quarry site is an assemblages of vertebrate fossils dating to the latest Blancan age,around 1.9-1.6 million years ago, located in the phosphate quarries near the town of Inglis, Citrus County, northern Florida.
Inglis site is located in limestone of the Inglis Formation dating to the Eocene to Early Oligocene of ~48–33.9 Mya. The inglis quarry itself is aberrant within this formation,being much younger than the Eocene rock its within.
Inglis site 1A was originally a sinkhole spanning 10 by 20 meters. From bottom to top, the sequence comprises a basal conglomerate, a thin clay bed, a lower sand unit, a second thin clay bed, an upper sand unit, and a cemented quartz sandstone. Its mammalian fauna is regarded as a close correlate of that from Curtis Ranch in Arizona, whose age is well established by magnetostratigraphy and radioisotopic geochronology.
History
Site 1A The site was discovered in 1967 during construction of the Cross Florida Barge Canal. In January 1974, staff from the Florida Museum of Natural History excavated and screened approximately 300 cubic meters of fossil bearing sediment from the sinkhole.
Paleofauna Mammals +Carnivorans of the Inglis quarryGenusSpeciesNotesCanisC. edwardiiA modestly sized canid.XenosmilusX.hodsonaeA large homotherine.SmilodonS. gracilisSmallest species of Smilodon.ArctodusA. pristinusA tremarctine bear.ChasmaporthetesC.ossifragusThe only known North American hyena.Theriodictis?T?.floridanusA large cerdocynid dog. However further studies have questioned this assignment.MiracinonyxM. inexpectatusA felid related to the puma. +Xenarthrans of the Inglis quarryGenusSpeciesNotesGlyptotheriumG.texanumA large glyptodont.HolmesinaH.floridanusA large armadillo.MegalonyxM.leptostomusA moderately large ground sloth.ParamylodonP.harlaniA large grazing ground sloth.EremotheriumE.eomigransA giant ground sloth.
+Ungulates of the Inglis quarryGenusSpeciesNotesEquusE.leidyiAn enigmatic equine,large (130-160 cm at withers).HemiaucheniaH.gracilisA llama.OdocoileusO. virginanusA cervid.CapromeryxC.ariznonensisAn antilocaprid.PlatygonusP.bicalcaratusA peccary.TapirusT.lundeliusiA tapir. +Rodents of the Inglis quarryQuarrySpeciesNotesNeochoerusN.aesopiA large capybara. +Probiscideans of the Inglis QuarryGenusSpeciesNotesMammutM.americanumA large mastodon.
Birds +Birds of the Inglis quarryGenusSpeciesNotesTitanisT.walleriA large Phorusrhacid.
See also Other Citrus County sites: Crystal River Nuclear Plant
References
Pleistocene mammals of North America By Björn Kurtén, Elaine Anderson, p. 164, Columbia University Press