Red Hills Fissure is a
palaeontological site at the Red Hills in
Saint Andrew Parish of south-eastern
Jamaica.
Description
The Red Hills Fissure is a
karst
Karst is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves. It has also been documented for more weathering-resistant ro ...
ic solutional feature, with a vertical extent of about 8 m and a maximum width of 3 m, that was exposed by road construction in 1988. Originally a cleft or cave in the rock, it was infilled with sediments and debris that included the remains of animals that became trapped there. When it was discovered it was recognised as a rich source of
vertebrate,
gastropod
The gastropods (), commonly known as snails and slugs, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda ().
This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, from freshwater, and from land. T ...
and well-preserved
millipede fossils dating from the late
Pleistocene. The abundant fossil remains of the
Jamaican Coney
The Jamaican coney (''Geocapromys brownii''), also known as the Jamaican hutia or Brown's hutia, is a small, endangered, rat-like mammal found only on the island of Jamaica. About the size of a rabbit, it lives in group nests and is active at nig ...
(''Geocapromys brownii'') found there have enabled the construction of a
life table for that species. Analysis of
fluorine
Fluorine is a chemical element with the symbol F and atomic number 9. It is the lightest halogen and exists at standard conditions as a highly toxic, pale yellow diatomic gas. As the most electronegative reactive element, it is extremely reacti ...
uptake in the fossil bone has allowed the time-span of the deposit to be dated to about 25–40 thousand years ago. Fossil remains of the extinct
Jamaican flightless ibis (''Xenicibis xympithecus'') have also been found there.
[Longrich & Olson (2010).]
References
Notes
Sources
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*
Geography of Saint Andrew Parish, Jamaica
Paleontological sites of the Caribbean
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