The Psilonichnus ichnocoenosis and its relationship to adjacent marine and nonmarine ichnocoenoses along the Georgia coast

Along clastic shorelines, the ecological/sedimentological transition from off shore to onshore facies includes a characteristic ecotone between marine and nonmarine facies, corresponding to the beach backshore and dunes or to washover fans and supratidal flats. This quasimarine ecotone yields distinctive mixtures of marine and nonmarine lebensspuren herewith designated the Psilonichnus Ichnocoenose which lies between the marine Skolithos Ichnocoenose and several unnamed nonmarine ichnocoenoses, represented by brackish to freshwater marshes, ponds, creeks, and sloughs, and maritime meadows and forests. In addition to diverse plants and invertebrate lebensspuren in these settings, traces made by amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals are potentially diagnostic. Quaternary sediments and facies tracts along the Georgia coast demonstrate 1) the richness of local ichnological and sedimentological detail found in warm-temperate, siliciclastic settings: 2) the distinctive character of ichnofacies and lithofacies suites there: 3) the prospects for their preservation in regressive strandplain to strandline stratigraphic sequences; and 4) their potential analogy with many ancient paralic or epeiric shoreline deposits.