Miocene Fishes in Well Cores from Torrance in Southern California: Geological Notes

Abstract

Although fossil fish and fish scales are abundantly preserved in Tertiary marine formations of California, little is known as to their value in stratigraphic correlation. To the present not much study has been made of such materials, and moreover the age limits of existence of the different types of fish in the Tertiary of the Pacific Coast have not been definitely established. The majority of Tertiary fish that have been described are upper Miocene in age. The Pliocene faunas, on the other hand, are either very incompletely known or have not been studied in detail. We take occasion in this paper to report on determinable fish fossils preserved in well cores that come from two localities in the Torrance oil field of Los Angeles County. A fossil fish from a core was collected at a depth of 4,819 feet in well No. 1 of the F.S.D.R. Oil Company. This well is located on Lots 7 and 8, Tract 440, Torrance, 200 feet south of 240th Street and 500 feet east of Narbonne Avenue. The fish is preserved in a dark gray shale of the Modelo formation.

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