The Cool-Water Timms Point Pleistocene horizon at San Pedro, California

Abstract

Timms Point is located in the southeastern part of the town of San Pedro, Los Angeles County, California, just east of the south end of Harbor Boulevard, along the bluff facing the harbor. It is part of the abandoned sea cliff extending from a locality near Point Fermin northward along the east side of the town. The cliff is about forty feet high and its top represents the lowest of a number of marine terraces cut in the Palos Verdes Hills. Since Arnold studied the stratigraphy and faunas of San Pedro no account of the section exposed at Timms Point has been published. As at that time the exposures there were poor, only 28 species of mollusks were collected and no detailed observations could be made with reference to the stratigraphy. It, therefore, seems desirable to record the results of an examination of the stratigraphy and. fossils. A fauna of 155 species of mollusks, bryozoa, and brachiopods has now been collected and studied from the so-called Pliocene beds exposed at Timms Point. Foraminifera and ostracods, the former in great abundance, were collected, but not studied. A close scrutiny of the physical evidence and the fossils seems to indicate the presence of two minor faunal zones.