Age and depositional setting of siliceous sediments in the upper Paleozoic Havallah sequence near Battle Mountain, Nevada; Implications for the paleogeography and structural evolution of the western margin of North America

Author(s):  
Benita L. Murchey
1983 ◽  
Vol 20 (9) ◽  
pp. 1389-1408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Erdmer ◽  
Herwart Helmstaedt

Eclogite occurring in central Yukon, at Faro and near Last Peak, as lenses interleaved with muscovite–quartz blastomylonite has the chemical and field characteristics of group C rocks. From sigmoidal inclusion trails in garnet, from geothermometry and geobarometry, and from mineral parageneses, the eclogite is inferred to have a crustal protolith and to have followed a hysteretic, subduction-cycle P–T trajectory. Transformation of basic igneous rock into schist was followed by eclogite metamorphism during which pressure was at least 1000 MPa and temperature was between 600 and 700 °C. Uplifting involved passage through the stability field of glaucophane; the eclogite and its host rocks were then subjected to greenschist fades metamorphism and deformation, with temperature at approximately 400 °C. The rocks were emplaced as thrust sheets against or onto the western North American cratonal margin. The tectonic boundary ranges from nearly vertical, where it is outlined by a zone of steeply dipping mélange, to nearly horizontal beneath klippen of cataclastic rocks that lie on North American miogeoclinal strata. Together with occurrences of eclogite on strike, in Yukon, near Fairbanks (Alaska), and near Pinchi Lake (British Columbia), eclogite at Faro and near Last Peak implies that the Yukon Cataclastic Complex is a deeply eroded collision mélange that borders over 1000 km of the ancient continental margin.


1988 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Royal H. Mapes ◽  
Darwin R. Boardman

Four species of Emilites are now known; these are E. incertus (Böse), E. plummeri Ruzhencev, E. brownwoodi n. sp., and E. bennisoni n. sp. Representatives of this genus may occur as early as Middle Pennsylvanian in North America to as late as Early Permian in the Soviet Union. All described taxa are from North America except E. plummeri, which is from the Soviet Union. Because Emilites is extremely rare in upper Paleozoic ammonoid assemblages, generic and species level phylogenetic relationships are poorly understood. Emilites is not considered to be a good generic-level zone indicator due to its relatively long time range and its rarity.


1983 ◽  
Vol 99 (2-4) ◽  
pp. 231-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
G.W. Brass ◽  
B.W. Mattes ◽  
R.P. Reid ◽  
J.M. Whitman
Keyword(s):  

2015 ◽  
Vol 89 (3) ◽  
pp. 424-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Vecoli ◽  
John H. Beck ◽  
Paul K. Strother

AbstractPalynomorph assemblages recovered from the Kanosh Shale at Fossil Mountain, Utah, are dominated by operculate acritarchs and cryptospores with minor smaller acritarchs. The present findings add new data to the largely incomplete knowledge of Ordovician acritarch assemblages from Laurentia, up to now known only from very few localities in North America. These populations contain some species in common with acritarchs from the Canning and Georgina basins in Australia and with assemblages from China; they indicate a Middle Ordovician (Dapingian-Darriwilian) age. The assemblage is lacking many typical marine acritarchs of this age, which, in combination with some cryptospores, is probably reflecting the likelihood of freshwater influence in the Kanosh Basin. This observation is congruent with previous interpretations of the depositional setting of the Kanosh Shale as a shallow water lagoon that supported the deposition of carbonate hardgrounds.Four new taxa are described: Busphaeridium vermiculatum n. gen., n. sp.; Digitoglomus minutum n. gen., n. sp.; Turpisphaera heteromorpha n. gen., n. sp.; and Vermimarginata barbata n. gen., n. sp. In addition, the abundance of operculate forms has enabled the revision and a new emendation of the genus Dicommopalla and clarification of the “opalla” complex. We also propose new and revised suprageneric taxa that emphasize inferred biological differences among acritarch genera. The Sphaeromorphitae subgroup is emended to include forms lacking sculptural elements. Two new informal subgroups are proposed: the Superornamenti and the Operculate Acritarchs. Cryptospores are abundant throughout the sections studied and they appear to be more closely related to the late Cambrian Agamachates Taylor and Strother than to Darriwilian and younger Ordovician cryptospores from Gondwana.


1993 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 631-643 ◽  
Author(s):  
JoAnne L. Nelson

The Sylvester Allochthon is a composite klippe of upper Paleozoic ophiolitic, island-arc, and pericratonic assemblages, which rests directly on the Cassiar terrane, a displaced sliver of Ancestral North America. Each tectonic assemblage occurs at a distinct and consistent structural level within the allochthon. They are assigned, respectively, to the Slide Mountain, Harper Ranch, and Yukon–Tanana terranes. The Sylvester Allochthon provides a view of the structural relationships between these terranes prior to Early Cretaceous – early Tertiary strike-slip dismemberment, as well as possible sedimentological links to late Paleozoic North America. Slide Mountain Terrane assemblages, designated divisions I and II, form the lowest structural panels. Chert – quartz sandstones are interbedded with Lower Mississippian deep-water sediments in division I and ocean-floor basalts and deep-water sediments in division II. They are similar in age and character to sandstones in the autochthonous Earn Group. Division II assemblages represent atypical oceanic crust and upper mantle assemblages. Continuous basalt–sedimentary sequences, well dated by conodont faunas, span Early Mississippian to mid-Permian time. Feeders for the basalts are sills rather than sheeted dyke swarms, suggesting very slow spreading and high(?) sedimentation rates in a marginal-basin setting. These supracrustal sequences are thrust-imbricated with ultramafite–gabbro panels. Division II is in part overlain by a Triassic siliciclastic and limy sedimentary sequence, which resembles the basal Takla Group, Slocan Group, and autochthonous Triassic units. Division III occupies the highest structural levels in the allochthon. With one exception, thrust sheets within it consist of Pennsylvanian to Upper Permian mixed calc-alkaline volcanic and plutonic rocks, chert, tuff, and limestone, assigned to the Harper Ranch Terrane. One panel, assigned to the Yukon–Tanana Terrane, consists of an Early Mississippian quartz diorite pluton with Precambrian inheritance that intrudes older volcanogenic sediments, pyroclastics, limestone, and siliciclastic sediments. Preferred pre-Mesozoic restoration of these terrane elements shows a Harper Ranch arc, built partly on pericratonic Yukon–Tanana and partly on primitive oceanic basement (division III), which is separated from North America by the Slide Mountain marginal basin (divisions I and II).


Zootaxa ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4868 (4) ◽  
pp. 515-530
Author(s):  
WILL CHATFIELD-TAYLOR ◽  
JEFFREY A. COLE

Okanagana boweni sp. n. is described from the western margin of the Great Basin of North America. The new species is diagnosed from allopatric O. simulata Davis and sympatric O. utahensis Davis using morphological, bioacoustical, and molecular characters. The distribution of this new species coincides with the Walker Lane region that lies along the border of California and Nevada, USA. Based on geography, bioacoustics, morphology, and molecular phylogenetics, we hypothesize that O. boweni sp. n. is the allopatric sister species of O. simulata. 


2020 ◽  
Vol 191 (1) ◽  
pp. 180-200
Author(s):  
Chase Doran Brownstein

Abstract The timing of non-avian dinosaur decline is one of the most debated subjects in dinosaur palaeontology. Dinosaur faunas from the last few million years of the Mesozoic appear far less diverse than those from earlier in the Cretaceous, a trend that could suggest non-avian dinosaur extinction occurred gradually. However, the limited nature of the latest Cretaceous dinosaur record outside western North America has obscured patterns in dinosaur diversity just before the extinction. Here, I describe two associated skeletons and several isolated fossils recovered from the New Egypt Formation of New Jersey, a latest Maastrichtian unit that underlies the K–Pg boundary. The larger skeleton appears to be a small-bodied adult from a lineage outside Hadrosauridae, the dominant group of these animals during the Maastrichtian, that persisted along the eastern coast of North America. Smaller specimens are identifiable as juvenile hadrosauromorphs. These results substantiate an important assemblage of herbivorous dinosaurs from the poorly-known Cretaceous of eastern North America. The marine depositional setting for these skeletons demonstrates that proposed ecosystem preferences among hadrosauromorphs may be biased by post-mortem transportation, and the adult skeleton has implications for assessing the proposed relictual nature of Late Cretaceous eastern North American vertebrates.


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