The location of the Iapetus Ocean suture in Newfoundland

1977 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 488-495 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. S. McKerrow ◽  
L. R. M. Cocks
Keyword(s):  
Lower Devonian ◽  
New World ◽  
Late Ordovician ◽  
Calc Alkaline ◽  
The West ◽  
Early Devonian ◽  
Iapetus Ocean ◽  
Lower Palaeozoic ◽  
First Time ◽  
Avalon Peninsula

Brachiopod and trilobite faunal distributions indicate that the Iapetus Ocean was still wide enough to inhibit migration in the Middle and Late Ordovician. The presence of Silurian and Lower Devonian calc-alkaline rocks suggests that ocean crust was still being subducted long after the end of the Ordovician and that the Iapetus Ocean did not finally close in Newfoundland until the Acadian Orogeny. The Reach Fault divides successions containing different Lower Palaeozoic faunas; to the west, typical North American faunas occur in New World Island (Cobb's Arm Limestone), while to the east the rocks of the Gander region appear to have been attached to the Avalon Peninsula, with its European Lower Palaeozoic faunas, since the Early Ordovician. It is concluded that the Reach Fault marks the suture where the Iapetus Ocean closed at the end of the Early Devonian. This line probably extends across Newfoundland to the south of Buchans, and links up with the Cape Ray Fault in the southwest of the island. An Ordovician fauna from the Davidsville Group of the Gander area is illustrated for the first time; it is not clearly definitive of any faunal province.

New occurrences of two Lower Devonian graptolites from northern Yukon

1979 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 1121-1124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfred C. Lenz
Keyword(s):  
Lower Devonian ◽  
Yukon Territory ◽  
Canadian Cordillera ◽  
Early Devonian ◽  
First Time ◽  
Richardson Mountains ◽  
New Occurrences

Two species of Early Devonian graptolites are described from the Richardson Mountains, northern Yukon Territory; these are ?Pristiograptus sp. and Monograptus fanicus Koren', the latter being reported for the first time from the northern Canadian Cordillera. Associated grapto lites as well as the presence of M. fanicus indicate a Pragian age. The presence of M. fanicus helps fill the zonal gap between the late Lochkovian hercyniens Zone, and probable late Pragian thomasi and yukonensis Zones, and suggests that lower and upper Pragian substage divisions are possibly recognizable in the graptoiite facies.

A revised correlation of Silurian rocks in the Girvan district, SW Scotland

2002 ◽  
Vol 93 (4) ◽  
pp. 383-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
James D. Floyd ◽  
Mark Williams
Keyword(s):  
Depositional Environment ◽  
Late Ordovician ◽  
Important Research ◽  
British Geological Survey ◽  
Marine Fauna ◽  
Comprehensive Review ◽  
Iapetus Ocean ◽  
Northern Side ◽  
Lower Palaeozoic ◽  
Early Palaeozoic

ABSTRACTIn late Ordovician and early Silurian times, the Girvan district lay in a shelf marinesetting on the margin of Laurentia, on the northern side of the Iapetus Ocean. The Lower Palaeozoic rocks of the Girvan district, and their shelly and graptolitic fossil fauna, were systematically described by Lapworth in 1882 and have formed an important research resource ever since. They provide valuable evidence for the depositional environment and geological setting of Girvan during the early Palaeozoic, in both regional and wider contexts, and demonstrate the long-recognised close affinity with contemporaneous Laurentian faunas. However, by late Ordovician and into Silurian times, the earlier Iapetus oceanic barrier to faunal migration had largely gone and there is good correlation between contemporaneous marine fauna throughout the British Isles and Scandinavia. Despite much recent research in the area, including resurvey work by the British Geological Survey, no comprehensive review of Silurian lithostratigraphy at Girvan has been published since the revision by Cocks and Toghill in 1973. The present review of the Silurian rocks addresses this need and complements the recently published (Fortey et al. 2000) revision of the underlying Ordovician rocks, thus bringing the entire Girvan Lower Palaeozoic succession up to modern standards of nomenclature.

Pre-Silurian stratigraphy and tectonic significance of the St. Croix Belt, southeastern Maine

1987 ◽  
Vol 24 (12) ◽  
pp. 2459-2469 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan Ludman
Keyword(s):  
New Brunswick ◽  
Continental Slope ◽  
Early Paleozoic ◽  
The West ◽  
Early Devonian ◽  
Late Precambrian ◽  
Iapetus Ocean ◽  
Continental Block ◽  
Tectonic Significance ◽  
Anoxic Basin

The St. Croix Belt of southeastern Maine and southwestern New Brunswick is part of a distinctive terrane situated between the Avalon platform and Miramichi arc—two important physiographic components of the Late Precambrian – early Paleozoic Iapetus Ocean. It bears lithologic and stratigraphic similarities to both of those tracts but is identical to neither. Formerly mapped entirely as the Cookson Formation, it is now divided into four formations of Cambrian through Early Orodovician age assigned to the Cookson Group. These rocks record periodic influxes of terrigenous debris into a deep anoxic basin and may have been part of the west-facing continental slope of the Avalonian continental block. The St. Croix Belt has been strongly affected by both pre-Silurian and Early Devonian (Acadian) folding. Facies changes rather than tectonic sutures are used to explain the relationships between the St. Croix Belt and its neighbouring pre-Silurian tracts.

Two new cirroidean genera (Vetigastropoda, Archaeogastropoda) from the Emsian (Late Early Devonian) of Alaska with notes on the early phylogeny of Cirroidea

1998 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiří Frýda ◽  
Robert B. Blodgett
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
Lower Devonian ◽  
New Genus ◽  
New Genus And Species ◽  
Early Devonian ◽  
West Central ◽  
The Family ◽  
First Time ◽  
Stratigraphic Range

Two new cirroidean gastropod genera, Alaskiella (family Porcelliidae) and Alaskacirrus (family Cirridae), from the Emsian (late Early Devonian) of west-central Alaska (Medfra B-4 quadrangle) are described. The shell of Alaskiella medfraensis new genus and species exhibits inclined heterostrophic coiling. This shell character is known among other members of the subclass Archaeogastropoda, but is recorded for the first time within members of the superfamily Cirroidea. Inclined heterostrophic coiling of the shell was probably developed independently in several different groups of the subclass Archaeogastropoda. The new genus Alaskacirrus, represented by Alaskacirrus bandeli new species, is the oldest and only known Paleozoic member of the family Cirridae. This suggests that the family Cirridae was separated from the family Porcelliidae since at least Early Devonian time and that it most probably developed from the subfamily Agnesiinae of the family Porcelliidae. Thus, the stratigraphic range of the family Cirridae is at least from Lower Devonian to Cretaceous, an interval of about 350 million years.

Late Ordovician–early Silurian destruction of the Iapetus Ocean: Newfoundland, British Isles and Scandinavia—a discussion

1988 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin T. Pickering ◽  
Michael G. Bassett ◽  
David J. Siveter
Keyword(s):  
Oceanic Crust ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Late Ordovician ◽  
Plate Tectonic ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Foreland Basins ◽  
Early Devonian ◽  
Iapetus Ocean

ABSTRACTThe available data from Newfoundland, the British Isles and Scandinavia suggest that by late Ordovician–early Silurian times the ocean separating Laurentia from Eastern Avalonia and Baltica had partly closed with the consumption of intervening oceanic crust. Marine seaways, however, persisted until the middle or late Silurian. Phases of crustal transtension and transpression, predominantly under a major sinistral shear couple, occurred throughout the Silurian and early Devonian until the remnant Iapetus Ocean was completely destroyed. The most appropriate Recent plate tectonic models for Silurian sedimentation between Eastern Avalonia and Laurentia are probably the deep-marine foreland basins between Timor and the northern Australian margin, or between Taiwan and mainland China.

scholarly journals Provenance and paleogeography of post-Middle Ordovician, pre-Devonian sedimentary basins on the Gander composite terrane, eastern and east-central Maine: implications for Silurian tectonics in the northern Appalachians

2017 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 063-085 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan Ludman ◽  
John T. Hopeck ◽  
Henry N. Berry IV
Keyword(s):  
Sedimentary Basins ◽  
Late Ordovician ◽  
The West ◽  
East Central ◽  
Early Devonian ◽  
Middle Ordovician ◽  
Regional Correlation ◽  
Orogenic Wedge ◽  
Connecticut Valley ◽  
Seismic Reflection Profiles

Recent mapping in eastern and east-central Maine addresses long-standing regional correlation issues and permits reconstruction of post-Middle Ordovician, pre-Devonian paleogeography of sedimentary basins on the Ganderian composite terrane. Two major Late Ordovician-Silurian depocenters are recognized in eastern Maine and western New Brunswick separated by an emergent Miramichi terrane: the Fredericton trough to the southeast and a single basin comprising the Central Maine and Aroostook-Matapedia sequences to the northwest. This Central Maine/Aroostook-Matapedia (CMAM) basin received sediment from both the Miramichi highland to the east and highlands and islands to the west, including the pre-Late Ordovician Boundary Mountains, Munsungun-Pennington, and Weeksboro-Lunksoos terranes. Lithofacies in the Fredericton trough are truncated and telescoped by faulting along its flanks but suggest a similar basin that received sediment from highlands to the west (Miramichi) and east (St. Croix).Deposition ended in the Fredericton trough following burial and deformation in the Late Silurian, but continued in the CMAM basin until Early Devonian Acadian folding. A westward-migrating Acadian orogenic wedge provided a single eastern source of sediment for the composite CMAM basin after the Salinic/Early Acadian event, replacing the earlier, more local sources. The CMAM, Fredericton, and Connecticut Valley-Gaspé depocenters were active immediately following the Taconian orogeny and probably formed during extension related to post-Taconian plate adjustments. These basins thus predate Acadian foreland sedimentation.Structural analysis and seismic reflection profiles indicate a greater degree of post-depositional crustal shortening than previously interpreted. Late Acadian and post-Acadian strike-slip faulting on the Norumbega and Central Maine Boundary fault systems distorted basin geometries but did not disturb paleogeographic components drastically.

Lower Palaeozoic sporomorphs: their stratigraphical distribution and possible affinities

1985 ◽  
Vol 309 (1138) ◽  
pp. 201-205 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Lower Devonian ◽  
Land Plants ◽  
Early Devonian ◽  
Major Discrepancy ◽  
Lower Palaeozoic

Richardson & Ioannides (1973) speculated on possible bryophytic affinities of some Silurian dispersed spores. Later, at the International Palynological Congress in Cambridge (1980) I discussed the close morphological similarities of some Silurian and early Devonian spores to those from mosses and liverworts. In particular the dispersed miospore genera Streelispora and Aneurospora are similar to the spores of the extant liverwort Anthoceras and spores of some species of the extant moss genus Encalypta to fossil spores of Emphanisporites . If such similarities are indicative of affinity then many of the Silurian spores may have belonged to early bryophytic ancestors. As mosses and liverworts are not usually preserved as fossils, such an explanation would help to explain the major discrepancy between the number of dispersed Silurian and Lower Devonian miospore species and the few species of land plants known.

Silurian deformation in eastern Notre Dame Bay, Newfoundland

1992 ◽  
Vol 29 (9) ◽  
pp. 1899-1914 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno Lafrance ◽  
Paul F. Williams
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
Sedimentary Rocks ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Early Devonian ◽  
Middle Ordovician ◽  
Deformation Structures ◽  
Iapetus Ocean ◽  
Felsic Volcanic ◽  
Clastic Sedimentary ◽  
Final Closure

Eastern Notre Dame Bay, Newfoundland, is divided into five fault-bounded terranes. They are, from north to south, the Twillingate Terrane, the Chanceport Terrane, the New World Island Terrane, the Dildo Run Terrane, and the Port Albert Terrane. The New World Island Terrane is characterized by fault-repeated sequences of Middle Ordovician to Early Silurian turbiditic sandstones (Sansom Formation) and conglomerates (Goldson Formation). The Chanceport Terrane has a lower volcanic unit and an upper sedimentary unit consisting of red and green siltstones–shales overlain by turdiditic sandstones. This sequence is structurally overlain by a mafic and felsic volcanic unit.The clastic sedimentary rocks of the Chanceport, New World Island, and Port Albert terranes best record the Silurian deformation in the area. Silurian deformation is divided into two deformation events: an Early Silurian D1 thrusting event and a Late Silurian D2 dextral ductile faulting event. The Early Silurian Joey's Cove Mélange constrains the age of D1 thrusting. Few small-scale fault ramps and intrafolial F1 folds are associated with D1 thrusting. Most penetrative deformation structures in eastern Notre Dame Bay formed during D2. Three fold generations (F2, F3, F4), the regional cleavage (S3), and tectonic mélanges are associated with D2 dextral ductile faulting. D2 structures overprint Early Silurian Goldson conglomerates, and are overprinted by Late Silurian to Early Devonian Loon Bay Suite intrusions. Devonian to Mesozoic brittle D3 faults cut across the ductile regional structures.Silurian deformation in eastern Notre Dame Bay began during the closure of the Iapetus Ocean when the Chanceport, New World Island, and Port Albert terranes, and possibly the Twillingate and Dildo Run terranes, were thrust towards the south over the Gander Zone. D2 dextral ductile faults formed to accommodate the nonorthogonal final closure of the Iapetus Ocean. The closure of the Iapetus Ocean in eastern Notre Dame Bay was oblique with a dextral horizontal component.

Palaeomagnetism of Late Ordovician igneous intrusions from the northern Welsh Borderlands: implications to motion of Eastern Avalonia and regional rotations

1995 ◽  
Vol 132 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. D. A. Piper
Keyword(s):  
Opposite Polarity ◽  
Late Ordovician ◽  
Fault System ◽  
Upper Ordovician ◽  
Fracture Systems ◽  
Iapetus Ocean ◽  
Igneous Intrusions ◽  
Lower Palaeozoic ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Dual Polarity

AbstractThe palaeomagnetism of a Late Ordovician dolerite suite widely distributed in the northern Welsh Borderlands has been investigated to evaluate (i) regional rotations associated with later deformations and (ii) Lower Palaeozoic latitudes of Eastern Avalonia. Only local effects of Acadian and Variscan overprinting are observed in this region and most bodies appear to preserve a primary cooling-related magnetization. Magnetic properties in the Breidden Dolerite are related to primary igneous differentiation and a dual polarity characteristic remanence (D/I = 333.1/−71.6°, 6 sites, α95 = 10.4°) predates Late Ordovician folding. Dolerites elsewhere in the Breidden Hills Inlier record the same reversal of remanence and the combined mean (D/I = 314.3/−72.8°) is rotated clockwise from the mean remanence (D/I = 291.5/−59.5°, 21 sites, α95 = 6.0°) in a similar dolerite suite within the adjoining Shelve Inlier which is also of dual polarity and predates Late Ordovician folding. The difference in magnetic declinations is similar to the rotation of Late Ordovician fold axes and fracture systems between the two inliers and is probably the resultant effect of local rotation, possibly about a constraining bend in the Severn Valley Fault System. The Moel-y-Golfa Andesite of Caradocian (Soudleyan) age has a remanence (D/I = 294.3/−50.4°, 13 samples, α95 = 2.8°) which study of an adjoining volcanic conglomerate shows to be of primary cooling-related origin. The equivalent palaeolatitude is ˜ 31° S in early Caradocian times. A similar estimate is derived from a probable diagenetic overprint in the contemporaneous Castle Hill Conglomerate at Montgomery. The Mynydd-Bryn Andesite in the Berwyn Inlier, of probable similar origin and age to Moel-y-Golfa, has a magnetization of opposite polarity but similar inclination (D/I − 239.1/47.4°, 14 samples, α86 = 5.5°). Declination differences between these volcanic outcrops are a possible signature of later block rotations between the Lower Palaeozoic inliers and identify the importance of terrane definition in analysis of Lower Palaeozoic palaeomagnetic results from the Caledonides. A dolerite sheet complex at Hendre in the Berwyn Hills has a younger remanence (D/I − 182.3/ − 3.0°, 20 samples, α95 = 7.8°), probably of mid-Carboniferous age.The collective Upper Ordovician results define a rapid movement of the Avalonian Plate, probably spanning no more than 10 Ma, from ˜ 30° S in early Caradocian times to ˜ 57° S prior to folding of the dolerites in late Caradocian to early Ashgill times. This motion into higher southerly palaeolatitudes marks a reversal of the motion of Avalonia into more shallow southerly palaeolatitudes between Arenig and Llanvirn times and shows that Ordovician closure of the Iapetus Ocean was more complex than recognized hitherto.

Early Devonian (Pragian) vertebrates from the northern Roberts Mountains, Nevada

2016 ◽  
Vol 90 (4) ◽  
pp. 734-740 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carole J. Burrow ◽  
Michael A. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Species Diversity ◽  
Lower Devonian ◽  
Western United States ◽  
The South ◽  
The West ◽  
Early Devonian ◽  
Northern Margin ◽  
Fossil Fish

AbstractFossil fish are poorly represented in middle Lower Devonian deposits of the western United States. Here we describe vertebrate microremains from mid-Pragian levels in the Kobeh Member, McColley Canyon Formation, central Nevada. The species diversity of the assemblages is low and dominated by the acanthodian Nostolepis costata Goujet, 1976. This species is found in older (late Lochkovian–early Pragian) deposits in France and Spain and mid-Pragian or slightly younger deposits in Saudi Arabia. This distribution suggests dispersal to the west from the Armorica terrane around the south of Laurussia to the Nevada region, and southeastward to Arabia, on the northern margin of Gondwana.

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