ABSTRACT The Cincinnati Arch region of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana is an icon of North American Paleozoic stratigraphy, as it exposes strata ranging from Ordovician to Pennsylvanian in age. In particular, the highly fossiliferous Ordovician, Silurian, and Middle Devonian successions have been extensively studied since the nineteenth century, and continue to serve as a crucial proving ground for new methods and models of biostratigraphy, chemostratigraphy, and sequence stratigraphy in mixed clasticcarbonate depositional settings. These strata are locally capped by Middle Devonian limestones with their own diverse fauna and unique depositional history. Outcrops near Louisville, Kentucky, provide an excellent opportunity to examine these strata firsthand and discuss sequence stratigraphy, chemostratigraphy, sedimentary environments, and paleoecology. A series of new roadcuts south of Mount Washington, Kentucky, exposes the lower to middle Richmondian Stage (Upper Ordovician, Cincinnatian) and presents a diverse suite of marine facies, from peritidal mudstones to offshore shoals, coral biostromes, and subtidal shales. These exposures are well suited for highlighting the revised sequence stratigraphy of the Cincinnatian Series, presented herein. Nearby outcrops also include much of the local Silurian succession, allowing an in-depth observation of Llandovery and Wenlock strata, including several chemostratigraphically important intervals that have improved regional and international correlation. Supplementary exposures east and north of Louisville provide context for subjacent and superjacent Ordovician-Silurian strata, as well as examples of lateral facies changes and unconformities. Additionally, the Falls of the Ohio at Clarksville, Indiana, features an exceptional outcrop of the overlying Middle Devonian succession, including an extensive and well-preserved biostrome of corals, sponges, and other marine fauna. These fossil beds, coupled with significant exposures in local quarries, are critical for understanding the paleoecology and stratigraphy of the Middle Devonian of the North American midcontinent.

Abstract Cambrian and Ordovician strata in Millard and Juab counties, western central Utah, are a thick (17,500 ft [5334 m]) succession that was deposited on a tropical miogeoclinal platform that experienced rapid thermal subsidence after a Neoproterozoic sea-floor spreading ridge formed along the western margin of Laurentia. In this area, which includes the Cricket Mountains, Drum Mountains, Fish Springs Range, House Range, Confusion Range, and Wah Wah Mountains, the Cambrian to Middle Ordovician Sauk megasequence is approximately 15,875 ft (∼4839 m) thick, and the Upper Ordovician part of the Tippecanoe megasequence is approximately 1525 ft thick (∼465m). Basal deposits of the Sauk megasequence are the transgressive Lower Cambrian Prospect Mountain Quartzite, and the top of the Sauk megasequence is the upper Whiterockian Watson Ranch Quartzite. Strata between these sandstones are mostly limestone with several shaly intervals. The Sauk megasequence is divided into four parts, Sauk I to IV, in this area, and these parts have been divided into smaller sequences. The Ordovician part of the Tippecanoe megasequence is mostly dolomite and quartzite. Major influences on the depositional history of these strata include rapid generation of accommodation space caused by thermal subsidence following continental rifting, in-situ generation of tropical carbonates that generally kept pace with accommodation, eustatic fluctuations, influx of siliciclastics during sea level lowstands, and vertical tectonic adjustments of regional tectonic elements inherited from Neoproterozoic rifting: the Wah Wah arch, House Range embayment, Tooele arch, and Ibex Basin. The resulting strata comprise one of the best known Middle Cambrian-Middle Ordovician stratigraphic successions in North America and include the reference sections of the Upper Cambrian Millardan Series and the Cambrian-Ordovician Ibexian Series. Stratigra-phers established a Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) for the base of the Middle Cambrian Drumian Stage in the Drum Mountains and proposed another GSSP for the base of the uppermost Cambrian stage in the Wah Wah Mountains. Middle Cambrian– Middle Ordovician strata are very fossiliferous, and some intervals have incredibly abundant fossils, such as the numerous complete specimens of the Middle Cambrian trilobite Collenia in the central House Range. Trilobites, conodonts, brachiopods, and other fossil groups have been used for biozonation and correlation, and these strata comprise a North American standard for uppermost Cambrian–Middle Ordovician trilobite and conodont zonations. Upper Ordovician dolomites and quartzites are less fossiliferous. These Cambrian and Ordovician strata are the lower half of a Lower Cambrian–Lower Triassic succession that is approximately 34,000 ft (10,300 m) thick and was thrust onto the Jurassic Navajo Sandstone in the southern Wah Wah Mountains during the Sevier orogeny. These strata are exposed in block-faulted mountain ranges resulting from basin and range extension during the late Tertiary.

Abstract More than 15,000 ft (>4572 m) of Sauk megasequence strata are exposed in mountain ranges across the eastern Great Basin of western Utah (Figure 1 ; see Miller et al., 2012 ). The upper parts, Sauk II to Sauk IV, are particularly well exposed in the western desert of Utah, in and around the Ibex area (Figure 2 ). Division of the Sauk megasequence into four parts follows Miller et al. (2012) . This area was also the location of several wildcat wells that were drilled in the late 1970s and early 1980s (Figure 1 ). From 1991 to 2003, Evans et al. have collected gamma-ray profiles from measured stratigraphic sections in the Confusion, Fish Springs, and House Ranges, as well as the Wah Wah Mountains and sections in eastern Nevada. Profiles from the Ibex area can be correlated confidently with some subsurface gamma-ray logs. As a consequence, key stratigraphic markers exposed in measured sections can be identified in well logs, and conversely, well logs can be used to help delineate the distribution of facies and large-scale structures.

Abstract The Sauk Sequence comprises more than 5 km of mixed carbonate and siliciclastic strata on the Paleozoic miogeocline of the eastern Great Basin. Rapid, post-rifting subsidence was the single most important factor for providing accommodation for accumulation of sediments. Despite the enormous thickness of strata and the tendency for unconformities to die out toward the margin of the continent, bounding surfaces of the Sauk Sequence and several sequence boundaries within this interval are preserved in mountain ranges of western Utah. The base and top of the Sauk Sequence are thick sandstones. The development of microkarst or truncation surfaces associated with major facies disclocations and deposition of major influxes of siliciclastics are the hallmarks of sequence boundaries and correlative conformities in this setting. The style of sequence boundary development was mostly a function of magnitude and duration of sea-level fall but was also influenced by tectonic features such as the House Range Embayment.