ABSTRACT The Whale Mountain allochthon is a structural complex composed of lower Paleozoic mafic volcanic and marine sedimentary rocks that are exposed within three fault-bounded, east–west-trending belts in the northeastern Brooks Range of Alaska and Yukon. Each belt is characterized by a unique structural and stratigraphic architecture. Trace-element systematics from the volcanic rocks define distinctive suites that are geographically restricted to each belt. The volcanic rocks of the southern belt (the Marsh Fork volcanic rocks) have a tholeiitic character and rare earth element trends that resemble modern mid-ocean-ridge basalt. The volcanic rocks of the central belt (the Whale Mountain volcanic rocks) and northern belt (Ekaluakat formation; new name) both have an alkaline character, but the northern belt rocks are significantly more enriched in the incompatible trace elements. New zircon U-Pb data from two volcaniclastic rock units, one from the southern belt and another from central belt, yield unimodal age populations that range from ca. 567 to 474 Ma, with weighted averages of 504 ± 11 and 512 ± 1.4 Ma for each sample. In the central and southern belts of the allochthon, basalt flows are interbedded with discontinuous limestone and dolostone units that contain trilobites and agnostoid arthropods. Three distinct trilobite faunas of late Cambrian (Furongian) age were recovered from widely separated localities. The scarcity of uniquely Laurentian genera, coupled with an abundance of distinctive species that could not be assigned to any established Furongian genus, argues against models that invoke extrusion of these volcanic rocks onto the autochthonous Laurentian shelf or slope. It is thus proposed that the Whale Mountain allochthon formed in a peri-Laurentian setting, possibly as disparate fragments of the northern Iapetus Ocean that were assembled in an ancient accretionary wedge and subsequently accreted to the northern margin of Laurentia during the early Paleozoic.

Abstract This trip seeks to illustrate the succession of Cambrian and Ordovician facies deposited within the Pennsylvania and Maryland portion of the Great American Carbonate Bank. From the Early Cambrian (Dyeran) through Late Ordovician (Turinan), the Laurentian paleocontinent was rimmed by an extensive carbonate platform. During this protracted period of time, a succession of carbonate rock, more than two miles thick, was deposited in Maryland and Pennsylvania. These strata are now exposed in the Nittany arch of central Pennsylvania; the Great Valley of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia; and the Conestoga and Frederick Valleys of eastern Pennsylvania and Maryland. This field trip will visit key outcrops that illustrate the varied depositional styles and environmental settings that prevailed at different times within the Pennsylvania reentrant portion of the Great American Carbonate Bank. In particular, we will contrast the timing and pattern of sedimentation in off-shelf (Frederick Valley), outer-shelf (Great Valley), and inner-shelf (Nittany arch) deposits. The deposition was controlled primarily by eustasy through the Cambrian and Early Ordovician (within the Sauk megasequence), but was strongly influenced later by the onset of Taconic orogenesis during deposition of the Tippecanoe megasequence.

Abstract The carbonate strata of the great American carbonate bank (GACB) have been subdivided and correlated with ever-increasing precision and accuracy during the past half century through use of the dominant organisms that evolved on the Laurentian platform through the Cambrian and the Ordovician. Trilobites and conodonts remain the primary groups used for this purpose, although brachiopods, both calcareous and phosphatic, and graptolites are very important in certain facies and intervals. A series of charts show the chronostratigraphic units (series and stages) currently in use for deposits of the GACB and the biostratigraphic units (zones, subzones, and biomeres) whose boundaries delineate them. Older and, in some cases obsolete, stages and faunal units are included in the figures to allow users to relate information from previous publications and/or industry databases to modern units. This chapter also provides a brief discussion on the use of biostratigraphy in the recognition and interregional correlation of supersequence boundaries within the Sauk and Tippecanoe megasequences, and the varied perspectives on the nature of biostratigraphic units and their defining taxa during the past half century. Also included are a concise update on the biomere concept, and an explanation of the biostratigraphic consequences of a profound change in the dynamics of extinction and replacement that occurred on the GACB in the Early Ordovician when the factors responsible for platformwide biomere-type extinctions faded and ultimately disappeared. A final section addresses recent and pending refinements in the genus and species taxonomy of biostrat-igraphically significant fossil groups, the potential they hold for greatly improved correlation, and the obstacles to be overcome for that potential to be realized.

Abstract Decimeter-scale sampling of the Cambrian and the lowermost Ordovician (Sauk megasequence) rocks of the Llano uplift, Texas, has produced a finely resolved biostratigraphic framework based primarily on trilobites and conodonts. Systematically collected trilobites of the Llano Uplift allow recognition of 13 biozones that extend from the Bolaspidella Biozone (Cambrian System, Marjuman Stage) through the Symphysurina Zone (Ordovician System, upper Skullrockian Stage). Systematic collection of conodonts has produced specimens assignable to 13 zones that range from the Proconodontus tenuiserratus Zone (Cambrian System, Sunwaptan Stage) through the Rossodus manitouensis Zone (Ordovician System, upper Skullrockian Stage). The base of the Ordovician System in the Llano uplift, as elsewhere, has been identified by the lowest occurrence of the conodont Iapetognathus fluctivagus and is closely approximated by the lowest occurrences of the cosmopolitan trilobite Juyjuyaspis and the Laurentian trilobite Symphysurina “bulbosa.” Although the overlying Ordovician strata of the Ellenburger Group have not been systematically sampled, scattered trilobite collections do establish the approximate positions of the base of the Stairsian Stage (based on Paraplethopeltis) and the base of the Jeffersonian Stage (based on Rananasus and Jeffersonia) in the Tanyard and Honeycut Formations, respectively.

Abstract In the central Appalachians, carbonate deposition of the great American carbonate bank began during the Early Cambrian with the creation of initial ramp facies of the Vintage Formation and lower members of the Tomstown Formation. Vertical stacking of bioturbated subtidal ramp deposits (Bolivar Heights Member) and dolomitized microbial boundstone (Fort Duncan Member) preceded the initiation of platform sedimentation and creation of a sand shoal facies (Benevola Member) that was followed by the development of peritidal cyclicity (Dargan Member). Initiation of peritidal deposition coincided with the development of a rimmed platform that would persist throughout much of the Cambrian and Early Ordovician. At the end of deposition of the Waynesboro Formation, the platform became subaerially exposed because of the Hawke Bay regression, bringing the Sauk I supersequence to an end. In the Conestoga Valley of eastern Pennsylvania, Early Cambrian ramp deposition was succeeded by deposition of platform-margin and periplatform facies of the Kinzers Formation. The basal Sauk II transgression during the early Middle Cambrian submerged the platform and reinitiated the peritidal cyclicity that had characterized the pre-Hawke Bay deposition. This thick stack of meter-scale cycles is preserved as the Pleasant Hill and Warrior Formations of the Nittany arch, the Elbrook Formation of the Great Valley, and the Zooks Corner Formation of the Conestoga Valley. Deposition of peritidal cycles was interrupted during deposition of the Glossopleura and Bathyriscus-Elrathina Biozones by third-order deepening episodes that submerged the platform with subtidal facies. Regressive facies of the Sauk II supersequence produced platform-wide restrictions and the deposition of the lower sandy member of the Gatesburg Formation, the Big Spring Station Member of the Conococheague Formation, and the Snitz Creek Formation. Resubmergence of the platform was initiated during the late Steptoean (Elvinia Zone) with the expansion of extensive subtidal thrombolitic boundstone facies. Vertical stacking of no fewer than four of these thrombolite-dominated intervalsrecords third-order deepening episodesseparatedbyintervening shallowing episodes that produced peritidal ribbony and laminated mudcracked dolostone. The maximum deepening of the Sauk III transgression produced the Stonehenge Formation in two separate and distinct third-order submergences. Circulation restriction during the Sauk III regression produced a thick stack of meter-scale cycles of the Rockdale Run Formation (northern Virginia to southern Pennsylvania), the upper Nittany Dolomite, the Epler Formation, and the lower Bellefonte Dolomite of the Nittany arch (central Pennsylvania). This regressive phase was interrupted by a third-order deepening event that produced the oolitic member of the lower Rockdale Run and the Woodsboro Member of the Grove Formation in the Frederick Valley. Restricted circulation continued into the Whiterockian, with deposition of the upper Rockdale Run and the Pinesburg Station Dolomite in the Great Valley and the middle and upper parts of the Bellefonte Dolomite in the Nittany Arch region. This deposition was continuous from the Ibexian into the Whiterockian; the succession lacks significant unconformities and there are no missing biozones through this interval, the top of which marks the end of the Sauk megasequence. During deposition of the Tippecanoe megasequence, the peritidal shelf cycles were reestablished during deposition of the St. Paul Group. The vertical stacking of lithologies in the Row Park and New Market Limestones represents transgressive and regressive facies of a third-order deepening event. This submergence reached its maximum deepening within the lower Row Park Limestone and extended into the Nittany arch region with deposition of the equivalent Loysburg Formation. Shallow tidal-flat deposits were bordered to the south and east by deep-water ramp deposits of the Lincolnshire Formation. The St. Paul Group is succeeded upsection by ramp facies of the Chambersburg and the Edinburg Formations in the Great Valley, whereas shallow-shelf sedimentation continued in the Nittany arch area with the deposition of the Hatter Limestone and the Snyder and Linden Hall Formations. Carbonate deposition on the great American carbonate bank was brought to an end when it was buried beneath clastic flysch deposits of the Martinsburg Formation. Foundering of the bank was diachronous, as the flysch sediments prograded from east to west.

Abstract The Sauk megasequence in the far inboard region of the cratonic interior of North America (Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa) is divisible into two packages that fundamentally differ from one another in facies and stratigraphic attributes. A lower Sauk succession package, Marjuman–early Skullrockian in age, is characterized by deposits of the traditional inner detrital belt (IDB) that interfinger hundreds of kilometers seaward with the middle carbonate belt or cratonward margin of the central mid-continent great American carbonate bank (GACB). The IDB contains a typical suite of nearshore siliciclastic facies containing features that document the importance of both wave- and tide-dominated currents in the depositional system. The transitional area between the IDB and the GACB in the Cambrian and earliest Ordovician was a moat, characterized by relatively deep-water deposition, which served as a catchment for mud that was winnowed from landward parts of the shelf and then deposited near the stormwave base. Mixed carbonate and siliciclastic facies in the moat are characterized by condensation features and other attributes indicative of suppressed carbonate productivity and starvation of siliciclastic sand. These facies contrast with shallower water facies that commonly filled available accommodation space in both seaward (central part of the GACB) and landward (cratonic shoreline) directions, the former dominated by typical stacks of oolitic, ribbon-rock, and microbialite lithofacies, and the latter by stacks of nearshore siliciclastic sand-dominated parasequences. Our chronostratigraphic framework provides temporal constraints that support the long-postulated hypothesis that these two depositional systems expanded and contracted in reciprocating fashion: substantial landward migration and expansion of the GACB occurred when siliciclastic input was diminished during the most rapid rates of transgression (marked by maximum flooding intervals in the IDB). Retreat and diminishment in the extent of the GACB corresponded to falls in sea level that led to major progradations of nearshore siliciclastics of the IDB and terrigenous poisoning of the carbonate factory. An overlying upper Sauk succession package records the establishment of a fundamentally different depositional system in the far inboard regions of the cratonic interior beginning in the later Skullrockian. The Prairie du Chien Group and its equivalents represent a major landward migration and perhaps cratonwide distribution of the oolitic, ribbon-rock, and micro-bialite lithofacies that were previously restricted mostly to the GACB of Missouri and adjacent areas. This change was triggered by a pronounced continental-scale flooding event that led to onlap across much, or all, of the cratonic interior. The resultant burial of terrigenous source regions by carbonate strata is in part responsible for this fundamental change in de-positional conditions.

Abstract A revised lithostratigraphy for Lower Paleozoic strata in New Mexico and west Texas was developed through detailed sedimentological study of the Bliss and Hitt Canyon Formations within a refined temporal framework assembled from precise biostratigraphic (trilobite and conodont) and chemostratigraphic (carbon isotope) data. Member boundaries within the Hitt Canyon now correspond with mappable and essentially isochronous horizons that represent major depositional events that affected sedimentation in basins throughout Laurentian North America. This trip is designed to examine these and other important intervals, such as the extinction horizons at the base and top of the Skullrockian Stage, and to demonstrate the utility of associated faunas and isotopic excursions for correlation within and beyond the region.

Abstract The numerous extinctions that affected shallow marine faunas on the tropical shelves surrounding Laurentia in the Cambrian and Early Ordovician have been the focus of many detailed biostratigraphic, evolutionary, and paleoecologic studies. Data from carbonate platform and off-platform strata have been used to propose process-response models that invoke sea level change as a forcing mechanism for extinctions and/or radiations within the Cambrian and Early Ordovician. Some regressive features observed near horizons of faunal change within the Cambrian-Ordovician boundary interval on various continents have been used to propose a series of "eustatic events" (Nicholl et al., 1992). These include the "Lange Ranch Eustatic Event" and "Black Mountain Eustatic Event" of Miller (1984, 1992) and the Acerocare Regressive Event and Peltocare Regressive Event of Erdtmann (1986). There is much debate about the nature of these proposed events (Ludvigsen et al. 1986; Taylor et al. 1992; Landing 1993) based, at least in part, on the ambiguous nature of the sedimentological data and insufficient precision of correlation.