Abstract The reservoir characterization and provenance of the Wolfville Formation were investigated using petrography, heavy minerals and microprobe analysis of tourmaline and garnet. Sandstone samples were taken from exposures at Rainy Cove and Cambridge Cove, and from the subsurface at Chinampas N-37 well beneath the Bay of Fundy. The surface and subsurface rocks have differences in their relative content and/or type of detritus, cement and heavy minerals (opaques, garnet, scheelite, tourmaline, rutile, apatite and others). These sandstones have continental block provenance in the subsurface rocks and recycled orogen provenance in the exposures. The main sources of the exposed Wolfville Formation sediments were the Palaeozoic rocks of the Meguma Supergroup, South Mountain Batholith, Horton and Windsor groups; meanwhile the subsurface sandstones might have been derived from the same sources or the Avalon Terrane and/or Gondwana. The sandstones were deposited during early stages of rifting post-dating earlier Palaeozoic collision orogenies that culminated with the Appalachian orogeny. The exposures of Wolfville Formation have low porosity ( c. 6%) that diminishes to negligible in the subsurface. The Wolfville Formation has a considerable thickness beneath the Bay of Fundy where it overlies the Horton Bluff Formation, Meguma and/or Avalon terranes. However, its reservoir potential is not encouraging.

The Horton Group (late Famennian to Tournaisian) of Atlantic Canada provides an unusually complete record of Early Mississippian wetland biota. Best known for tetrapod fossils from “Romer's Gap,” this unit also contains numerous horizons with standing vegetation. The taphonomy and taxonomy of Horton Group fossil forests have remained enigmatic because of poor preservation, curious stump cast morphology, and failure to recognize the unusual sedimentary structures formed around standing plants. Four forested horizons within the Horton Group are preserved as cryptic casts and vegetation-induced sedimentary structures formed by the interaction of detrital sediment with in situ plants. Protostigmaria , the lobed base of the arborescent lycopsid Lepidodendropsis , occur as sandstone-filled casts attached to dense root masses. Mudstone-filled hollows formed when a partially entombed plant decayed, leaving a void that was later infilled by muddy sediment. A scratch semi-circle formed where a current bent a small plant, causing it to inscribe concentric grooves into the adjacent muddy substrate. Obstacle marks developed where flood waters excavated erosional scours into sandy sediment surrounding juvenile Lepidodendropsis . These cryptic lycopsid forests had considerably higher densities than their Pennsylvanian counterparts. Vegetation-induced sedimentary structures are abundant in Horton Group strata and could easily be misidentified as purely hydrodynamic or soft-sediment deformation structures without careful analysis. Recognition of these structures in early Paleozoic strata has great potential to expand our knowledge about the distribution of early land plants.

Abstract The east–west Minas fault zone, separating the Early Palaeozoic Meguma and Avalon terranes of the Appalachians, experienced dextral strike-slip motion during the Carboniferous. Abundant oblique contractional structures indicate localized dextral transpression, immediately south of the zone, probably associated with a restraining bend. Subsurface data indicate that the deformed Horton Group clastic rocks are thrust above younger Windsor Group evaporites. Excellent exposures on wave-cut platforms of the Bay of Fundy show structures developed in transpression, including NE-trending upright and inclined folds; south-verging thrust and reverse faults; and NW-striking normal faults. Northwest-trending boudins, which are perpendicular and slightly rotated in a clockwise sense relative to fold hinges, provide a field indicator for dextral transpression. The earliest folds (F 1 ) are curvilinear and may have formed by deformation of wet sediment. F 2 tectonic folds show weak axial-planar cleavage. Locally, these have been rotated into reclined orientations; spectacular downward-facing folds are probably due to refolding by more east–west F 3 folds. The structures observed are consistent with pure-shear-dominated transpression, with the local angle of convergence α increasing over time. This strain history is compatible with progressive strain partitioning, probably associated with the spreading of topography developed at the restraining bend.

Abstract The Carboniferous record of tetrapod footprints is mostly of Euramerican origin and provides the basis for a footprint biostratigraphy and biochronology of Carboniferous time that identifies four tetrapod footprint biochrons: (1) stem-tetrapod biochron of Middle Devonian–early Tournaisian age; (2) Hylopus biochron of middle Tournaisian–early Bashkirian age; (3) Notalacerta–Dromopus interval biochron of early Bashkirian–Kasimovian age; and (4) Dromopus biochron of Kasimovian–early Permian age. Particularly significant is the Carboniferous tetrapod footprint record of the Maritimes basin of eastern Canada (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island), which encompasses well-dated and stratigraphically superposed footprint assemblages of Early Mississippian–early Permian age. The Carboniferous tetrapod footprint record provides these important biostratigraphic datums: (1) oldest temnospondyls (middle Tournaisian); (2) oldest reptiliomorphs, likely anthracosaurs (middle Tournaisian); (3) oldest amniotes (early Bashkirian); and (4) oldest high-fibre herbivores (Bashkirian). Carboniferous tetrapod footprints thus provide significant insight into some major events of the Carboniferous evolution of tetrapods.