Five marine biofacies based on conodont distributions are recognized for the Permian Phosphoria Formation and related rocks. They are: (1) facies with no conodonts, (2) facies with Hindeodus only, (3) facies with Hindeodus and (or) Neostreptognathodus and (or) Stepanovites and (or) Merrillina, (4) a transitional facies containing any of the components of biofacies 3 with either Neogondolella or Xaniognathus, (5) facies dominated by Neogondolella and Xaniognathus. These biofacies (1–5) represent progressive shore or nearshore to offshore differentiation of the conodont faunas. Intervals of phosphate deposition within the Phosphoria Formation correspond to shoreward encroachment of offshore biofacies during trasgressive events. Elements of these conodont faunas, including the new species Neostreptognathodus newelli , are described.

Remnants of a Late Triassic continental margin and ocean basin are scattered across central and southern Alaska. Little is known about the fundamental nature of the margin because most remnants have not been studied in detail and a protracted period of terrane accretion and margin-parallel translation has disrupted original stratigraphic and structural relationships. Three new conodont collections were recovered from a sequence of Upper Triassic calcareous sedimentary rocks in the central Alaska Range. One of the three localities is north of the Denali fault system in an area previously thought to be underlain by an uninterrupted sequence of metamorphic rocks of the parautochthonous Yukon-Tanana terrane. Structural relations in the immediate vicinity of this conodont locality indicate that mid-Cretaceous(?) thrust faulting imbricated Paleozoic metaigneous rocks with the Triassic sedimentary rocks. This may reflect a closer pre-Cretaceous relationship between the Yukon-Tanana terrane and Late Triassic shelf and slope deposits than previously appreciated. Reexamination of existing conodont collections from the central Alaska Range indicates that Upper Triassic marine slope and basin rocks range in age from at least as old as the late Carnian to the early middle Norian. The conodont assemblages typical of these rocks are generally cosmopolitan and do not define a distinct paleogeographic faunal realm. One collection, however, contains Epigondolella multidentata sensu Orchard 1991c , which appears to be restricted to western North American autochthonous rocks. Although paleogeographic relations cannot be determined with specificity, the present distribution of biofaces within the Upper Triassic sequence could not have been the result of simple accordion-style collapse of the Late Triassic margin.

Abstract Conodonts have been restudied in order to define the base of the Changhsingian Stage boundary at Meishan, Changxing County, Zhejiang Province, China. The Changhsingian represents the second and last stage of the Upper Permian, which is also known as the Lopingian Series. A sample-population based taxonomic approach has been used and described. This approach usually views the entire collection within a given sample as a population and recognizes the most consistent and stable characters within that ‘sample-population’ for identification. Three related conodont species, Clarkina longicuspidata Mei & Wardlaw in Mei et al. 1994 , C. wangi ( Zhang 1987 ) and C. subcarinata (Sweet in Teichert et al. 1973 ) have been redefined and redescribed using this new approach that recognizes carinal development as an apomorphic character for these taxa. A consistent change in denticulation has been observed between Clarkina longicuspidata and Clarkina wangi wherein C. longicuspidata has a prominent gap in front of the cusp, whereas C. wangi has a ‘wall’-like carina. The carinal change may have resulted from a heterochronic process involving acceleration, since juvenile descendants exhibit features of ancestral adults; the change may be related to the evolution of other biota that may represent potential food sources for the conodont animal, given the apparent importance of the conodont carina for food processing. It is suggested that the base of the Changhsingian Stage could be defined within the C. longicuspidata-C. wangi lineage, based on the newly refined taxonomy. This boundary occurs close to the flooding surface that represents at least the second parasequence within the Changxing Limestone. The proposed boundary is close to, but not identical with, the traditionally defined boundary.

Abstract Middle to Late Triassic turbidite sequences are exposed in the states of Zacatecas and San Luís Potosí in central Mexico. These strata, assigned mostly to the Zacatecas Formation, accumulated in continental slope, toe-of-slope, and basin-plain environments along the passive continental margin of western Pangea. Strata of the Zacatecas Formation are age equivalent to rocks of the Antimonio Formation and Barranca Group in Sonora, the La Boca Formation in Tamaulipas and Nuevo León, and unnamed strata in Baja California. Based on their age, the Zacatecas turbidites correlate with a drop in sea level during the Permian-Triassic assembly of Pangea. The Triassic paleogeographic setting of Mexico is complex and poorly understood, because only dispersed Triassic outcrops exist across Mexico. However, the biogeographic affinities of the faunas from the Zacatecas Formation in central Mexico with those from equivalent strata in Baja California and Sonora suggest that these three regions were connected through the eastern Pacific, and that the Atlantic Ocean did not exist during the Ladinian-Carnian. The Zacatecas sequences underwent three periods of compressive deformation: one during their obduction onto the continental margin at some time during the latest Triassic-earliest Jurassic (?); a second during the Middle to Late Jurassic (Oxfordian) (?), apparently related to transpression; and a third during the Late Cretaceous to Tertiary Laramide orogeny.

Deposition of shallow-water carbonates on the vast Yangtze Platform of south China spanned the late Proterozoic through Middle Triassic, accumulating as much as 4000 m during the Early and Middle Triassic. Deeper-water carbonates and silici-clastics accumulated to comparable thickness in the Nanpanjiang Basin southeast of the platform. After the demise of the platform, an additional 2500 m of mostly silici-clastics spread across the platform in Late Triassic. Deposition of platform carbonates was also widespread in the Permian of south China, but a transgression in perhaps the last 2 m.y. of the Permian combined with differential subsidence to reconfigure the Yangtze Platform in the Triassic. The margin retreated ∼100 km northward in the Guiyang (eastern) sector, and a low-relief ramp developed over the flat top of the Permian platform, whereas the Early Triassic margin mimicked the Permian location in the Zhenfeng sector to the southwest. Nevertheless, deposition was essentially continuous from the Permian into the Triassic in most localities in Guizhou. Triassic deposition began with widespread terrigenous mud bearing thin-shelled bivalves or ammonoids. Renewed carbonate deposition within the Induan produced thin-bedded, laminated, dark-gray lime mudstone with planktonic biota in the basin interspersed with carbonate breccias. Thin-bedded lime mudstones with prominent burrows formed farther updip to the north and west. Thick intervals of oolite and of shallow-water lime mudstone interbedded with terrigenous clastic wedges that thicken and merge to the west mark the updip limit of deposition on a carbonate ramp. Platform-interior carbonates are more than three times as thick as their basinal equivalents. The ramp configuration evolved into a flat-topped platform with a slight rim in the Olenekian, recorded by peritidal carbonate cycles at the platform margin and subtidal lagoonal muds and ultimately evaporites in the interior. Carbonate deposition spread farther westward to cover the terrigenous siliciclastics of the Induan. A major deepening event within the Olenekian is marked by black, ammonoid-bearing, nodular limestone and fissile shale. The patchy distribution of this facies indicates differential warping of the platform rather than purely eustatic causes. The basin received a starvation diet of siliciclastic and carbonate mud with minor silty turbidites and carbonate debris flows. At the end of Early Triassic, platform-interior deposits averaged 1175 m thick and basinal equivalents only 250 m. Acidic volcanic ash spread across the Yangtze Platform at the Olenekian-Anisian transition. Anisian deposits in the Nanpanjiang Basin are dominantly siliciclastics that thicken dramatically in southwestern Guizhou and adjacent Guangxi. Biogenic frame-stones constructed by organisms of questionable origins, Tubiphytes and Plexoramea , assisted by sponges, arborescent corals, skeletal stromatolites, and copious encrusters, rimmed the Anisian platform. This rim collapsed along most of the Guiyang sector to form a basin-margin wedge 175 km long deposited by turbidity currents, debris flows, and rock fall. Collapse led to retreat of the margin by ∼2.7 km; exceptionally by 10 km. In contrast the reef margin advanced slightly in parts of the Zhenfeng sector. Mud-dominated peritidal cycles formed in the lee of the reefs. Deposition in the platform interior was entirely subtidal with alternating episodes of normal marine water, hypersalinity, and siliciclastic influx. An increase in siliciclastic content eastward throughout the Middle Triassic signals the emergence of the Jiangnan Massif, which had been covered throughout the Permian and at least the Induan. Platform sedimentation in the Ladinian features peritidal cycles that extended far into the interior to define a flat-topped platform. High depositional energy is reflected in grainstones and packstones composed of grapestone, bioclasts, and ooids. Barriers other than sand shoals appear to have been absent. Biogenic facies are confined to small outcrops of Tubiphytes and coral boundstone, interpreted as patch reefs. Tepee structures cap many cycles or disrupt successive cycles, indicating extended subaerial exposure. At the beginning of the Ladinian, the platform margin of the Guiyang sector prograded at least 0.6 km. In the Zhenfeng sector the margin retreated slightly, further indication of more rapid subsidence of the western part of the platform. The Nanpanjiang Basin apparently starved early in the Ladinian, but filled to overflowing with siliciclastic turbidites and mud in the later Ladinian or the early Carnian. Transport direction of the very fine sand of the turbidites was from the east, pointing to the Jiangnan Massif as a continued source of sediment, both by land onto the platform and by sea into the basin. East and west sectors of the Yangtze Platform in Guizhou present stark contrasts during the Carnian and Norian. Shallow-water carbonate deposition continued into the Carnian in the Guiyang sector, but tongues of terrigenous mud and sand from the northeast reached to the platform margin and damped out carbonate deposition by the end of the Carnian. Erosion prevailed in the Norian, truncating formations toward the north down to the level of the Anisian. Shallow-water carbonate deposition ended dramatically with the beginning of the Carnian in the Zhenfeng sector. Nodular-bedded, dark-gray lime mudstone with ammonoids overlies peritidal deposits, documenting the drowning of the Yangtze Platform. A very condensed sequence of black shale with concentrations of manganese, reduced iron, and organic carbon followed. Siliciclastic flysch and shallow-water sandstone totaling 1265 m thick filled the accommodation space resulting from the drowning by the end of the Carnian. Norian deposits are cross-bedded sandstones and conglomerates that form thinning- and fining-upward cycles attributed to braided streams that encroached on coastal swamps represented by commercial coal and by mudrocks containing fresh-water, brackish, or marine fossils. The braided streams were rejuvenated and apparently reversed in the Rhaetian to form a coarse-grained clastic wedge that thins and fines toward the north and east across an erosion surface that cuts as deep as Anisian rocks in northern Guizhou. Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous rocks overlie the Rhaetian rocks concordantly, contradicting prevalent interpretations of a major orogeny (Indosinian) in the Late Triassic in Guizhou. The angular unconformity underlying Upper Cretaceous conglomerates dates major deformation in Guizhou as mid-Cretaceous.