Details of the stratigraphy, depositional setting, and clastic petrography of the upper Paleozoic Schoonover sequence in the Independence Mountains, northern Nevada, provide the basis for a better understanding of the paleogeography of the continental margin of western North America during the late Paleozoic. The Schoonover sequence represents the northernmost exposures of the Golconda allochthon, which was thrust over the outer edge of the continental margin of western North America during the Permo-Triassic Sonoma orogeny. The Schoonover sequence, like the Havallah sequence and other units of the Golconda allochthon, is an imbricated assemblage of thrust-bound packages of radiolarian “ribbon” chert, basaltic greenstone, silty limestone turbidites, and siliciclastic sandstones that range in age from Late Devonian to Early Permian. Detailed mapping, and facies and petrographic analysis of lithostratigraphic units, combined with paleontologic control, indicate that the Schoonover sequence consists of a coherent stratigraphic succession of basinal deposits with paleogeographic ties to the autochthonous shelf margin and to a volcanic arc. Latest Devonian- to earliest Mississippian-age basaltic and andesitic greenstones and tuffaceous sedimentary rocks form the stratigraphic base of the sequence and are succeeded by Lower Mississippian siliciclastic sandstones. The petrography of these sandstones indicates that they consist of mixed detritus derived from volcanic and continental shelf source terranes, indicating the proximity of an arc to the continental margin. In addition, stratigraphic relations between autochthon and allochthon indicate that the Schoonover basin evolved adjacent to the continental shelf throughout the late Paleozoic, its history punctuated by periods of basaltic volcanism and pulses of continent-derived clastic input. The onset of the Sonoma orogeny resulted in closure of the basin and emplacement of its deposits on the continental margin.

Biostratigraphic data, based mostly on radiolarian assemblages, establish synchronous deposition in the northern Sierra terrane and the Havallah basin beginning in the Late Devonian and extending into the early Late Permian. Lower Mississippian and mid-Permian arc-derived volcaniclastic debris was deposited in parts of the Havallah basin during episodes of arc volcanism in the northern Sierra terrane. Between these episodes of arc volcanism, from late Early Mississippian to at least Middle Pennsylvanian, the northern Sierra terrane collected siliceous pelagic deposits that correlate with dominantly chert-argillite sections in the Havallah sequence. These intermixed lithic assemblages suggest shared stratigraphic evolution and geographic proximity between the Sierran arc terrane and the Havallah basin during the late Paleozoic. During Late Devonian and Early Mississippian arc volcanism in the northern Sierra terrane, lower Paleozoic rocks of the Roberts Mountains allochthon were thrust over coeval deposits on the North American shelf. Chert-quartz-rich siliciclastic debris, derived from the Antler orogenic belt, is interbedded with Upper Devonian and Lower Mississippian distal volcanic rocks in the northern Sierra terrane and with Kinderhookian volcaniclastic rocks and chert in the Schoonover sequence. These quartzose-clastic deposits not only provide an independent lithologic link between the Sierran arc terrane and the Havallah basin, they also tie the arc terrane and basin to North America at the time of the Antler orogeny. Late Devonian and Early Mississippian arc volcanism in the northern Sierra terrane occurred in an extensional regime. Extensional tectonism began locally in the Havallah basin during the Famennian and continued into the early Meramecian. Contemporaneous extension in the arc and basin during emplacement of the Roberts Mountains allochthon is difficult to reconcile with existing arc-continent collision models for the Antler orogeny.