Life on the edge in eastern Alaska: Basal Ordovician(Tremadocian), platform-margin faunas of the Jones Ridge Formation

Stratigraphy
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Abstract

As the most fossiliferous and least deformed succession of unequivocally Laurentian lower Paleozoic strata in Alaska, the Jones Ridge Limestone has provided critical data for numerous stratigraphic studies (e. g. Palmer 1968; Harris et al. 1995; Dumoulin et al. 2002; Dumoulin and Harris 2012) focused on the Cambrian and Ordovician of northwestern North America/northeastern Laurentia (Figure 1). The Jones Ridge faunas are also significant in having provided the type material for some of the widespread and biostratigraphically useful latest Furongian and (perhaps) earliest Tremadocian species described by Kobayashi (1936) and Palmer (1968). Unfortunately, some of those taxa were based on very limited material for which, in the earlier study in particular, no detailed information regarding locality or stratigraphic horizon was provided. The limited amount of information and material available for study from Jones Ridge results largely from its remote location on the Yukon-Alaska boundary approximately 25km north of Eagle, Alaska, which renders it accessible only by helicopter. Parts of three field seasons (2010, 2011, and 2014) were invested in re-description and intensive sampling of the type section of the Jones Ridge Formation in order to produce an integrated and greatly refined set of biostratigraphic, chemostratigraphic, and sedimentological data. The new data support the interpretation offered by Palmer (1968) of the Jones Ridge strata as the product of deposition in outermost platform to upper slope environments offered by Palmer (1968) on the basis of taxonomic content of the faunas and close proximity of deep water units of equivalent age a very short distance to the southwest.

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Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Life on the edge in eastern Alaska: Basal Ordovician(Tremadocian), platform-margin faunas of the Jones Ridge Formation
Series title Stratigraphy
Edition 2015
Volume 12
Issue 2
Year Published 2015
Language English
Publisher Micropaleontology Press
Contributing office(s) Eastern Geology and Paleoclimate Science Center
Description 8 p.
First page 71
Last page 77
Conference Title 12th International Conference on the Ordovician System
Conference Location Harrisonburg, VA
Conference Date June 8-11, 2015
Country United States
State Alaska
City Eagle
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