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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 69 (1985)

Issue: 5. (May)

First Page: 858

Last Page: 858

Title: Regional Significance of Mississippian Rocks at Pentagon Mountain, Lewis and Clark Range, Northwestern Montana: ABSTRACT

Author(s): K. M. Nichols

Article Type: Meeting abstract

Abstract:

Pentagon Mountain exposes one of the best of the few sections of Mississippian rocks in the Lewis and Clark Range of northwestern Montana. This section consists of 225 m (738 ft) of marine carbonate rocks from which conodonts, ranging in age from earliest Osagean to early Meramecian, have been identified. Its stratigraphic base is well exposed, but the top has been eroded. Five units are recognized in this sequence, in ascending order: (1) phosphatized coarsely crinoidal and spiculitic wackestone, (2) dolomitic lime mudstone or wackestone, thinly interbedded with spiculitic biogenic chert, (3) partly dolomitized lime bioclastic wackestone showing much pressure-solution compaction, (4) partly dolomitized lime bioclastic packstone or wackestone, also showing much pressure-s lution compaction, and (5) dolomitic mudstone.

The Mississippian sequence at Pentagon Mountain can be readily correlated lithologically, across the Lewis thrust system with Mississippian rocks that crop out to the east in the Sawtooth Range. This implies either that Mississippian units were originally widespread or that the magnitude of thrusting between the Mississippian rocks in the Lewis and Clark Range and those in the Sawtooth Range was insignificant. However, Mississippian rocks at Pentagon Mountain exhibit extreme pressure-solution compaction, which suggests greater stratigraphic or structural burial of these rocks than their Mississippian counterparts in the Sawtooth Range.

Secondary dolomite is pervasive in the lower part of the Mississippian section in the Lewis and Clark Range, and spectacular solution breccias locally disrupt the base of the section. These breccias and the adjacent dolomite are probably related, as both are thought to result from the passage of fluids through these rocks during Laramide uplift and/or post-Laramide erosion and extension.

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