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Abstract

Salad Hersi, Osman, 2012, Biostratigraphic constraints on chronostratigraphic intraformational relationships within the Lower–Middle Ordovician Beekmantown Group, Laurentian margin: Eastern Ontario and southwestern Quebec, Canada, in J. R. Derby, R. D. Fritz, S. A. Longacre, W. A. Morgan, and C. A. Sternbach, eds., The great American carbonate bank: The geology and economic resources of the Cambrian–Ordovician Sauk megasequence of Laurentia: AAPG Memoir 98, p. 559574.

DOI:10.1306/13331507M983506

Copyright copy2012 by The American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

Biostratigraphic Constraints on Chronostratigraphic Intraformational Relationships within the Lower–Middle Ordovician Beekmantown Group, Laurentian Margin: Eastern Ontario and Southwestern Quebec, Canada

Osman Salad Hersi1

1Geology Department, University of Regina, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada; Present address: Department of Earth Science, Sultan Qaboos University, Alkhod, Mucat, Oman.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Most of the data presented and discussed in this chapter were collected during the author's postdoctoral research (1998–2002) at the Quebec Geoscience Center, Ste-Foy, and Carleton University, Ottawa. I thank Denis Lavoie (Geological Survey of Canada-Quebec) and George Dix (Carleton University) for supporting my postdoctoral projects. I also thank Richard Koepnick (Koepnick Geological Consulting, Inc., Virginia) and Andre Desrochers (Ottawa University) for their reviews of the manuscript that have significantly improved the manuscript. Special thanks go to John Repetski (USGS) for offering a profound discussion on some previously published conodont data, allowing improvement of the biostratigraphic analysis of the studied area.

ABSTRACT

The Lower–Middle Ordovician Beekmantown Group of the St. Lawrence Lowlands (eastern Ontario and southwestern Quebec) consists of basal inner-shelf dolomitic sandstones (Theresa Formation) and inner- to middle-shelf carbonates (Beauharnois and Carillon Formations). The stratigraphic relationship of the three formations has been considered in the past as a normal vertical succession. Integration and reinterpretation of the existing lithostratigraphic and biostratigraphic data support a new chronostratigraphic relationship, particularly between the Theresa and Beauharnois Formations, as well as correlations with the outer-shelf deposits preserved in the Philipsburg tectonic slice (PTS). Variations in the lithostratigraphic pattern are pronounced along a cross sectional depositional profile from inner shelf to outer shelf. The data demonstrate that the Beekmantown Group is thickest in the region south of Montreal and gradually becomes thinner toward eastern Ontario (Ottawa embayment) and the region north of Montreal (Laurentian highs). The lower boundary of the Theresa Formation is diachronous, becoming younger toward the craton. In the region south of Montreal, Theresa Formation sandstones are temporally equivalent to the lower part of the middle-shelf carbonates assigned to the Ogdensburg Member of the Beauharnois Formation. The Theresa Formation sandstones pinched out toward the outer shelf and replaced by Ogdensburg-like facies. The latter apparently merges with the outer-shelf carbonates of the Wallace Creek and Morgan Corner Formations. The outer-shelf strata of the Hastings Creek and Naylor Ledge Formations correlate with the upper part of the Ogdensburg Member. The Naylor Ledge Formation is truncated by the Sauk-Tippecanoe unconformity and overlain by the lower Whiterockian (?Rangenian) Luke Hill Formation. The onset of the Sauk-Tippecanoe unconformity is older in the outer-shelf rocks of the PTS and becomes younger toward the inner shelf, where it separates the middle Whiterockian Carillon Formation from the Chazyan strata of the St. Lawrence Lowlands.

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