Ronald L. Martino

NO MAJOR STRATIGRAPHIC GAP EXISTS NEAR THE MIDDLE-UPPER PENNSYLVANIAN (DESMOINESIAN-MISSOURIAN) BOUNDARY IN NORTH AMERICA

Abstract Interregional correlation of the marine zones of major cyclothems between North America and eastern Europe does not support assertions that a major stratigraphic gap exists between the traditional regional Desmoinesian and Missourian stages in North America. Such a gap was previously proposed to explain an abrupt change in megafloral assemblages in the northern Appalachian Basin and by extension across all of North America. Conodont-based correlation from the essentially complete low-shelf Midcontinent succession (distal from the highstand shoreline), through the mid-shelf Illinois Basin, to the high shelf of the Appalachian Basin (proximal to highstand shoreline) demonstrates that all major ∼400 kyr cyclothem groupings in the Midcontinent are recognizable in the Illinois Basin. In the Appalachian Basin, however, the grouping at the base of the Missourian is represented only by paleosols and localized coal. The immediately preceding grouping was removed very locally by paleovalley incision, as is evident at the 7–11 Mine, Columbiana County, Ohio, from which the original megafloral data were derived. At the few localities where incised paleodrainage exists, there may be a gap of ∼1000 kyr, but a gap of no more than ∼600 kyr occurs elsewhere in the Appalachian Basin at that level and its magnitude progressively decreases westward into the Illinois (∼300 kyr) and Midcontinent (<200 kyr) Basins. Thus, while a gap is present near the Desmoinesian–Missourian boundary in North America, it is typically more than an order of magnitude smaller than that originally proposed and is similar to the gaps inferred at sequence boundaries between cyclothems at many horizons in the Pennsylvanian of North America.

Trace fossils from marginal marine facies of the Kanawha Formation (Middle Pennsylvanian), West Virginia

Seven sedimentary facies have been identified in a 40-m-thick portion of the Kanawha Formation near Chelyan in southern West Virginia. Lithology, sedimentary and biogenic structures, body fossils, paleocurrent patterns, and facies geometry have been used to identify the following paleoenvironments: Facies 1, fluviodeltaic channels represented by thick, cross-stratified channel sandstone; Facies 2, crevasse splays and tidal creeks represented by thin, cross-stratified wedge and channel sandstone; Facies 3, coastal swamps and lakes represented by coal seat and carbonaceous shale; Facies 4, restricted bay and upper tidal flats represented by dark-gray shale, mudstone; Facies 5, interdistributary bays represented by olive-gray siltstone and shale with brachiopods; Facies 6, bay or tidal flat scour fills represented by sandy limestone with brachiopods and pelmatozoans; and Facies 7, low to mid tidal flats and distributary mouth bars represented by thinly interbedded, rippled sandstone and siltstone. Trace fossils representing 17 ichnogenera are present with most being restricted to certain sedimentary facies. Three ichnoassemblages are recognized. 1) An annulated vertical burrow assemblage, consisting of arthropod(?) dwellings, occurs in an abandoned fluvial channel facies. 2) A Phycodes–Zoophycos assemblage is associated with dark-gray shales and mudstones of a restricted bay and/or upper tidal flat environment. Additional ichnogenera include Planolites and ? Conostichus . 3) An Olivellites assemblage with a high abundance and a high diversity of trace fossils occurs within a rippled sandstone/siltstone facies; trace fossils include (in order of abundance) Olivellites, Teichichnus, Planolites, Aulichnites , transversely ridged surface trails, Rosselia, Scolicia, Curvolithus, Helminthopsis, Tasmanadia, Petalichnus, Ancorichnus , and ? Asterosoma . The associated depositional environments are interpreted as low to mid tidal flats and possibly distributary mouth bars. The occurrence of salinity-sensitive trace fossils such as the assemblages described herein within otherwise faunally barren intervals facilitates the recognition of marine-influenced coastal facies in which stenohaline or brackish body fossils are lacking.

Fourier and Autocorrelation Analysis of Estuarine Tidal Rhythmites, Lower Breathitt Formation (Pennsylvanian), Eastern Kentucky, USA

ABSTRACT Outcrops of the Pennsylvanian Breathitt Formation in eastern Kentucky reveal a rhythmic pattern of siliciclastic sedimentation in a marginal marine coastal setting. A 15-23 m thick stratigraphic interval of thinly interbedded, fine sandstone and shale displays tidally generated features such as flaser and wavy current ripple bedding, bipolar paleocurrents, and cyclic thickening and thinning of mud-draped sandstone layers. Bioturbation is common and increases toward the top of the section. Ichnogenera include Asterosoma, Arenicolites, Olivellites, Conostichus, Scalarituba, Planolites, Zoophycos, Teichichnus, Curvolithus, Chondrites, Neonereites, and Rosselia. A statistical analysis of sand layer thickness was carried out using shale partings as bounding surfaces for the individual sand units. Fourier and autocorrelation analyses were performed on two vertical sequences containing a total of over 2100 layers. The results reveal the presence of four cycles of thickness variation. First-order cycles consist of alternating thick-thin sand layers. These daily couplets may reflect unequal flood and ebb currents during a single tidal cycle or dominant and subordinate tidal deposits in an ebb or flood dominated semidiurnal or mixed system. Second-order cycles typically consist of 11-14 sand layers and reflect spring-neap variations in tidal range and current velocities. Third-order cycles are usually composed of 24-35 layers and are formed in resp nse to monthly variations in tidal range resulting from the ellipticity of the moons orbit. Fourth-order cycles generally contain about 150 layers (range, 100-166) and were caused by seasonal maxima in tidal range associated with the solstice (winter, summer) and seasonal minima associated with the equinox (spring, fall).

Stratigraphy and depositional environments of the Kanawha Formation (Middle Pennsylvanian), southern West Virginia, U.S.A.

Abstract The Kanawha Formation of southern West Virginia consists of up to 620 m of lithic sandstone and mudrocks with subordinate coal and impure limestone that accumulated in a subsiding foreland basin. The formation contains 26 of the states 62 minable coal seams. It accounts for about 43% of the coal currently produced in West Virginia. Component sedimentary facies from 46 outcrop localities reflect alluvial, paludal, lacustrine, paralic and shallow marine environments. Internal and architectural facies attributes indicate more evidence for coastal and tidal-estuarine deposition than traditional deltaic models. Evidence for tidal processes includes bipolar paleocurrents, rhythmic textures and structures, and associated biogenic structures. A new, two-part model is presented that relates facies to changing coastal morphology during transgressive-regressive cycles. Eustatic sea level changes played a major role in basin-wide development of major coal zones and marine units. Lowstandss of sea level caused incisement of fluvial channels whereas rising sea level led to expansion of tidal plains and estuaries. Shoreface retreat produced ravinement surfaces and transgressive lags that now separate coastal plain and marginal marine facies from shallow subtidal facies. Coastal progradation began during highstands after estuarine sediment sinks had filled, and may have been intensified during falling sea level.

Sedimentology, Ichnology, and Paleoenvironments of the Upper Cretaceous Wenonah and Mt. Laurel Formations, New Jersey

ABSTRACT The Wenonah and Mt. Laurel Formations of the New Jersey Coastal Plain comprise a shallow subtidal, coarsening-upward, regressive sequence that accumulated along a wave-dominated coast in Late Cretaceous (Maestrichtian) time. The highly bioturbated, muddy, very fine to fine quartz sands of the Wenonah Formation were deposited mainly in the offshore zone of an inner shelf, below storm wave base. Distinctive trace fossils include Rosselia socialis and a planar form of Zoophycos. The Mt. Laurel Formation consists of two lithofacies. In the northern New Jersey Coastal Plain, the formation is characterized by burrowed, clean quartz sands that are thinly interbedded with muddy sand and mud. Characteristic trace fossils include Ophiomorpha nodosa, Rosselia socialis, two forms of Skolithos, and a delicate branching burrow. Deposition occurred mainly in the offshore-shoreface transition zone between fair weather and storm wave base. Storm deposits include burrowed sands displaying trough cross-stratification, hummocky cross-stratification, lenticular and wavy ripple-bedding, and parallel lamination. Fair weather deposits consist of thoroughly bioturbated, muddy sand and thin-bedded mud. At updip exposures, shoreface deposits include trough cross-strati ied, burrowed, fine to medium sands. Paleocurrents were bipolar, with a predominant northwest (onshore) mode. A massive sand lithofacies characterizes the Mt. Laurel Formation in the central and southern New Jersey Coastal Plain and is characterized by highly bioturbated, medium to coarse sand. Rare cross-stratification indicates a polymodal paleocurrent pattern with predominantly northwest transport. Distinctive trace fossils include Ophiomorpha nodosa and Skolithos linearis. This lithofacies accumulated mainly as shoals or bars in the transition and offshore zones of the inner shelf. A shoreface ebb tidal delta facies was locally developed. The Marshalltown, Wenonah, and Mt. Laurel Formations comprise a depositional sequence (in the sense of Haq et al. 1987) that accumulated during a third order, eustatic sea level cycle (UZA-4.4). The Wenonah-Mt. Laurel regression occurred during a sea level high-stand as sediments began to overflow estuaries created during the Marshalltown transgression. Subsequent falling sea level intensified the regression, and ultimately led to erosional truncation of the Mt. Laurel sediments. Then eustatic rise in sea level during the Late Maestrichtian (UZA-4.5) led to ravinement. During this ravinement event, a fossiliferous and pebbly, glauconitic quartz sand lithofacies was deposited as a transgressive lag in the transition and offshore zones of the inner shelf. These transgressive sheet sand ediments comprise the lower part of the Navesink Formation. The depositional model developed herein for the Wenonah-Mt. Laurel regressive interval integrates both sedimentologic and ichnologic data. This model is compared with the well-known Gallup and Blackhawk Cretaceous regressive sequences of the North American Western Interior. It should be applicable in the evaluation of other regressive sequences in Cretaceous strata of the U.S. Atlantic Coastal Plain and Western Interior, as well as epeiric sea cycles from other similar settings around the world.

Walking Trails of the Giant Terrestrial Arthropod Arthropleura from the Upper Carboniferous of Kentucky

Arthropleurids were terrestrial, millipede-like arthropods. The genus Arthropleura Jordan from the Upper Carboniferous reached an enormous size of 2 m or more in length (Hahn et al., 1986). Occurrences are rare and the chronologic and paleogeographic distribution of Arthropleura coincides with the tropical Euramerican floral belt of the Carboniferous (Rolfe, 1969). The Carboniferous was a time of high atmospheric O2 levels (35%) compared to the current 21%, which may have favored the development of large terrestrial arthropods of this time (Dudley, 1998; Graham et al., 1997; Berner, 2001). Body fossils of Arthropleura range from the Visean to Early Permian (Rolfe, 1969; Schneider and Barthel, 1997), while trackways have been reported from the Visean (Pearson, 1992) to Stephanian (Langiaux and Sotty, 1977; Castro, 1997; Fig. 1). Arthropleura fragments have been described from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Nova Scotia. Only four Arthropleura trackway sites have been described from North America (New Mexico, Kansas, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick ). Trackways provide information about size and locomotion that is not discernable from fragmentary body fossils.  Figure 1 —Stratigraphic distribution and age for Arthropleura body and trace fossils. Numbered references in table: 1—Pearson (1992); 2—Briggs et al. (1979); 3—Ferguson (1966, 1975); 4—Briggs et al. (1984); 5—Briggs et al. (1984), Ryan (1986), McDonald and Gibling (2001); 6—Hunt et al. (2004); 7— Mangano et al. (2002) 8-Langiaux and Sotty (1977); 9—Castro (1997); 10—Rolfe and Ingham (1967); 11—Waterlot (1934, 1935), Guthoerl (1935, 1936); Rolfe (1969), Becker and Engel (1984); 12—Richardson (1959); 13—Hannibal (1997), Easterday (2001); 14—Proctor, 1998; 15—Schneider and Barthel (1997) The specimens of this study are well-preserved …

Limnopus trackways from the Conemaugh Group (Late Pennsylvanian), southern West Virginia

Abundant and well-preserved tetrapod footprints have been discovered in the Glenshaw Formation (Lower Conemaugh Group) in Wayne County, West Virginia. The tracks occur along at least three horizons within a 30-cm-thick stratigraphic interval about 15 m (50 ft) above the Brush Creek Limestone; they are of Missourian age. The tracks are preserved mainly as casts on the underside of thin-bedded, ripple cross-laminated sandstones and less commonly as molds in intervening dark-gray shales. Associated body fossils include Spirorbis worm tubes and washed-in plant debris. Facies characteristics indicate the tracks were formed along the margins of an ephemeral lake in a flood basin setting adjacent to delta plain fluviodeltaic channel systems. Short-lived lacustrine conditions were likely to have resulted from a seasonal tropical to subtropical climate. Most of the tracks can be assigned to the ichnogenus Limnopus , making them one of the earliest known occurrences. At least five trackways are discernible with an external width ranging from 320 to 400 mm. Limnopus glenshawensis , a new ichnospecies, is herein proposed and various morphologic and locomotion parameters are quantified. Mean values include stride/manus, 407 mm; stride/pes, 411 mm; oblique pace/manus, 313 mm; oblique pace/pes, 317 mm; pace angle/manus, 82.4 degrees; pace angle/pes, 80.5 degrees; glenoacetabular distance, 329 mm; manus length, 87.2 mm; manus width, 104.2 mm; pes length, 121.4 mm; pes width, 112.7 mm. The tracemaker was most likely an eryopoid amphibian with a total length of slightly over 1 m.

COMMENT: NO MAJOR STRATIGRAPHIC GAP EXISTS NEAR THE MIDDLE–UPPER PENNSYLVANIAN (DESMOINESIAN–MISSOURIAN) BOUNDARY IN NORTH AMERICA: PALAIOS, v. 26, no. 3, p. 125–139, 2011

Here I provide critical notes on a multiauthored paper purported to show the absence of a major gap in the Upper Pennsylvanian stratigraphic succession in North America (and, by inference, in northern Western Europe). It is observed that intellectually satisfying explanations for the discontinuities in the North American successions, having recourse to climate-driven alterations, do not take into account that the more continuous succession in northwestern Spain only shows gradual changes in floral composition. Inaccuracies in the use of scientific literature are pointed out. Perhaps, there are few experiences so satisfying as to see complacency disturbed, and to bring a large continental area, like North America, in contact with a wider world. The closing of the ranks, as exemplified by Falcon-Lang et al. (2011), is a very human response to new information from outside brought to bear on a large continental area where the general assumption has been that size guaranteed completeness of record. Of course, not everyone subscribed to this notion. David White’s papers on the Carboniferous of eastern North America show an awareness of certain comparisons with North and Central European successions that imply changes in stratigraphic development attributed to climatic changes, the suddenness of which inspire doubts about the continuity of the stratigraphic record. Darrah (1969, p. 26) mentioned ‘‘a marked floral break’’ in mid-Conemaugh of the Appalachian succession, and Kosanke and Cecil (1996) also observed a floral break. It may be helpful from a historical perspective that the present writer, after a couple of decades involvement with the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) Subcommission on Carboniferous Stratigraphy (as Secretary and Chairman) was engaged for a report (unpublished) analyzing the Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) stratigraphy of the British, northern French, Belgian, Dutch and West German areas surrounding the southern North Sea. This involved a revision of borehole material in the Netherlands and the examination of borehole samples in West Germany, in close cooperation with H.W.J. van Amerom. A major conclusion was the recognition of a sizeable lowangle unconformity, with physical evidence including secondary reddening, between lower Rotliegend and various different levels of upper Westphalian strata. The size of the unconformity could only be grasped by the recognition that most of Stephanian time was missing. The date of the unpublished report was 1985. This knowledge was available (privately) when P.C. Lyons (U.S. Geological Survey, Reston) organized a joint fieldtrip in the Appalachians in 1995, primarily with the aim to establish the level at which the Westphalian-Stephanian boundary could be recognized in the Appalachian succession. This had been assumed to lie close to the Middle

Trace Fossil Assemblages of Upper Cretaceous Sand Units, Delaware and New Jersey: ABSTRACT

End_Page 694------------------------------Siliciclastic formations of Upper Cretaceous age on the Delaware-New Jersey coastal plain contain diverse trace fossil assemblages. When used with physical sedimentary structures and textural data, the assemblages can differentiate intertidal and shallow subtidal depositional environments. Most close modern analogs can be recognized for the Cretaceous trace makers. The Englishtown Formation (Campanian) crops out along the C & D Canal in Delaware. The basal part of the unit is characterized by mottling due to dense concentrations of gently meandering, essentially horizontal Planolites burrows outlined by rims of dark organic-rich material. Other zones are mottled primarily by small-diameter branched shafts of Chondrites. Clumps of quartz sand-lined tubes of Terebellina are dispersed throughout. These tubes have gently curved shafts which form tunnels with distinctive feeding-probe structures at their distal ends. At the top of the unit, the assemblage is dominated by stacked Ophiomorpha nodosa systems with basal mazes. Also present are several types of Chondrites, which commonly surround and/or infest the walls of Ophiomorpha shafts, and deli ate Skolithos shafts. In New Jersey, the Wenonah Formation, Mt. Laurel Formation, and Shrewsbury Member of the Red Bank Formation (all Maestrichtian) each contain a distinctive trace fossil assemblage. The Wenonah Formation is characterized by Cylindrichnus, large concentrically laminated, subvertical, and tapering clay tubes. The Mt. Laurel Formation exhibits two facies, one characterized by small-diameter Ophiomorpha shafts and associated Chondrites forms and the other containing an Ophiomorpha, Chondrites, Skolithos, and Cylindrichnus assemblage. Large-diameter Ophiomorpha nodosa systems and associated Chondrites characterize sands of the Shrewsbury Member of the Red Bank Formation. The trace fossil assemblages and primary sedimentary characteristics suggest the following depositional environments: Englishtown Formation, shallow subtidal shoals transitional to lower foreshore; Wenonah Formation, subtidal, inner shelf; Mt. Laurel Formation, shoreface and transition zones to shallow shoal complex; and Shrewsbury Member of Red Bank Formation, offshore bar complex. End_of_Article - Last_Page 695------------