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Late Ordovician solitary rugose corals of the St. Lawrence Lowland, Québec

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2015

Robert J. Elias ,
Danita S. Brandt  and
T. H. Clark
Robert J. Elias
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences, The University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2, Canada
Danita S. Brandt
Affiliation:
Department of Geography and Geology, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti 48197
T. H. Clark
Affiliation:
Redpath Museum, McGill University, Montréal, Québec H3A 2K6, Canada
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Abstract

Two species of solitary rugose corals occur in Late Ordovician strata of the St. Lawrence Lowland. Grewingkia canadensis (Billings, 1862) appears in the upper part of the Nicolet River Formation (upper St. Hilaire Member) and is far more common in the overlying Pontgravé River Formation. A single specimen of Streptelasma divaricans (Nicholson, 1875) is known from the Pontgravé River. Their presence confirms that this area is situated within the Richmond Province and that the upper Nicolet River, as well as the Pontgravé River, is Richmondian in age. Solitary Rugosa were introduced to this biogeographic province during an early Richmondian transgression, marked in the upper Nicolet River Formation by a coarser clastic interval. That event permits correlation between the St. Lawrence Lowland in the eastern part of the Richmond Province and the North American type Upper Ordovician (Cincinnatian Series) of the Cincinnati Arch region in the western part of the province.

A comparative morphologic, paleoecologic, and biostratinomic analysis of solitary corals indicates that normal, low-energy conditions were interrupted occasionally by high-energy events (probably storms) during deposition of the upper Nicolet River and Pontgravé River Formations. Water depth increased northwestward in the St. Lawrence Lowland area. Deposition of these siliciclastic prodelta to delta front sediments was generally continuous and the sedimentation rate was usually high because of rapid basin subsidence and comparatively close proximity to the Taconic Mountains. In the western part of the Richmond Province, farther from the source area, carbonate as well as clastic sediments accumulated, periods of nondeposition were more frequent, and the sedimentation rate was relatively low. Corals disappeared from the St. Lawrence Lowland area during the Richmondian, when delta top facies of the Bécancour River Formation succeeded the Pontgravé River Formation due to a glacio-eustatic regression and progradation of the Queenston Delta.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Paleontology , Volume 64 , Issue 3 , May 1990 , pp. 340 - 352
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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