Sequences in the cratonic interior of north america pdf

In this paper, the dakota formation is divided into six units table 1. Laurentia is also called the north american craton. A short history of north america indiana university. Vail and coworkers chose to emphasize eustasy as the primary mechanism responsible for the relative sealevel changes necessary to explain cratonic. This layer also contains physical features called cross beds. Geologic framework for the national assessment of carbon.

Flexure of the early proterozoic lithosphere and the. Evidence from new satellite magnetometer observations michael purucker,1 benoit langlais,2 nils olsen,3 gauthier hulot,4 and mioara mandea4 received 16 june 2001. Importance of highfrequenc y tectonic sequences during. Austin, a creationist view of grand canyon strata, in austin, 1994, 6770. Craton name applied to a stable nucleus of a continent, consisting of a precambrian shield and a platform of buried ancient rocks. Pioneering stratigraphic studies in the cratonic interior of. Phanerozoic evolution of the sedimentary cover of the. Sequence stratigraphy of the dakota formation cenomanian.

Craton, the stable interior portion of a continent characteristically composed of ancient crystalline basement rock. In contrast, the north and western margin saw increased convergence and translation of. Sloss original cratonic sequences nondeposition modified from sloss,1963 megasequence 50 m. Implications for deformation of continental interiors article pdf available in science 2775327. Mechanisms for the formation of cratonic stratigraphic.

Archean and early proterozoic tectonic framework of north. Formation of sequences in the cratonic interior of north america by. Characterizing the phanerozoic stratigraphic architecture of south america using slosstype sequences poster pdf available. Definition of the cratonic sequences of north america by sloss 1963 provided the foundation for much of the sequence stratigraphic model then copied by other workers e. Preliminary catalog of the sedimentary basins of the united states by james l. Flood evidence number three transcontinental rock layers. The boundary between the upper ordovician and the lower silurian tippecanoe ii supersequence set is an indistinct disconformity, likely related to gondwana continental glaciation sloss, 1988. Some workers suggested dom ination of glacioeustasy e.

A 56million year rhythm in north american sedimentation during the. Changing sea level or major tectonic events, such as continental collisions, shift stratigraphic sequences by changing the depositional environment where certain rock types form. North american phanerozoic cratonic strata comprise six transgressive regressive sequences. Mechanisms for the formation of cratonic stratigraphic sequences. Many times in its past, laurentia has been a separate continent, as it is now in the form of north america, although originally it also included the cratonic areas of greenland and also the northwestern part of scotland, known as the hebridean terrane. Iv the geology of south america almut engler encyclopedia of life support systems eolss the amazonian craton, situated in the northern part of south america, is one of the largest cratonic areas of the world about 430 000 km2, fig. Sequences in the cratonic interior of north america nasaads. Can megasequences help define biblical geologic history. Use of sequence boundaries to map siliciclastic depositional. Sloss, 1963, sequences in the cratonic interior of north america. However, all the cratonic sequences of north america appear to have undergone postdepositional tilting and uplift fig. In addition, they occur in what could be the upper silurian uppermost pridoli of virginia, and possibly new york. In the 1940s, lawrence sloss developed a stratigraphic model demonstrating a series of transgressions rising sea level flooding the land followed by regressions falling sea level exposing land that impacted north america. Sequences in the cratonic interior of north america gsa.

Stratigraphy and sedimentology of the niger delta in. Cahan the text accompanying this catalog gives a very brief synopsis of the age and style of the listed sedimentary basins and is not intended to be a substantial discussion of all of. A cratonic sequence is a very largescale lithostratographic sequence that covers a complete marine transgressiveregressive cycle across a craton. This report presents fourteen storage assessment units saus from the alaska north slope and two saus from the kandik basin of alaska. First order sequences of strata in north america no deposition major sedimentary units. Interplay between a fully developed inner detrital belt and the. For example, a deep marine environment where limestone formation is favored may shift relatively quickly to a nearshore environment favoring sandstone formation because the relative sea level has dropped. The paleozoic ocean that separated north america and what is now northern europe when the supercontinent rodinia formed rifts that split the land mass was known as. Sequences in the cratonic interior of north america gsa bulletin. The winneshiek shale and the decorah impact structure. The lower goulburn supergroup of kilohigok basin 1. Taylor, 2012, the sauk megasequence in the cratonic interior of north america.

They are also known as megasequences, stratigraphic sequences, sloss sequence or simply sequences. Models integrating geodynamic and stratigraphic processes show that some gross features of phanerozoic north american cratonic strata can. These interregional unconformities subdivide the cratonic stratigraphic column into six sequences major rockstratigraphic units of higher than group, megagroup, or supergroup rank which can be identified, where preserved, in all cratonic interior areas. An area of extensive deformation in western north america bounded by the pacific ocean and the great plains. The alaska north slope is a broad, northdipping coastal plain that is underlain by a thick succession of sedimentary rocks that accumulated steadily throughout much of the phanerozoic during three major tectonic sequences. Sloss ll 1963 sequences in the cratonic interior of north america. The continents include eurasia conventionally regarded as two continents, europe and asia, africa, north america, south america, australia, and antarctica. Stratigraphy of the brigham group late proterozoiccambrian, bannock, portneuf, and bear river ranges, southeastern idaho. Laurentia ancestral north america was located at the equator, rotated 90 degrees clockwise from present day, and. Measurements of nine morphologies from 127 specimens of habrostroma were. Laurentia simple english wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The term craton is used to distinguish such regions from mobile geosynclinal troughs, which are linear belts of sediment accumulations subject.

At the cratonic margins the bounding unconformities tend to disappear in continuous. Up to 5000 m of sauk in great basin, 3500 m in appalachians. Cratonic article about cratonic by the free dictionary. Each cratonic sequence is a largescale lithostratigraphic unit, bounded by unconformities, that represent a major transgressive followed by a regression. Smallscale mantle convection produces stratigraphic. Three other sequences, tippecanoe, kaskaskia, and zuni, reproduce these five stages with minor variations imposed by mean elevation of the cratonic interior with respect to base level. Formation of sequences in the cratonic interior of north america by interaction between mantle, eustatic, and stratigraphic processes by peter m. Formation of sequences in the cratonic interior of north. It has an average thickness of 315 feet 96 m and covers an area of at least 200,000 square miles 518,000 km2 eastward across adjoining states.

The sequencestratigraphic study of the dakota formation presented here allowed a more detailed subdivision of the dakota rocks than that provided by peterson 1969, gustason 1989 and elder et al. Sequences of regional extent may be bounded by breaks of this type. Sauk megasequence is characterized by a major unconformity in the north american cratonic interior and lacuna at the cratonic margins sloss, 1988. Exploration east of mackenzie river between simpson and wrigley. The buffcolored coconino sandstone is very distinctive in the walls of grand canyon. Ager, the nature of the stratigraphical record london.

Sloss, sequences in the cratonic interior of north ameri ca, geological society of america bulletin no. Formation of sequences in the cratonic interior of north america by interaction between mantle, eustatic, and stratigraphic process. The stromatoporoid habrostroma in the upper silurian. During the cenozoic, until the middle miocene, the niger delta grew through pulses of sedimentation over an oceanwarddipping continental basement into the gulf of guinea. Most geology text books have a series of paleogeographic maps illustrating the types of rocks that were deposited along the continental margins and interior of north america or. Laurentia or the north american craton is a large continental craton that forms the ancient geological core of north america. View test prep strat topic 07 sequence strat 1 from geology 341 at university of louisiana, lafayette. New york, virginia, maine, bathurst island, and ellesmere island.

Preliminary catalog of the sedimentary basins of the. Sloss 1963 observed this similarity in cratonic rocks of north america and divided the sedimentary record into six cratonic sequences which he named after the plains indians figure 4. Three species of habrostroma dominate stromatoporoid faunas in the lower devonian lochkovian of five areas in north america. Sequence stratigraphy of the great american carbonate bank. Its northwest margin suture is the northverging cheyenne belt, exposed in the. Sloss 1963 sequences in the cratonic interior of north america. Sequences in the cratonic interior of north america. North american phanerozoic cratonic strata comprise six transgressiveregressive sequences. Cratonic sequences were first proposed by lawrence sloss in 1963.

Gy 112 lecture notes 26laurentia university of south. Sloss, 1963, sequences in the cratonic interior of north america, geological society of american bulletin, 74. The zuni sequence, because of the relatively high mean elevation of the craton, comes closest to mirroring the behavior of the sauk. It is a modern geological feature, and it is also a very ancient geological core made of igneous rock. Boutilier, 1986, geodynamic models of convergent margin tectonics. Sloss, sequences in the cratonic interior of north america, geological society of america bulletin 74 1963. The sauk tippecanoe megasequence boundary is a major stratigraphic gap or hiatus of approximately 20 m.