Journal of Paleontology: Middle Cambrian (Acadian series) conoc...http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3790/is_200209/ai_n912...1 of 178/12/2008 12:28 AM

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Middle Cambrian (Acadian series) conocoryphid and paradoxidid trilobites from the upper Chamberlain's Brook formation,Newfoundland and New Brunswick

Kim, Dong Hee ABSTRACT-The Fossil Brook Member of the upper Chamberlain's Brook Formation is a thin (up to 14 m) but distinctive, unconformity-- bounddepositional sequence recognizable from Rhode Island to eastern Newfoundland in Avalonian North America. Its diverse trilobite fauna was firstdescribed more than century ago from the limestone-rich facies of the member in southern New Brunswick. However, the systematics,stratigraphic context, and biostratigraphic significance of these trilobites have remained poorly known. A revision of the conocoryphid andparadoxidid trilobites has been completed, and the taxa set into their stratigraphic context within the middle Middle Cambrian. The faunas of theFossil Brook are assigned to the Eccaparadoxides eteminicus Zone of Avalon. Although biogeographic barriers between Avalon and Gondwanaremained strong in the Middle Cambrian and few shared trilobite species are present, a generalized correlation of the E. eteminicus Zone intoGondwana is with the Badulesia tenera Zone of the Toushamian Stage in Morocco and the Badulesia Zone of the Caesaraugustian Stage in Spain.INTRODUCTIONCAMBRIAN SUCCESSIONS of the Avalon zone in the northeastern Appalachians and southern Britain are highly fossiliferous, well understoodstratigraphically, and contain numerous volcanic ashes that can be precisely dated (see Landing, 1996). Consequently, they were not only appropriate for definition of the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary (Landing, 1994), but also offer the potential as a standard for globalcorrelation and subdivision of the Cambrian. Unfortunately, limited information exists in earlier reports on the detailed biostratigraphy of the Avalonian trilobite-- bearing Cambrian and no data are generally available on the lithostratigraphic context and paleoenvironmental setting of the trilobites. Many species have never been illustrated photographically. This paper continues a revision of the Lower and Middle Cambriantrilobites of the Avalon zone in Appalachian North America (see Westrop and Landing, 2000; Geyer and Landing, 2001). Here we document theparadoxidids and conocoryphids of the Fossil Brook Member of the Chamberlain's Brook Formation, a thin but distinctive, unconformity-boundsequence that can be traced throughout Avalonian North America (Landing, 1996); agnostoid and solenopleuroid trilobites will be treatedelsewhere.FOSSIL BROOK MEMBER Geologic setting.-The Fossil Brook Member is a lithologically distinctive, thin (up to 14 m) unit that extends from Rhode Island to eastNewfoundland in the Avalon terrane of the northern Appalachians. Its stratigraphic and tectonic context has been clarified only recently (Landing, 1996; Landing and Westrop, 1998a, 1998b).The Fossil Brook is referred to depositional sequence 7 of the latest Precambrian-Lower Ordovician cool water succession of the Avalon continent(Landing, 1996). It forms the top of the green, purple, and red siliciclastic mudstone-dominated Chamberlain's Brook Formation (lower MiddleCambrian, up to 160 m thick) and underlies the dark gray and black mudstone-dominated Manuels River Formation (middle Middle Cambrian,up to 60 m thick). Significant basin reorganization in the transtensional tectonic regime of the Avalon continent controlled regional onlap anddeposition, lateral facies changes, the regular appearance of trilobite-rich limestones (otherwise rare lower in the Chamberlain's Brook Formation), and development of the erosive lower and upper contacts of the Fossil Brook Member.East Newfoundland.-Episodes of volcanism and movements on growth faults bracketed Fossil Brook deposition in east Newfoundland. The greatestthicknesses of the Chamberlain's Brook Formation in this area lie along the elongate, fault-defined St. Mary's-east Trinity axis (Fig. 1), where volcanism took place just prior to Fossil Brook deposition. A 1.0-4.5 rn lens of calcitized volcaniclastic debris flows 4.5 rn below the Fossil Brook Member at Hopeall Head, east Trinity Bay (Hutchinson, 1962, p. 132, bed 28), and 60+ rn of pillow basalt in the underlying upper BraintreeMember at Cape Dog, west St. Mary's Bay (Hutchinson, 1962; McCartney, 1967; Fig. 1) record volcanism shortly before deposition of the FossilBrook. The top of the member across east Newfoundland is defined by a thin basaltic ash which separates the dark green-gray mudstones of theFossil Brook from the slightly darker mudstone of the lower Manuels River Formation (Landing and Westrop, 1998b).The base of the Fossil Brook Member in east Newfoundland is a limestone with reworked shale and phosphatic granules that fill wide (up to 8 cm wide) Cruziana-like burrows deeply incised into overcompacted mud exposed by marine erosion (Landing, 1996, fig. 3, compare Landing andBrett, 1987). The thickness of the Fossil Brook ranges from 14 m at Deep Cove near the south end of the St. Mary's-east Trinity axis to 2.2-3.5 rnfurther north in Conception and Trinity bays and to less than a meter east in the Burin Peninsula. This reduction in thickness is attributed bothto post-Fossil Brook erosion and stratigraphic condensation at northerly and easterly localities. Stratigraphic non-continuity and an uppersequence boundary are shown by a decrease in thickness from 3.4 m at Manuels River to 2.2 m at Red Bridge Road 8.5 km to the southwest and by erosional cut-out of several nodular limestone beds at the member's top (Landing and Westrop, 1998a, p. 27; Figs. 1, 2). Stratigraphiccondensation is also suggested by the replacement of the siliciclastic mudstone-dominated Fossil Brook facies at Deep Cove (Fig. 1) and otherlocalities in southern St. Mary's Bay by alternations of mudstone with wave-winnowed and sorted trilobite pack- and grainstones along Trinity and Conception bays. These fossil hash-rich, wave-influenced limestones are characteristic of higher-energy, near shore environments in Avalonian shale basins (e.g., Myrow and Landing, 1993). Maximum sedimentary condensation of the Fossil Brook member is seen at LittleDantzig Cove in the southwestern Burin Peninsula (Fig. 1), where the member comprises a 1.0 m bed of phosphatic limestone with numerous

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hardgrounds (Hutchinson, 1962, p. 146, bed 19).Nova Scotia.-Limited outcrop of the Chamberlain's Brook Formation precludes recognition of the Fossil Brook Member in southern Cape BretonIsland and Antigonish area of mainland Nova Scotia (e.g., Landing, 1991, 1995; Fig. 1). Hutchinson (1952, p. 73, 74, pl. I, fig. 17) reported acranidium of Paradoxides eteminicus, a characteristic form in the Fossil Brook in New Brunswick, from the east side of Mira Lake in Cape BretonIsland. However, the specimen is tectonically distorted and cannot be identified to the species level. Examination of the dark shales in the vicinity of Hutchinson's locality suggests they are best referred to the younger Manuels River Formation (EL, unpub. data).New Brunswick.-The Fossil Brook reappears in its type area in the region of Saint John, New Brunswick, where a major unconformity separates itfrom the underlying upper Lower Cambrian Hanford Brook Formation and an upper unconformity with the Manuels River Formation can bedemonstrated locally. Absence of the lower Chamberlain's Brook Formation (Braintree Member) and its lowest Middle Cambrian faunas (see Geyer and Landing, 2001)means that the Fossil Brook Member is the only remaining part of the formation in New Brunswick. The Fossil Brook overlies the Long IslandMember (Kingaspidoides cf. obliquoculatus Zone) of the Hanford Brook Formation north and northeast of Saint John but rests on the olderSomerset Street Member (Protolenus elegans Zone) in Saint John (Landing and Westrop, 1998a; Westrop and Landing, 2000). These dataindicate as much as 45 m of differential erosion of the Hanford Brook Formation and suggest vertical movements on growth faults prior to marineonlap and Fossil Brook deposition.The unconformity at the base of the Fossil Brook Member is emphasized by a basal 30 cm black phosphatic quartz arenite with phosphatic pebblesthat is overlain by 80 cm of nodular limestones with wave-comminuted trilobite hash and phosphate granules in Saint John (Figs. 1, 2, localities113 and SoS). At other localities (GoS in Saint John, Caton's Island, and Hanford Brook West sections; Figs. 1, 2), the lenticular limestones ingreen-gray siltstone are the first Fossil Brook deposits above the non-calcareous, fine-grained sandstones of the Hanford Brook. Limestone lensesdisappear above the lower several meters of the Fossil Brook, and the upper part of this thin unit (up to 13.3 m at Hanford Brook West) isdominated by laminated (non-burrowed) green-gray siliciclastic mudstones. As in east Newfoundland, the contact with the overlying Manuels River Formation is marked by an abrupt change to dark gray to black mudstones (Hayes and Howell, 1937; Landing, 1996), but a volcanic ash is not present. Evidence for a sequence boundary on the Fossil Brook Member comparable to that in east Newfoundland is now recognized at an outcrop at Caton's Island, north of Saint John (Fig. 1). There, a very thin Fossil Brook Member that consists of 1.3 m of limestone is directly overlain by black Manuels River Formation shales. Absence of thesiltstones that comprise the upper Fossil Brook and presence of 20 cm of black phosphatic shale with reworked phosphatic granules at the base of the Manuels River are consistent with erosional beveling of the Fossil Brook.Rhode Island.-The Fossil Brook Member apparently exists in the structurally complex sections in southern Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, whereSkehan et al. (1978) recovered Badulesia tenera (Hartt in Dawson, 1868), a form known elsewhere in Avalon only in the Fossil Brook Member,from light gray phyllite. The upward succession from this phyllite into alternating light and dark gray phyllite, thin sandstones and shales, andfinally dark gray phyllites with carbonate nodules suggests the Middle-Upper Cambrian succession (Fossil Brook-Manuels River Formation--MacLean Brook Group-Chesley Drive) elsewhere in Avalon (Landing, 1996).Earlier trilobite studies.-Most of the trilobites from the Fossil Brook Member were first described more than a century ago by C. E Hartt (inDawson, 1868) and Matthew (1882-1885, 1890) from southern New Brunswick. Matthew (e.g., 1889) distinguished the limestones and gray mudstones of the member as a separate stratigraphic interval. He called it "division Ic" and recognized two successive "bands" or subzones, thelower with a Paradoxides lamellatus fauna (band lc') and an upper with a P. eteminicus fauna (Ic2). The composition of and differences betweenthese faunas never seems to have been recorded, and the subzones seem to have been defined on order of appearance of the eponymous taxa.Hayes and Howell (1937, p. 69-72) qualified Matthew's faunal subdivision of the Fossil Brook by reporting that P. eteminicus ranged through theunit and preferred "P. lamellatus Zone" for the lower limestone and siltstones and "Hartella matthewi Zone" for the upper siltstones.Trilobite studies on the Middle Cambrian in eastern Newfoundland repeatedly focused on the Manuels River section (Fig. 1) and includedrecovery of trilobites through the Chamberlain's Brook Formation (e.g., Whiteaves, 1878; Howell, 1925). The latter author proposed generalizedcorrelations of the entire Chamberlain's Brook in Newfoundland with "division Ic." However, Howell's (1925, p. 50-54) detailed collecting atManuels showed that the Hartella, Bailiaspis, and Eccaparadoxides species (described below) characteristic of "division Ic" and the Fossil Brook member in New Brunswick abruptly appear in bedded limestones at the top of the Chamberlain's Brook beds 19-35 and do not persist into theManuels River Formation. Howell's (1925) beds 19-35 at Manuels River are now referred to the Fossil Brook Member (Landing, 1996). Other thanParadoxides parvoculus Howell, 1925, which has yet to be encountered outside of the type locality (Hutchison, 1962), Howell did not illustrateany trilobites from the Fossil Brook Member in Newfoundland. Subsequent workers (e.g., Hutchinson, 1962; Martin and Dean, 1988) neitherrecognized the biostratigraphic importance of trilobites at the top of the Chamberlain's Brook Formation for precise correlation into New Brunswick nor undertook a comprehensive revision of the fauna.Newfoundland localities.-All localities of the Fossil Brook Member in eastern Newfoundland were examined. The top of the Chamberlain's Brook ismost accessible in a road metal quarry located south of Killigrews village and 7.0 km east of the intersection of Red Bridge Road with coastal Rte.60 (Landing and Westrop, 1998a, p. 18-22, figs. 4, 5). Exposures of gently west-- dipping uppermost Chamberlain's Brook form a bench below ahighwall of lower Manuels River Formation immediately north of Red Bridge Road (Fig. 1). The Fossil Brook Member at Red Bridge Road (Fig. 2) islithologically comparable to correlative strata 8.5 km to the northeast at Howell's (1925, beds 19-35) section at the Manuels River nature

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preserve. We found that Fossil Brook limestones on the east and west sides of Trinity Bay at Hopeall Head (Hutchinson, 1962, p. 132, beds 30-32) andFosters Point on Trinity Island (Martin and Dean, 1988) were too indurated and tectonized, respectively, to yield material for taxonomic study. As noted above, the Fossil Brook is reduced to a single highly phosphatic limestone bed at Little Dantzig Cove and Snooks Brook in the BurinPeninsula (Fig. 1), and induration precluded recovery of specimens suitable for taxonomic study.New Brunswick localities.-The Fossil Brook Member overlies the Hanford Brook Formation at a number of localities described earlier by Landingand Westrop (1996, 1998a; Westrop and Landing, 2000). These include south-dipping exposures of the basal beds at three adjacent localities inSaint John: 113, a road ditch exposure on the north side of Exit 113 from Rte. 100; GoS, a low outcrop immediately west of the T-intersection of Seeley Street with Gooderich Street, and SoS, the basal conglomeratic bed of the Fossil Brook at the top of the road cut on the east side of SomersetStreet (Fig. 1). All of the Fossil Brook is exposed in Glen Falls village just east of Saint John at locality GFW and on Hanford Brook at locality HBW (Fig. 1). GFW ison the south bank of Cold Brook downstream of the Glenview Avenue bridge. HBW (Hanford Brook West), on Hanford Brook about 14 km north of St. Martins village and just north of Rte. Ill (Landing and Westrop, 1998a, p. 61-65), has the lower 1.25 m of the Fossil Brook in the southcut-bank, with higher strata only visible at low water.Other localities northeast of Saint John include lower Fossil Brook Member sections on Ratcliffe Brook (locality RBr) just north of Quoddy Road andimmediately downstream of the falls and Hayes and Howell's (1937) type locality on Fossil Brook (FoB-FB). FoB-FB is an exposure in the bed of Porter Road and immediately north in the Fossil Brook stream-cut (Landing and Westrop, 1998a, p. 65, 66). A thin, erosionally truncated section in the Fossil Brook is located north of Saint John on Caton's Island (locality CIE) in Saint John River (Fig. 1).CIE is exposed just on the middle part of the east shore of Caton's Island and immediately north of a low cliff of Hanford Brook Formationsandstone.Collateral collections.-Attempts were made to supplement our field work with museum collections. C. E Hartt's types were reposited at CornellUniversity in Ithaca, New York. They were later transferred to the Paleontological Research Institute in nearby Trumansburg, but cannot belocated at the present time (P. Krohn, personal commun., September, 2000). The G. F Matthew Collection at the Royal Ontario Museum inToronto includes topotype material of all of the species described by Hartt, and we have used them to supplement our field collections. Anadditional collection examined in this study was made at Seely Street, immediately east of our Gooderich Street locality, in Saint John, New Brunswick, by C. N. Hartnagel during the 1912 International Geological Congress and was found in the New York State Museum. AGE AND CORRELATIONIn New Brunswick, Matthew (1889) and Hayes and Howell (1937) noted that Eccaparadoxides lamellatus was restricted to the lower part of theFossil Brook Member. Our collections do not contradict this observation, although we found E. lamellatus to be rare and recovered only a few cranidia in the basal limestone at Fossil Brook itself (FoB-FB 2.5; Fig. 2). Because of the paucity of data, we choose not to divide the Fossil Brook into two biostratigraphic units; rather, we assign the entire unit to the Eccaparadoxides eteminicus Zone. The eponymous species occursthroughout the member, as noted by Hayes and Howell (1937), including the basal bed at section 113 (113-14.85; Fig. 2). With the exception of an undescribed species of Bailiella and Eccaparadoxides cf. E. eteminicus, all of the other species treated here appear above the basal limestone of the Fossil Brook. Among the conocoryphids and paradoxidids, only the species of Eccaparadoxides (i.e., E. eteminicus, E. acadicus, and E. lamellatus) are shared between Newfoundland and New Brunswick. None of these species occur outside of Avalonian North America. However, the solenopleuridBadulesia tenera (C. E Hartt in Dawson, 1868) has been recorded from New Brunswick (Walcott, 1884; Kim, Westrop, and Landing, unpublisheddata), Newfoundland (Martin and Dean, 1988; Kim, Westrop, and Landing, unpublished data), Rhode Island (Skehan et al., 1978), Spain (Sdzuy,1967), and Morocco (Sdzuy et al., 1999). These occurrences of B. tenera allow correlation of the Eccaparadoxides eteminicus Zone with the base of the Caesaraugustian Stage in Spain and middle of the Toushamian Stage in Morocco, and can be informally regarded as indicating an interval inthe transition from the lower Middle to middle Middle Cambrian (see also Geyer, 1998, fig. 2; Sdzuy et al., 1999, fig. 5).SYSTEMATIC PALEONTOLOGY Trilobite systematics should be attributed to Kim and Westrop in Kim et al.; the order of these names is alphabetical and does not indicateseniority. Illustrated material is housed in the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), the New Brunswick Museum (NBMG), and the New York StateMuseum (NYSM). ROM material designated as "referred specimens" in the text are from the G. E Matthew collection and were identified, but notfigured, by Matthew.Superfamily SOLENOPLEUROIDEA Angelin, 1854 Family CONOCORYPHIDAE Angelin, 1854, emend. Cotton, 2001Discussion.-Several workers (e.g., Fortey, 1990; Geyer, 1998) have suggested that the traditional concept (e.g., Poulsen, 1959) of theConocoryphidae may be an artificial grouping of taxa that lack eyes and have marginal or submarginal sutures. In a recent phylogeneticanalysis, Cotton (2001) confirmed this suspicion by demonstrating that the family is polyphyletic and comprises four distantly related Glades.He also showed that a monophyletic Conocoryphidae should be restricted to Conocoryphe Hawle and Corda, 1847, Ctenocephalus Hawle and