California Carboniferous Cephalopods GEOLOGICAL SURVEY PROFESSIONAL PAPER 483-A SK California Carboniferous Cephalopods By MACKENZIE GORDON, JR. CONTRIBUTIONS TO PALEONTOLOGY GEOLOGICAL SURVEY PROFESSIONAL PAPER 483-A Descriptions and illustrations of IJ Late Mississippian and Middle P ennsy Ivanian species and their distribution UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, WASHINGTON : 1964 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR STEWART L. UDALL, Secretary GEOLOGICAL SURVEY Thomas B. Nolan, Director For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, D.C. 20402 CONTENTS Page Page Abstract ______________ Al Register of localities _ _ _ _ A6 1 6 ______________ 1 7 ______________ 1 7 Panamint Range ______________ 2 22 Inyo Range ______________ 5 23 Providence Mountains 6 27 ILLUSTRATIONS [Plates 1-4 follow index] PLATE 1 Orthoconic nautiloids of the genera Rayonnoceras, Mitorthoceras, and Bactritesl; cyrtoconic nautiloid of the genus Scyphoceras; and a possible belemnoid, Hematites'?. Coiled nautiloid of the genus Liroceras? and ammonoids of the genera Cravenoceras, Eumorphoceras, and Delepinoceras. Ammonoids of the genus Cravenoceras. Ammonoids of the genera Anthracoceras, Dombarocanites, Bisatoceras, Prolecanites (Rhipaecanites)!, Cravenoceratoides, and Paralegoceras?. FIGURE Map showing the Great Basin, Western United States_________-__________-__-____--_____----------------- Al Correlation chart of Upper Mississippian rocks in the Great Basin_______________________________-------_-_ 3 Geologic map showing Carboniferous cephalopod collecting localities in the Quartz Spring area, Panamint Range. 4 Cravenoceras cross sections and sutures. ________________________________________________________________ 12 5. Scatter diagram showing relative involution of the conch in California Cravenoceras- _______________---_------ 13 6. Scatter diagram showing relative width of conch in California Cravenoceras---------------------------------- 14 7. Eumorphoceras paucinodum Gordon, n. sp., external suture_________________________________---_-_---_-__-- 18 8. Anthracoceras macallisteri Gordon, n. sp., external suture_________________________---__---------_------_- 19 9. Delepinoceras californicum Gordon, n. sp., external sutures.__________________________-__---_------------_- 19 10. External sutures of Dombarocanites and Prolecanites------------------------------------------------------ 21 11. Bisatoceras cf. B. greenei Miller and Owen, external suture._____________________________------.----------- 23 12. Stenopronorites sp., partial external suture__ ____--___________________-_____-___---_-------------___----- 23 ill CONTRIBUTIONS TO PALEONTOLOGY CALIFORNIA CARBONIFEROUS CEPHALOPODS BY MACKENZIE GORDON, JR. ABSTRACT 121' 119 C 117° 115 C 113° 111' Cephalopods are abundant locally in a late Mississippian lime­ ' '. ' stone bed in the Panamint Range, where the nautiloids Rayon- 0 ''-R E G 0\N i I D A H 0 | '' -}.... noceras, Bactritesl, Mitorthoceras, Scyphoceras, Lirocerasi, and I _. ' -.. ; a possible belemnite fragment referred to Hematites'! are as­ 42 = sociated with the goniatites Cravenoceras, Eumorphoceras, An- thracoceras, Delepinoceras, and Prolccanitesf. The cephalopod species in this bed and another species of Cravenoceras that "[GREAT B JA S I N :"' occurs a few feet higher stratigraphically are characteristic of the widespread Eumorphoceras bisulcatum. zone in the Great ' i 40 c Basin region of the western United States. In the Inyo Range, ' i NEVADA 'UTAH-. Bactritesl, Cravenoceras, Cravenoceratoides, Eumorphoceras, and Dombarocanites apparently represent a higher part of the o '-.X same zone. Middle Pennsylvaiiian aminonoids Bisatoceras and ' . ,.-. I / Stenopronorites occur also in the Panamint Range and an * V\ , Mam area of: . I/ 38° ammonoid referred to Paralegocerasl has been found in the sL : \ 'culm facies rocks*.' Providence Mountains. All these localities are in southeastern ^\ X : 4 California. New species described herein are Mitorthoceras clinatum, Cravenoceras inyoense, Eumorphoceras paucinodum, Anthra- r \ /^> 36° coceras macallisteri, Delepinoceras californicum, and Dombaro- 0 50 100 150 MILES \ - i I i i i / ......-.......- ^ \ARIZ ON A canites niasoni. The genera Cravenoceratoides, Delepinoceras, and Dombarocanites are described for the first time from the vl ""J Western Hemisphere. ______1 1 Providence Mountains, Calif. INTRODUCTION 2 Cerro Gordo area, Inyo Range, Calif. 3 Quartz Spring area, Panamint Range, Calif. The fossil cephalopods upon which this report is 4 Diamond Range, Nev. 5 Egan Range, Nev. based came from three southern California mountain 6 Confusion Range, Utah ranges and were collected by several geologists during FIGURE 1. Map showing the Great Basin, main area of Chainman Shale the course of their mapping and other field studies in culm-facies rocks, and locations of sections discussed. those areas. The location of the areas is shown in figure 1. Most of the fossils are from a single bed at the top of the Mississippian Perdido Formation in the ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Quartz Spring area at the northern end of the The writer wishes to thank Prof. S. W. Muller and Panamint Range, Iiiyo County. A few came from A. M. Keen of Stanford University for making avail­ three nearby localities in higher beds of Late Mississip­ able the fossil material upon which a large part of this pian and Middle Pennsylvania!! age in the Quartz report is based. J. F. McAllister, J. C. Hazzard, and Spring area. C. W. Merriam wrere most helpful in providing informa­ With a single exception, the rest came from the tion as to the collecting localities and stratigraphy in Mississippian Chainman Shale near the Cerro Gordo mine in the southern part of the Inyo Range, Inyo the areas where they mapped. County. The exception is a mold of a large parale- gocerid ammonoid in a block of limestone that was GEOLOGIC SETTING collected in the Providence Mountains, San Bernardino In late Mississippian time a moderately shallow epei- County. ric sea occupied much of the west-central and south- Al A2 CONTRIBUTIONS TO PALEONTOLOGY western parts of what we now know as.the Great Basin the correlation chart (fig. 2), together with those of the (fig. 1). A culm facies of grayish-black shale having California sections that were previously discussed. limestone interbeds was deposited in this area, and its California cephalopod horizons are marked with an remnants, broken and deformed by subsequent diastro- asterisk (*). The approximate locations of the sections phism, stretch today from the Confusion Eange in west- in figure 2 are shown in figure 1. central Utah to the Inyo Range in southeastern Cali­ PANAMINT RANGE fornia. Like similar Late Mississippian black-shale facies in other parts of the world, this habitat was par­ The Paiiainint Range stands at the west side of Death ticularly suited to the development of cephalopods, and Valley in Inyo County. Cephalopod-bearing beds of at some scattered localities their fossil remains are found Late Mississippian age crop out in the Quartz Spring in considerable numbers. This paper is concerned with area in the Cot ton wood Mountains at the north end of the description of the cephalopod fauna that inhabited the range. The Quartz Spring area was mapped by the southwestern part of the area of deposition of the J. F. McAllister and most of the collections under study culm-facies rocks, the part that extends into the State are those that he made. The presence of Cravenoceras of California. It also records the occurrence of three in this area was pointed out by McAllister (1952, p. 24) cephalopods of Middle Peiinsylvanian age in the same in his report. region. In the Quartz Spring area the Early Mississippian In much of the depositional basin here discussed, it Tin Mountain Limestone is overlain by a sequence of has long been customary to refer the culm-facies rocks varied beds that consists of calcareous siltstone, sand­ to the White Pine Shale. The White Pine Shale, how­ stone, conglomerate and interbedded chert, limestone, ever, was originally defined by Hague (1883, p. 253, 266, silty limestone, and siltstone having some shale. These 267) to include an underlying limestone unit of Early constitute the Perdido Formation of McAllister (1952, Mississippian age and a lower shale of Late Devonian p. 22-25), approximately 610 feet thick in its composite age, now known as the Joana Limestone and Pilot Shale, type section south of Perdido Canyon and south of Rest respectively. The White Pine Shale also was originally Spring. The topmost bed of this formation, a dark- defined to underlie the Diamond Peak "Quartzite" now gray fine-grained limestone, 6 to 12 inches thick, is called "Formation" (Nolan and others, 1956, p. 60), crowded with fossils, mostly Cravenoceras hesperium which, at its type locality in the Diamond Range near Miller and Furnish. Four to five feet of very soft shale, Eureka, Nev., represents rapid deposition of clastic grayish red to purplish gray, separate it from the gray rocks during Late Mississippian time. The Diamond locally sandy limestone below that carries productids, Peak Formation fingers eastward into the cephalopod- spirif ers, and other brachiopods. The lower part of the bearing culm-facies rocks, and to this date, all cephalo­ Perdido Formation contains an Early Mississippian pods described from the "White Pine Shale" in eastern coral fauna. Nevada and western Utah by various authors (that is, The Perdido Formation is overlain by the Rest