Mississippian Conodonts in Iowa
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Northern Iowa Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science Volume 80 Number Article 8 1973 Mississippian Conodonts in Iowa W. I. Anderson University of Northern Iowa Copyright ©1973 Iowa Academy of Science, Inc. Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uni.edu/pias Recommended Citation Anderson, W. I. (1973) "Mississippian Conodonts in Iowa," Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science, 80(1), 34-38. Available at: https://scholarworks.uni.edu/pias/vol80/iss1/8 This Research is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa Academy of Science at UNI ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science by an authorized editor of UNI ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Anderson: Mississippian Conodonts in Iowa 34 Mississippian Conodonts in Iowa W. I. ANDERSONl ANDERSON, W. I. Mississippian Conodonts in Iowa. Proc. Iowa saw, Spergen, St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve formations. These Acad. Sci., 80( 1) :34-38, 1973. conodont occurrences are related to the standard Mississippian SYNOPSIS: The literature on Mississippian conodonts in Iowa is conodont zones of the Mississippi Valley Region. reviewed. Conodont occurrences are noted from the McCraney, INDEX DESCRIPTORS: Conodont, Iowa conodonts, Mississippian Prospect Hill, Hampton, Gilmore City, Burlington, Keokuk, War- conodonts. The earliest reported occurrence of Mississippian cono CENTRAL SOUTHEAST donts in Iowa was Branson and Mehl's 1941 report describ u Ste. Genevieve Ste. Genevieve ..E ing conodonts from the Keokuk Formation in Iowa and Mis Louis ~ St. Louis St. souri. Later, in the late 1940's and early 1950's Walter Young :I!.. Spergen quist and his associates published descriptions of Mississip pian conodonts from units such as, the Prospect Hill "Sand Warsaw Warsaw stone," the "Pella Beds," the Burlington Limestone and the Wassonville Dolomite. Collinson and his associates at the Keokuk Keokuk Illinois Geological Survey published reports of Mississippian .. Burlington Burlington Fm. conodonts from several localities in Iowa and Illinois during 0 "' Cedar Fork Mbr. the late 1950's and early 1960's. This work culminated with IS Haight Creek Mbr. a 1962 publication that proposed a zonal classification of the Dolbee Creek Mbr. Mississippian of the Mississippi Valley consisting of 17 cono dont assemblage zones. These zones were correlated to other Gilmore City North American conodont faunas and to the faunas from the Hampton Fm. Hampton Fm. Iowa Falls Mbr. standard Lower Carboniferous reference sections of Europe. Eagle City Mbr. Maynes Creek Mbr. Wossonvil le Mbr. A description of the current understanding of Mississippian .>< 0 conodont zonation in North America is available in Collin 0 .c Chopin Storrs Cove son, Rexroad and Thompson's 1971 paper in the Geological ~ "O c Prospect Hill Prospect Hill Society of America Memoir 127. Table l lists these Mississip ;;:: r a. Mc Croney Mccraney pian conodont zones and indicates which are recognized in ;~" (;e> Iowa. The sections that follow are summarized primarily z from Collinson and others ( 1971). Nomenclature of Mississippian Units in Iowa The column of Mississippian Units as recognized by the Figure 1. Nomenclature of Mississippian units in Iowa. Iowa Geological Survey is shown in Figure 1. The discus sion will start with the lowermost unit, the McCraney, and work up the column to progressively younger units. A brief section has been included on the English River Siltstone be cause it has been considered to be both Devonian and/or Mississippian in age. KINDERHOOK SERIES English River Formation The type locality of the English River Siltstone is in Wash The North Hill Group ington County. At the type locality the English River does The North Hill Group is recognized as the lowermost not contain any conodonts that are definitely restricted to Mississippian unit in Iowa. The divisions of the North Hill the Mississippian (Klapper, personal communication in Dor Group as recognized by the Iowa Geological Survey are heim and others, 1969, p. 25). shown below: House ( 1962) dated an exposure of the English River at (Central Iowa) (Southeast Iowa) Burlington in southeast Iowa as Devonian because of the Chapin Fm. Starrs Cave Fm. presence of late Devonian ammonoids. Collinson ( 1961) and Prospect Hill Fm. Prospect Hill Fm. Collinson and others (1967, p. 968) reported Upper Devon McCraney Fm. McCraney Fm. ian conodonts from this locality. Mccraney Fm: Conodonts are not abundant in the Mc The Iowa Geological Survey places the Devonian-Mississip Craney Formation. Scott and Collinson ( 1961) reported that pian boundary at the top of the English River and below the they processed over 90 pounds of limestone to recover 33 North Hill Group "for mapping, subsurface logging and other conodont specimens. They reported Siphonodella cooperi, Si utilitarian purposes." ( Dorheim and others, 1969, p. 27.) phonodella duplicata, Polygnathus communis, Elictognathus laceratus, and Dinodus fragosus from the McCraney Forma tion at Burlington, Iowa. They noted that the conodont fauna 1 Department of Earth Science, University of Northern Iowa, of the McCraney was similar to faunas found in the Prospect Cedar Falls, Iowa 50613 Hill and Wassonville formations. Published by UNI ScholarWorks, 1973 1 Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science, Vol. 80 [1973], No. 1, Art. 8 CONODONTS 35 Table 1: North American Conodont Zones (Mississippian) (from Collinson and others 1971) CONODONT ZONES OF THE CHESTERIAN SERIES Main Occurrence Gnathodus girtyi simplex Zone Ill. Basin (Webster, 1969) Streptognathodus unicornis Zone Ill. Basin (Collinson, Scott and Rexroad, 1962) Kladognathus-Cavusgnathus naviculus Zone Ill. Basin (Collinson, Scott and Rexroad, 1962; Rexroad and Nicoll, 1965) Kladognathus primus Zone Ill. Basin (Collinson, Scott and Rexroad, 1962; Rexroad and Nicoll, 1965) Gnathodus bilineatus-Kladognathus mehli Zone Ill. Basin (Collinson, Scott and Rexroad, 1962) Gnathodus bilineatus-Cavusgnathus altus Zone Ill. Basin (Collinson, Scott and Rexroad, 1962) Gnathodus bilineatus-Cavusgnathus charactus Zone Ill. Basin; (Collinson, Scott and Rexroad, 1962) "Pella Beds CONODONT ZONES OF THE V ALMEYERAN SEHIES Apatognathus scalenus-Cavusgnathus Zone Central U.S.; (Collinson, Scott and Rexroad, 1962) "?St. Louis Taphrognathus varians-Apatognathus Zone Central U.S.; "Warsaw, (Collinson, Scott and Rexroad, 1962) "Spergen, "St. Louis Gnathodus texanus-Taphrognathus Zone Central U.S.; (Collinson, Scott and Rexroad, 1962) "Keokuk Gnathodus bulbosus Zone SW Mo. (Thompson, 1967) Bactrognathus distortus-Gnathodus cuneiformis SW Mo. (Thompson, 1967) Bactrognathus-Taphrognathus Zone Central U.S.; (Collinson, Scott and Rexroad, 1962) "Burlington Bactrognathus-Polygnathus communis Zone Central U.S.; (Collinson, Scott and Rexroad, 1962) "Burlington Bactrognathus-Pseudopolygnathus multistriatus Zone SW Mo. (Thompson, 1967) Gnathodus semiglaber-Pseudopolygnathus multistriatus Zone Central U.S. (Collinson, Scott and Rexroad, 1962) "?reworked in Burlington Gnathodus semiglaber-Polygnathus communis carinus Zone SW Mo. (Thompson, 1967; Thompson and Fellows, 1970) CONODONT Zmrns OF THE KINDERHOOKIAN SERIES Siphonodella cooperi hassi-Gnathodus punctatus Zone SW Mo. (Thompson and Fellows, 1970) Siphonodella isoticha-S. cooperi Zone Central U.S.; "Prospect Hill; "Wassonville; (Collinson, Scott and Rexroad, 1962) "Hampton, "?Gilmore City Gnathodus delicatus-Siphonodella cooperi cooperi Zone SW Mo. (Thompson and Fellows, 1970) Siphonodella quadruplicata-S. crenulata Zone Central U.S.; (Collinson, Scott and Rexroad, 1962) "?Prospect Hill; "?Hampton Siphonodella lobata-Siphonodella crenulata Zone SW Mo.; (Thompson and Fellows, 1970) Montana; Wyoming Lower Siphonodella crenulata Zone (Voges, 1959; Sandberg and Klapper, 1967) Siphonodella duplicata Zone "McCraney; "Prospect (Collinson, Scott and Rexroad, 1962) Hill; Central U.S. Siphonodella sandbergi-Siphonodella duplicata Zone Montana, Wyoming (Sandberg and Klapper, 1967) Siphonodella sulcata Zone Central U.S. (Collinson, Scott and Rexroad, 1962) Protognathodus kuehni-P. Kockeli Zone Central U.S.; Utah (Collinson, Scott and Rexroad, 1962) " if recognized in Iowa Strata https://scholarworks.uni.edu/pias/vol80/iss1/8 2 Anderson: Mississippian Conodonts in Iowa 36 PRoc. lowA AcAD. Ser. 80 ( 1973) Straka ( 1968) reported that conodonts he recovered from (1960) he considered the Eagle City-Iowa Falls as facies the McCraney Formation in Washington County resembled and treated them as one unit. The presence of Siphonodella those described by Scott and Collinson ( 1961) from the Mc obsoleta in the Iowa Falls lithology was noted as indicat Craney at Burlington. The Washington County fauna was ing a correlation of the Eagle City-Iowa Falls member with characterized by the presence of Siphonodella cooperi, Si the upper Hannibal-Chouteau of the standard Mississippi phonodella quadruplicata, and Polygnathus communis. Valley sequence. Collinson and others ( 1971, fig. 2) recog Prospect Hill Siltstone: The Prospect Hill conodont fauna nize three distinct conodont zones within the upper Han is well known. Thomas ( 1949) recovered conodonts from the nibal-Chouteau interval. Prospect Hill Siltstone in Des Moines, Louisa and Washing Gilmore City Formation: Little is known regarding cono ton counties. Conodonts that Thomas listed as coming from