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I 76-9946 ti I CARNES, John Beynon, 1943- CONODONT BIOSTRATIGRAPHY IN THE LOWER I MIDDLE ORDOVICIAN OF THE WESTERN I APPALACHIAN THRUST-BELTS IN NORTHEASTERN TENNESSEE. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., I 1975 I Geology 1 Xerox University Microfilmst Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED. CONODONT BIOSTRATIGRAPHY IN THE LOWER MIDDLE ORDOVICIAN OF THE WESTERN APPALACHIAN THRUST-BELTS IN NORTHEASTERN TENNESSEE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By John B. Carnes, B.A., B.S The Ohio State University 1975 Reading Committee: Approved by Professor S. M. Bergstr8m, Chairman Professor W. C. Sweet Professor Gunter Faure 7 Q / Adviser irtment or and Mineralogy ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Dr. Stig Mo Bergstrom suggested and supervised this project. Dr. Bergstrflm has been an enthusiastic adviser and a stimulating educator; his interest, his guidance, and the tremendous amount of time he devoted to this project are greatly appreciated. Dr. Walter C. Sweet read the manuscript and offered many helpful suggestions. Dr. Sweet has spent many hours, to the writer's profit, discussing conodont biostratigraphy and taxonomy and sharing his insights. Thanks are also due to Dr. Gunter Faure, who read the manuscript; to Dr. Aurele LaRocque who kindly allowed the writer to use his office space, his drafting equipment, and his personal library; and to Dr. Barry J. Cooper and Dr. Robert B. Votaw, who, while graduate students at The Ohio State University, freely discussed their ideas with the writer. I am deeply indebted to several good friends who provided valuable assistance in the final assembly of this report. Stephen Jacobson and William Schuck helped compile the tables and assemble the plates. Karen Tyler drafted most of the figures and Helen Jones helped compile the tables.. Robert Wilkinson and Merrell Miller photographed the figures. Jerina Copsey typed the manuscript and patiently tolerated the writer's last-minute revisions. Special thanks are due to Joe Fetzer, who worked jointly with the writer in the field; to Robert Markley, who took the SEM micrographs and assisted with many of the final details of completing the manuscript; ii and to my wife, Susan, who devoted much of her time and energy toward completion of this project. The Friends of Orton Hall provided funds for much of the field work and costs for use of the Scanning Electron Microscope were absorbed by the Department of Geology and Mineralogy of The Ohio State University. iii VITA May 8, 1943 ............ Born, Canton, Ohio 1965. ....... B. A., Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio. 1970 ..... ........ ..... B.S., The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio 1970-1971 ....... Teaching Assistant, Research Assistant, Department of Geology and Mineralogy, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. 1972-1974 ............. National Science Foundation Trainee, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. ‘. PUBLICATIONS Bergstrom, S. M., J. B. Carnes, R. L. Ethington, R. B. Votaw, and P. B. Wigley. 1974. Appalachignathus, a new multielement conodont genus from the Middle Ordovician of North America. J. Paleontol. 48(2):227-235, 1 PI. Bergstrom, S. M., and J. B. Carnes. 1975. Conodont biostratigraphy and paleoecology of the Holston Formation (Middle Ordovician) and associated strata in eastern Tennessee. Geol. Assoc. Can., Spec. Pap. (in press). Carnes, J. B., and S. M. Bergstrom. 1973. On the stage subdivision of the North American lower Middle Ordovician: Biostratigraphy and correlation of the Ashby Stage (abs.). Geol. Soc. Amer., Abs. with Progr. 5(4):307. Sweet, W. C., S. M. Bergstrom, and J. B. Carnes. 1973. Lower Middle Ordovician biostratigraphy in the North American Midcontinent: relations between sequences in Oklahoma, the Cincinnati region, and the western Appalachians (abs.). Geol. Soc. Amer., Abs. with Progr. 5(7):832-833. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS........... .................................... ii VITA ........................................................ * . o iv PUBLICATIONS ..... ........................................... iv TABLE OF CONTENTS................................................. V LIST OF T A B L E S .................................................... vii LIST OF FIGURES................................................... viii INTRODUCTION.............. 1 THE STUDY A R E A ................................................... 5 LITHOSTRATIGRAPHY................................ 10 Previous Work . ............................ 10 Stratigraphic Succession .................... 15 Terminology Used in This Report ............... 22 BIOSTRATIGRAPHY ............................................... 27 Previous W o r k ........................................ 27 Conodont Biostratigraphy............ 28 The Conodont Collections .................... 30 DESCRIPTION AND INTERPRETATION OF SECTIONS ...................... 33 Lay School Section.................. 34 Evans Ferry Section ..................... 46 Eidson Section ........................ 51 Thorn Hill Section 56 Cuba Section................................................... 62 CORRELATION......................................................... 70 Local Corre l a t i o n .................... 70 Regional Correlation 79 Facies Relations ...... ........... 85 The Ashby Stage 90 The Base of Midcontinent Fauna 7 . ........ 95 v Page SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS ....................................... 98 SYSTEMATIC PALEONTOLOGY ......................................... 102 REFERENCES ................ 229 APPENDICES Appendix A. Measured Section and Sample Locations ..... 241 Appendix B. Distribution and Frequency of Conodont Elements in the Sections Investigated ..... 257 Appendix C. Plates ................................. 267 vi LIST OF TABLES Table Page I. Conodont species represented in the study area ....... 31 II. Distribution and frequency of conodont elements in the Lay School section ............ ......... 258 III. Distribution and frequency of conodont elements in the Evans Ferry section ....... .............. 262 IV. Distribution and frequency of conodont elements in the Eidson section ............... 264 V. Distribution and frequency of conodont elements in the T h o m Hill section ........... 264 VI. Distribution and frequency of conodont elements in the Cuba section .......................... 266 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Sketch map of the study ar e a ............................. 7 2. Schemes of stratigraphic terminology previously applied to lower Middle Ordovician rocks in the St. Paul belt and in the northeastern part of the Copper Creek belt (in the Eidson area) ........... 11 3. Schemes of stratigraphic terminology previously applied to lower Middle Ordovician rocks in the southwestern part of the Copper Creek belt (in the T h o m Hill area) and in the Hawkins belt 13 4. Stratigraphic distribution of conodonts in the Lay School section, Hogskin Valley.......... 36 5. Stratigraphic distribution of- conodonts in the Evans Ferry section.......... 47 6. Stratigraphic distribution of conodonts in the Eidson - section .... ........................... •.... 54 7. Stratigraphic distribution of conodonts in the T h o m Hill section ...................... 58 8.' Stratigraphic distribution of conodonts in the Cuba section 64 9. Known vertical distribution of representatives of biostratigraphically diagnostic conodont species in the sections investigated ............ 72 10. Suggested correlation of rock units within the study area ..................... 77 11. Correlation of rock units in the middle belts of eastern Tennessee with rock units in the eastern belts of eastern Tennessee and western Virginia . 81 viii Figure Page 12. Sketch map of eastern Tennessee showing, the distribution of Ordovician rocks, major thrust belts, and the location of sections mentioned in the text ....... 82 13. Facies relations across the strike of the middle belts and across the Bays Mountain Synclinorium ....... 89 14„ Correlation of lower Middle Ordovician rocks units in eastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia suggested by Cooper (1956, Chart 1)..... .......... 92 15. Distacodontiform elements of ''Distacodus" n. sp........... 126 16. Homocurvatiform elements of Drepanoistodus suberectus (Branson and Mehl) .......... .... 131 17. Elements of Drepanoistodus n. sp.......................... 134 18. Elements of Paltodus? sp. ...........° 158 19. Dyscritiform element of Walliserodus trigonius (Schopf). 218 20. Map of the Lay School locality............................ 243 ix INTRODUCTION In the Great Valley of East Tennessee, Ordovician rocks are exposed within several northeast-trending, imbricate thrust blocks between the • Cumberland Plateau and the Unaka Mountains. Facies changes and faunal differences from thrust belt to thrust belt are quite abrupt in many cases and, in some areas, much of the Ordovician succession has been cut out by large-scale thrust faulting. Therefore, lithostratigraphic and biostratigraphic correlation across the strike of the thrust faults has been difficult and often extremely tenuous. A particularly critical problem in this region has been our lack of knowledge about the precise relative ages of several Middle Ordovician rock units that have been collectively referred to as "lower and middle parts of Chickamauga Limestone and equivalent rocks" (Rodgers, 1953). Rocks in the lowermost part of this interval rest disconformably on Lower Ordovician