Late Paleozoic Glaciation: Part III, Antarctica
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LAWRENCE A. FRAKES Department of Geology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306 JERRY L. MATTHEWS Department of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, California 9203 7 JOHN C. CROWELL Department of Geological Sciences, University of California. Santa Barbara, California 93106 Late Paleozoic Glaciation: Part III, Antarctica ABSTRACT netic poles for the reconstructed Gondwana- Like other Gondwanaland fragments, An- land fragments of South America, Africa, and tarctica was glaciated during the late Paleozoic, Antarctica, the late Paleozoic segments of as demonstrated by striated floors and boulder which cross Antarctica from the Weddell Sea to pavements and by glacially striated clasts in Victoria land. diamictites and associated varvelike strata. Til- lites are known throughout the Transantarctic INTRODUCTION Mountains from the vicinity of Ross Island to Late Paleozoic glacial rocks were discovered the Pensacola Mountains, as well as in the Ells- in Antarctica in I960 (Long, 1962) and are worth Mountains in West Antarctica. These now known to occur throughout a wide stretch strata apparently were laid down in three basins of the Transantarctic Mountains, as well as in (Ellsworth-Pensacola basin, Horlick-Queen the Ellsworth Mountains of West Antarctica Maud basin, and Beardmore basin). (Craddock and others, 1964). Their recogni- Ice flowed into the Ellsworth-Pensacola basin tion in Antarctica is of particular significance from a major center located in the region of the because of the often expressed view that An- eastern Weddell Sea, possibly beginning in the tarctica is a drifted fragment of the ancient early Carboniferous. The Thiel salient, separat- supercontinent, Gondwanaland, and hence, ing the Ellsworth-Pensacola and Horlick- should contain its own counterparts of the Queen Maud basins, yielded some debris Paleozoic-Mesozoic Gondwana sedimentary se- northward into the former basin but served quence. The glacial strata of Antarctica occupy primarily as a major gathering ground for ice the same statigraphic positions as do glacial which flowed westward into the Horlick- rocks in the Gondwana sequences of southern Queen Maud basin. Similarly, the western Africa and South America, although ages over Queen Maud Mountains, where tillites are thin the southern hemisphere range from at least or absent, was a local center for ice flowing middle Carboniferous to Permian. eastward into the Horlick-Queen Maud basin Detailed studies have been carried out at and probably westward into the Beardmore ba- many Antarctic localities, so that regional syn- sin, although the latter direction is not yet thesis is now possible. Determination of proven by striae patterns. A major center of ice paleogeographic trends in Antarctica (Frakes accumulation also seems to have existed in and Crowell, 1968a) is also of significance in northern Victoria Land, whence flow was to- establishing the relative position of the polar ward the southeast. The Ellsworth-Pensacola continent in the Gondwanaland framework. basin was a continuously depressed Paleozoic Because major breakup of Gondwanaland did downwarp of major proportions, whereas the not occur until after glaciation took place, the Permian Horlick-Queen Maud and Beard- distribution of continental ice, and especially more basins were shallow depressions and poss- the directions of flow as recorded in the glacial ibly connected. deposits, can be used as an aid in matching The center of late Paleozoic glaciation may Antarctica with the other Gondwanaland frag- have migrated across Antarctica from the Wed- ments. For Antarctica, however, conclusions dell Sea region (early Carboniferous) to north- are less certain than for the other continents, ern Victoria Land (Permian), judging from the because so much of the continent is covered meager paleontological data and stratigraphic with ice, and so much of it has not yet been fully considerations. This would be in keeping with explored. the relative-motion curves of the paleomag- In the Transantarctic Mountains, late Paleo- Geological Society of America Bulletin, vol. 82, p. 1581-1604, 16 figs., June 1971 1581 Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-pdf/82/6/1581/3428332/i0016-7606-82-6-1581.pdf by guest on 23 September 2021 1582 FRAKES AND OTHERS—LATE PALEOZOIC GLACIATION, ANTARCTICA zoic glacial rocks are exposed along the rim of Ross Island, they are very thin; farther north in the Antarctic Plateau, between the glaciers Victoria Land, their position is occupied by a which flow down to the Ross Ice Shelf from the disconformity between Devonian(P) and Per- interior (Fig. 1). Isolated outcrops are known mian strata. They also appear to be thin or miss- from west of Ross Island in Victoria Land ing from the segment of the central through the Horlick Mountains to the Pen- Transantarctic Mountains between the Queen sacola Mountains, two-thirds of the way across Maud Range and the Beardmore Glacier. the continent. The glacial strata constitute a In West Antarctica, an 1100-m-thick glacial lower part of the flat-lying Beacon "Group" section occurs in the Sentinel Range of the Ells- (equated by many workers with the Gondwana worth Mountains, lying high above limestones sequence of other southern continents; see Har- dated as Cambrian and below Permian elastics rington, 1965), and through this broad region in an apparently conformable sequence of de- they lie disconformably on still lower Beacon formed strata. Late Paleozoic glacials are not sedimentary rocks (Devonian), or unconforma- known from the largely Precambrian shield bly on the basement complex (Precambrian to area of East Antarctica; diamictites of Queen lower Paleozoic). They are followed, either Maud Land are probably Precambrian in age conformably or disconformably, by dominantly (Neethling, 1964). fluvial strata which locally bear Permian floras. There are obvious differences in the stratig- The glacial rocks display varying thicknesses raphy of late Paleozoic glacial rocks when ranging from a few meters to almost 400 m. viewed on a regional scale, and these will be The thickest known sections in this region oc- discussed in detail below. For the moment, we cur locally near the Beardmore Glacier. Near can point out the considerable differences be- Figure 1. General localities in Antarctica. Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-pdf/82/6/1581/3428332/i0016-7606-82-6-1581.pdf by guest on 23 September 2021 ELLSWORTH-PENSACOLA BASIN 1583 tween the Paleozoic sections of the Ellsworth tively named the Ellsworth-Pensacola basin. and Pensacola Mountains on the one hand, and Two additional basins can be distinguished; all other known occurrences on the continent these are the Horlick-Queen Maud basin to the on the other. In the Ellsworths and Pensacolas, east, and the Beardmore basin to the west of a the glacial strata are part of a thick, largely clas- regional high located between the Axel Hei- tic sequence which was deposited throughout berg and Beardmore Glaciers. most, if not all, of the Paleozoic. These de- formed and metamorphosed sections (probably ELLSWORTH-PENSACOLA BASIN more than 10,000 m thick) might properly be termed geosynclinal in origin. For contrast, gla- General cial sequences elsewhere are basal or nearly so The Ellsworth-Pensacola basin contains ex- in the Beacon "Group" and consist of flat-lying, posures of Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata in the cratonic strata; granitic basement rocks are at Atlantic sector of Antarctica (Fig. 2). At pre- most a few tens of meters below the glacial beds sent, known exposures are limited to the re- in all places. gions for which the basin is named, but others Such markedly different sequences must eventually may be discovered in the Shackleton have formed in entirely different basins, par- Range and elsewhere. The basin lies adjacent to ticularly since the Ellsworth-Pensacola region is the Antarctic craton and partially in the far removed from the others, and transitional younger West Antarctic mobile belt. It is char- sequences are not known. The basin which is in acterized by a thick sequence (at least 10,000 part represented by the glacial deposits of the m) of conformable Paleozoic and Mesozoic Ellsworth and Pensacola Mountains is tenta- rocks, mostly clastic and slightly metamor- TRANSPORT DIRECTION OF LATE PALEOZOIC °» Figure 2. Regional locality map of the Ellsworth-Pensacola basin. Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-pdf/82/6/1581/3428332/i0016-7606-82-6-1581.pdf by guest on 23 September 2021 1584 FRAKES AND OTHERS—LATE PALEOZOIC GLACIATION, ANTARCTICA phosed but locally strongly deformed. They are fragments and "heavy" minerals occur in all thus in marked contrast with rocks of the same thin sections. Sand-sized grains commonly have age elsewhere on the continent. angular boundaries etched by chemical solution In both Ellsworth and the Pensacola Moun- and penetrated by secondary growth of sericite tains, the glacial rocks overlie a thick sequence and other clay minerals. of quartz arenites and underlie plant-bearing The most striking feature of the Whiteout sandstone and shale. The glacial strata are dis- Conglomerate is its general lack of an environ- tinctive in that they are very thick (at least 300 mentally significant feature, bedding. How- m) and consist almost entirely of thick units of ever, an 11-m-thick section of alternating shale poorly bedded diamictite. These unusual rocks and siltstone interbeds