UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Precambrian-Cambrian Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, and Paleontology in the Great Basin (Western United States) Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4r02d6xr Author Sappenfield, Aaron Dale Publication Date 2015 Supplemental Material https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4r02d6xr#supplemental Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Precambrian-Cambrian Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, and Paleontology in the Great Basin (Western United States) A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Geological Sciences by Aaron Dale Sappenfield December 2015 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Mary L. Droser, Chairperson Dr. Peter M. Sadler Dr. Nigel C. Hughes Copyright by Aaron Dale Sappenfield 2015 The Dissertation of Aaron Dale Sappenfield is approved: ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The compilation of this dissertation was only possible because of the relentless support provided by some truly remarkable people. I need to first thank my advisor, Dr. Mary Droser, for the expertise, training, guidance, and comradery she has shared throughout this process. Through her instruction and example, Dr. Droser has continuously showed me what’s important and what’s right, both in research and in life, and those lessons will forever impact the way I approach each day. I need to also thank Dr. Nigel Hughes who, in addition to supplying remarkable technical guidance, provided me with an archetype for the effective and passionate communication of science to students and the general public. Dr. Hughes’ extraordinary care for both science and people comes through in all that he does and has shown me that as a scientist, I too really can and really should take the time to genuinely care for both. These acknowledgements would also be severely deficient if there were no mention of the incredible attention, time, and support afforded to me by Dr. Peter Sadler. Working with Dr. Sadler, I’ve learned that there is absolutely no substitute for hard work and careful attention to detail, no matter the task, nor could there ever be a substitute for the high-quality instruction made always accessible by the open-door policy that Dr. Sadler actively maintains and always encouraged me to exploit. The single most significant silent contributor to everything presented herein is undoubtedly my wife, Carrie Sappenfield. Her endless support, encouragement, help, and wisdom has been a constant throughout this process. Any acknowledgment, despite how long or eloquently written, would grossly fail to adequately describe the significance iv of her tireless efforts performed in support of my academic pursuits. So I am forced here to simply say “thank you” Carrie, you are and always will be my hero. There are countless others who have both inspired and supported me throughout the conduct of this research. I’d like to directly acknowledge Dr. William Phelps, the Droser Lab, Jack Wine, Michael Knudson, Rachel Knudson, Robyn Dahl, Dr. Lidya Tarhan, Dr. Jorge Esteve, Scott Evans, Dr. Ryan McKenzie, Dr. Robert Gaines, Dr. Bertrand Palmer, Saverio Siciliano, Andrew Barnes, Eric Smalstig, Adam King, Kyle Gadley, Dr. Matthew Thomas, Dr. Anthony Ekdale, Laurie Graham, Alexis Sappenfield, Allen Sappenfield, Adam Sappenfield, Andrew Sappenfield, Lillian Sappenfield, Deborah Benavides, and Frank Benavides. I need to also acknowledge my funding sources including the University of California, Riverside, the Geological Society of America, the Paleontological Society, the American Federation of Mineralogical Societies, Geosyntec Consultants, SEPM, and the Southern California Academy of Sciences. Chapter 2 of this dissertation is reprinted with permission from Cambridge University Press. The original article was published in the November 2012 edition of Geological Magazine (Volume 149, Issue 6) under the title “The oldest Zoophycos and implications for Early Cambrian deposit feeding”. This material may be downloaded and printed for personal reference, but not otherwise copied, altered in any way or transmitted to others (unless explicitly stated otherwise) without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. Hypertext links to other Web locations are for the convenience of users and do not constitute any endorsement or authorization by Cambridge University Press. v DEDICATION For my family. vi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Precambrian-Cambrian Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, and Paleontology in the Great Basin (Western United States) by Aaron Dale Sappenfield Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Geological Sciences University of California, Riverside, December 2015 Dr. Mary L. Droser, Chairperson Thick accumulations of Neoproterozoic and early Phanerozoic strata are distributed throughout much of the arid continental interior of western North America, providing an expansive and well-exposed archive of this important time in Earth’s history. The information presented herein supplements evaluations regarding the utility and limitations of this archive by providing an integrated sedimentological, paleontological, and geochronological description for Precambrian-Cambrian strata exposed in the area and by reporting the discovery of new trace and body fossils housed there. The first chapter of this dissertation describes the sedimentology and stratigraphy of Precambrian-Cambrian conglomeratic and sandstone-dominated units exposed in the central Great Basin. Seven localities distributed along a 600 km north-south transect are described using existing data supplemented by information compiled from more than 5 vii kilometers of newly measured stratigraphic section. These data collectively facilitate development of a unified framework regarding the nature and timing of deposition in the area while also providing a series of stratigraphic tie points applicable to both regional and global correlation schemes. The second chapter reports the discovery of Zoophycos burrows from early Cambrian sediments exposed in eastern California. The Zoophycos ichnogenus is a well-known and considerably-studied deposit feeding trace fossil that, like other deposit feeding burrows, had not previously been reported in pre-Ordovician strata, making these the oldest examples of this celebrated burrow. Most importantly, Zoophycos burrows reported herein provide the earliest definitive evidence of deposit feeding to date, pushing back the advent of this feeding strategy to near the Precambrian- Cambrian boundary. This dissertation’s final chapter reports medusozoan macrofossils from the early Cambrian Zabriskie Quartzite as the earliest fossil evidence of cnidarian medusae and the oldest example of a metazoan mass stranding event currently on record. Given that these are fossils of nonmineralized forms, the Zabriskie fossils also advance reconstruction of the taphonomic dynamics responsible for the preservation of soft- bodied macrofauna in nearshore facies through the Precambrian-Cambrian transition. The features of this comparison imply that a preservational bias may have been introduced near the onset of the Phanerozoic, shifting the predominant environment for soft-bodied preservation in sandstone facies from subtidal environments to the supralittoral zone. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 References ...................................................................................................................... 6 CHAPTER 1 Patterns in Precambrian-Cambrian sedimentation in the central Great Basin (western United States): sequence stratigraphic, geochronologic, and paleontologic constraints along the craton margin ............................................................................... 9 Abstract .......................................................................................................................... 9 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 11 Background ................................................................................................................. 13 Regional Geology ........................................................................................................................ 13 Global Stratigraphic Framework ............................................................................................. 17 Regional Stratigraphy ................................................................................................................. 23 Problem Development ................................................................................................ 37 Analytical Methods and Localities ............................................................................ 39 Localities ........................................................................................................................................ 41 Materials ...................................................................................................................... 46 Sedimentology .............................................................................................................................