Geology topics

S. G. Lucas

Publications and source records attributed to S. G. Lucas.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

USGS2011

Position of the Triassic-Jurassic boundary and timing of the end-Triassic extinctions on land: Data from the Moenave Formation on the southern Colorado Plateau, USA

Strata of the Moenave Formation on and adjacent to the southern Colorado Plateau in Utah–Arizona, U.S.A., represent one of the best known and most stratigraphically continuous, complete and fossiliferous terrestrial sections across the Triassic–Jurassic boundary. We present a synthesis of new biostratigraphic and magnetostratigraphic data collected from across the Moenave Formation outcrop belt, which extends from the St. George area in southwestern Utah to the Tuba City area in northern Arizona. These data include palynomorphs, conchostracans and vertebrate fossils (including footprints) and a composite polarity record based on four overlapping magnetostratigraphic sections. Placement of the Triassic–Jurassic boundary in strata of the Moenave Formation has long been imprecise and debatable, but these new data (especially the conchostracans) allow us to place the Triassic–Jurassic boundary relatively precisely in the middle part of the Whitmore Point Member of the Moenave Formation, stratigraphically well above the highest occurrence of crurotarsan body fossils or footprints. Correlation to marine sections based on this placement indicates that major terrestrial vertebrate extinctions preceded marine extinctions across the Triassic–Jurassic boundary and therefore were likely unrelated to the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) volcanism.

Arizona, Utah↗

USGS2011

Late Early Permian continental ichnofauna from Lake Kemp, north-central Texas, USA

Continental trace fossils of Early Permian age are well known in the western United States from Wolfcampian (~ Asselian to Artinskian) strata, but few examples are known from Leonardian (~ Kungurian) deposits. A substantial ichnofauna from strata of the lower part of the Clear Fork Formation at Lake Kemp, Baylor County, Texas, augments the meager North American record of Leonardian continental trace fossil assemblages. Ichnofossils at Lake Kemp occur in the informally-named Craddock dolomite member of the Clear Fork Formation, which is 12–15 m above the local base of the Clear Fork. The trace-bearing stratum is an up-to-0.3 m thick, laminated to flaser-bedded, dolomitic siltstone that also contains mud cracks, raindrop impressions, microbially induced mat structures, and some land-plant impressions. We interpret the Craddock dolomite member as the feather-edge of a marine transgressive carbonate deposit of an irregular coastline marked by shallow bays or estuaries on the eastern shelf of the Midland basin, and the trace-fossil-bearing stratum at Lake Kemp is an unchannelized flow deposit on a muddy coastal plain. The fossil site at Lake Kemp yields a low to moderately diverse fauna of invertebrate and vertebrate traces. A sparse invertebrate ichnofauna consists of arthropod feeding and locomotion traces assigned to Walpia cf. W. hermitensis White, 1929 and Diplichnites gouldi Gevers in Gevers et al., 1971. Tetrapod footprints are most common and assigned to Batrachichnus salamandroides (Geinitz, 1861), cf. Amphisauropus kablikae (Geinitz and Deichmüller, 1882), and Dromopus lacertoides (Geinitz, 1861), which represent small temnospondyl, seymouriamorph, and basal sauropsid trackmakers. Both the traces and sedimentary features of the fossil horizon indicate a freshwater setting at the time of track formation, and the trace assemblage represents the Scoyenia ichnofacies and the Batrachichnus ichnofacies in an overbank environment with sheet flooding and shallow ephemeral pools on an extensive coastal plain. The Lake Kemp tetrapod track assemblage is characteristic of the global Early Permian tetrapod ichnofauna found in red beds, which is dominated by a handful of ichnogenera that include Batrachichnus, Limnopus, Amphisauropus, Dromopus, Varanopus, Hyloidichnus, Ichniotherium and Dimetropus, which are the tracks of temnospondyls, seymouriamorphs, diadectomorphs, “pelycosaurs”, “captorhinomorphs”, and araeoscelids. The Lake Kemp tracks also further document the continuity of the ichnogenera Batrachichnus, Amphisauropus and Dromopus from Wolfcampian into Leonardian time and thus support the concept that Wolfcampian and Leonardian red-bed tetrapod footprints represent a single biostratigraphic assemblage.

Texas↗

USGS2011

Pennsylvanian coniferopsid forests in sabkha facies reveal the nature of seasonal tropical biome

Pennsylvanian fossil forests are known from hundreds of sites across tropical Pangea, but nearly all comprise remains of humid Coal Forests. Here we report a unique occurrence of seasonally dry vegetation, preserved in growth position along >5 km of strike, in the Pennsylvanian (early Kasimovian, Missourian) of New Mexico (United States). Analyses of stump anatomy, diameter, and spatial density, coupled with observations of vascular traces and associated megaflora, show that this was a deciduous, mixed-age, coniferopsid woodland (∼100 trees per hectare) with an open canopy. The coniferopsids colonized coastal sabkha facies and show tree rings, confirming growth under seasonally dry conditions. Such woodlands probably served as the source of coniferopsids that replaced Coal Forests farther east in central Pangea during drier climate phases. Thus, the newly discovered woodland helps unravel biome-scale vegetation dynamics and allows calibration of climate models.

New Mexico↗

USGS2007

A low diversity, seasonal tropical landscape dominated by conifers and peltasperms: Early Permian Abo Formation, New Mexico

Walchian conifers (Walchia piniformis Sternberg, 1825) and peltasperms similar to Supaia thinnfeldioides White and cf. Supaia anomala White dominate floodplain deposits of a narrow stratigraphic interval of the middle Abo Formation, Lower Permian of central New Mexico. The plant fossils occur in thinly bedded units up to two meters thick, consisting of coarse siltstone to very fine sandstone with clay partings. Bedding is primarily tabular, thin, and bears rare ripple marks and trough cross beds. Bedding surfaces display mud cracks, raindrop imprints, horizontal and vertical burrows of invertebrates, and footprints of terrestrial vertebrates. These features indicate intermittent and generally unchannelized stream flow, with repeated exposure to air. Channels appear to have cannibalized one another on a slowly subsiding coastal plain. Conifers are dominant at three collecting sites and at three others Supaia dominates. Although each of these genera occurs in assemblages dominated by the other, there are no truly co-dominant assemblages. This pattern suggests alternative explanations. Landscapes could have consisted of a small-scale vegetational patchwork dominated almost monospecifically in any one patch, meaning that these plants could have coexisted across the landscape. On the other hand, conifer and supaioid dominance could have been temporally distinct, occurring during different episodes of sedimentation; although in the field there are no noticeable sedimentological differences between conifer-dominated and Supaia-dominated channel deposits, they may represent slightly different climatic regimes. The considerable morphological differences between conifers and Supaia suggest that the floristic patterns are not a taphonomic effect of the loss of a significant part of the original biodiversity. In general, the climate under which this vegetation developed appears to have been relatively warm and arid, based on the geology (pervasive red color [oxidation], calcrete in paleosols, and abundant mud cracks evidencing ephemeral flow in streams) and biology (low floristic diversity, xeromorphic plant physiognomies). ?? 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology↗

USGS2004

Assessing the record and causes of Late Triassic extinctions

Accelerated biotic turnover during the Late Triassic has led to the perception of an end-Triassic mass extinction event, now regarded as one of the "big five" extinctions. Close examination of the fossil record reveals that many groups thought to be affected severely by this event, such as ammonoids, bivalves and conodonts, instead were in decline throughout the Late Triassic, and that other groups were relatively unaffected or subject to only regional effects. Explanations for the biotic turnover have included both gradualistic and catastrophic mechanisms. Regression during the Rhaetian, with consequent habitat loss, is compatible with the disappearance of some marine faunal groups, but may be regional, not global in scale, and cannot explain apparent synchronous decline in the terrestrial realm. Gradual, widespread aridification of the Pangaean supercontinent could explain a decline in terrestrial diversity during the Late Triassic. Although evidence for an impact precisely at the boundary is lacking, the presence of impact structures with Late Triassic ages suggests the possibility of bolide impact-induced environmental degradation prior to the end-Triassic. Widespread eruptions of flood basalts of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) were synchronous with or slightly postdate the system boundary; emissions of CO2 and SO2 during these eruptions were substantial, but the contradictory evidence for the environmental effects of outgassing of these lavas remains to be resolved. A substantial excursion in the marine carbon-isotope record of both carbonate and organic matter suggests a significant disturbance of the global carbon cycle at the system boundary. Release of methane hydrates from seafloor sediments is a possible cause for this isotope excursion, although the triggering mechanism and climatic effects of such a release remain uncertain. ?? 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Earth-Science Reviews↗

USGS1994

Correlation and age of the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation from magnetostratigraphic analysis

The magnetostratigraphy of the Morrison Formation of east-central New Mexico resembles that of three western Colorado sections. Magnetic polarity and lithology agree among the sections, indicating the correlation potential of magnetostratigraphy in this lithologically complex formation. Both magnetostratigraphy, lithology, and paleopoles divide the formation into two parts. The lower sandstone-dominated portion was deposited during a time of relatively equal lengths normal and reversed polarity intervals, whereas the upper mudstone (Brushy Basin) portion was deposited during predominantly reversed polarity with interspersed short normal intervals. The four magnetostratigraphic sequences yield a composite Morrison Formation magnetostratigraphy. Upper Morrison polarity correlates well with the polarity pattern of the marine magnetic anomaly M-sequence and indicates that the Brushy Basin Member is Kimmeridgian and earliest Tithonian in age. The correlation suggests that lower part of the formation is at least Oxfordian in age. Two pole positions were obtained from the New Mexico Morrison Formation. The lower sandstone-dominated part of the formation gives a different paleopole from the mostly mudstone upper portion of the formation. This difference is quite similar to observation of two pole positions in the Colorado Morrison Formation. The similarity between New Mexico and Colorado indicates that the base level change within the formation, the change from sandstone and mudstone to nearly purely mudstone deposition, was approximately synchronous in the two areas. The presence of two different paleopoles suggests an hiatus in the formation. The hiatus in sedimentation coincides with the base level change, and the difference in paleopoles suggests that sufficient time elapsed for continental motion to occur between deposition of the lower members of the Morrison Formation and the Brushy Basin Member above them.

Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah↗

USGS1987

Dinosaurs, pollen and spores, and the age of the Ojo Alamo Sandstone, San Juan Basin, New Mexico

The Ojo Alamo Sandstone of the San Juan Basin of New Mexico is composed of interbedded conglomeratic sandstone, sandstone, siltstone, and mudstone. Conglomerates are found in the western part of the basin; siliceous pebbles diminish in size both southward and eastward across the basin, becoming rare to nonexistent in the eastern part. There is great variation in the internal stratigraphy of the Ojo Alamo: Individual sandstone or mudstone beds thicken, thin, and pinch out laterally. The thickness of the Ojo Alamo varies from 6 m (20 ft) to more than 122 m (400 ft). The formation varies in composition from one to as many as five sandstone beds with interbeds of siltstone or mudstone. Dinosaur bone has been found within the Ojo Alamo at several sites in the western part of the basin. Paleocene pollen has been found within the Ojo Alamo in the eastern part of the basin. To date, no Cretaceous pollen has been found at or above the stratigraphic level of dinosaur bone within the Ojo Alamo Sandstone. Near Barrel Spring, in the southwest part of the basin, both dinosaur bone and Paleocene pollen have been found. One bone, found at the top of the Ojo Alamo, was loose on the surface, and its significance is therefore equivocal. Dinosaur bone, however, has also been found in place in the upper part of the Ojo Alamo about 1.6 km (1 mi) west of Barrel Spring, at about the same stratigraphic level as Paleocene pollen from a site just east of Barrel Spring. Because there is no apparent unconformity between the highest in-place bone level and the Paleocene pollen level in this area, the Ojo Alamo dinosaurs, if not reworked, are Paleocene in age at this site and probably throughout the San Juan Basin.

Colorado, New Mexico↗