Correlation of Ordovician rocks of northern Alaska

Abstract

The Ordovician sequences presented in this report were chosen to cover a range of depositional and structural settings found in northern Alaska. Consequently, the quality of lithostratigraphic, paleontologic, and sedimentologic data is variable. Until 1982, Ordovician rocks in northern Alaska were known only from a few, widely separated localities. Since then, several hundred Ordovician conodont collections were obtained during geologic mapping of chiefly metacarbonate rocks; some are from measured sections that contain a succession of pelagic and (or) warm, shallow-water index species, but others are isolated, single collections that merely contain species that are long-ranging, within the Ordovician. Graptolite collections are fewer than conodont collections, but they provide invaluable ties between carbonate and siliciclastic sequences. New macrofossil localities are rare. All these collections have increased the known areal extent of Ordovician rocks in northern Alaska (Fig. 1) at least thirtyfold. Faunal assemblages from carbonate rocks in northern Alaska indicate that this area was situated in low latitudes during the Ordovician.