Lithostratigraphy, Petrology, Diagenesis and Environments of Deposition of the Upper Cambrian Jordan Sandstone, Southeastern Minnesota
1992
Title
Lithostratigraphy, Petrology, Diagenesis and Environments of Deposition of the Upper Cambrian Jordan Sandstone, Southeastern Minnesota
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1992
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Thesis or Dissertation
Abstract
The Late Cambrian Jordan Sandstone is subdivided into four members in southeastern Minnesota. Younging upward these are the Norwalk, Van Oser, Waukon and Sunset Point Members. The very fine-grained feldspathic Norwalk and Waukon Members are interpreted as offshore to lower shoreface lithofacies. The medium-grained quartzose Van Oser Member is interpreted as a middle and upper shoreface lithofacies influenced by episodic sedimentation. The fine-grained feldspathic and dolomitic Sunset Point Member is interpreted as a tide-influenced shallow marine lithofacies; sedimentation was transitional from siliciclastic shoreface deposition to locally shoaling-upward carbonate deposition most probably associated with a laterally prograding offshore platform or development of laterally accreting and migrating tidal islands. Deposition of the Jordan Sandstone occurred in an epicontinental shallow marine environment during a transition from marine regression, typified by Norwalk, Van Oser and Waukon strata, to constant subsidence coupled with progradation of carbonate sediments, typified by Sunset Point strata. Progradation of Sunset Point strata resulted from locally increasing rates of carbonate sedimentation. The provenance area of the Jordan Sandstone was the continental craton interior. Diagenetic Processes occurred under low temperatures and pressures. The paragenetic sequence in order of occurrence is: the precipitation of thin quartz syntaxial overgrowths and potassium feldspar expitaxial overgrowths, the precipitation of hematite, dolomitization, the dissolution of potassium feldspar and dolomite, the precipitation of calcite, the dissolution of calcite and a second precipitation of hematite. Lithostratigraphic units (i.e., members) of the Jordan Sandstone in Minnesota demonstrate conformable relationships and have diachronous lower and upper boundaries; the Cambrian-Ordovician boundary is diachronous and typically gradational in southeastern Minnesota. Sunset Point strata represent a viable member of the Jordan Sandstone and are best not included in the overlying Ordovician Oneota Dolomite as some workers have suggested.
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The title page is missing; title, author, and date were confirmed by the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences' Graduate Thesis Archive. Plates 1-2 referenced in the thesis are also attached to this record.
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