Revisión estratigráfica y litofacial de la Formación La Silla (Ordovícico Inferior) en la Precordillera Oriental de San Juan, Argentina

La Formación La Silla (Cámbrico Superior - Ordovícico Inferior) fue definida en 1994 por Keller et al. a partir de los niveles inferiores de la Formación San Juan. Esta Formación consiste en una sucesión distintiva de calizas claras, con escasos fósiles y muy explotadas por su alta pureza. Basados en estudios detallados en la sección tipo cercana a Jáchal y siete secciones en el área sur cercana a la ciudad de San Juan, proponemos una subdivisión formal para la Formación La Silla en tres miembros. La división de la unidad está basada en la ubicación preferencial de bancos dolomíticos en el sector central de la Formación mientras que el sector superior e inferior son calizas monótonas. Los miembros se denominan, de base a techo: Miembro Río del Agua, Miembro Río Blanco y Miembro Río Salado (85, 140 y 81 m, respectivamente). Las dolomías en el Miembro Río Blanco son de dos tipos: macizas, potentes y generalmente asociadas a chert; y dolomías con laminación planar y/o entrecruzada, ambas fácilmente distinguibles a simple vista, otorgándole a este Miembro un aspecto bandeado debido a la alternancia entre calizas y dolomías. Esto contrasta con el aspecto macizo y monótono de los Miembros restantes con estratificación tabular y a veces suavemente ondulante. Se reconocen las facies de grainstone peloidal, grainstone oolítico, rudstone intraclástico, packstone peloidal, mudstone, microbiales laminadas y trombolíticas. Además se describen las nuevas facies de dolomías laminadas y dolomías macizas. De la misma manera que lo observado por Keller et al. (1994), la Formación La Silla representa una fase distinta en la sucesión cambro-ordovícica, con las dolomías perimareales de la Formación La Flecha por debajo y las calizas fosilíferas de plataforma abierta de la Formación San Juan por encima

Review of the Cambrian Stratigraphy of the Argentine Precordillera

providing a new stratigraphic interpretation. The lithostratigraphic assemblages provide evidence that the Precordilleran Cambrian Basin was a rimmed platform. The lithostratigraphy record enables to distinguish three large areas corresponding to an inner platform, an outer platform to slope environment and a mixed zone where both platforms and the rim interfinger. The biostratigraphic proposal based on trilobites include restricted shelf biozones to the East, characterized by sparse, endemic and low diversity polymeroid faunules. Moreover, to the West outer shelf biozones are characterized by widespread, high diversity, mixed endemic and cosmopolitan polymeroid and agnostoid faunas. The lithostratigraphic and biostratigraphic data prove the existence of an important hiatus near the Lower-Middle Cambrian boundary, which is correlated to the Hawke Bay regressive event recorded along the eastern margin of Laurentia. The Olenellus Zone assemblage trilobites underlies the Glossopleura or the Ehmaniella Zone. The early Middle Cambrian zones (from Plagiura-Poliella to Albertella) are lacking in the whole Precordillera

Trilobite-based biostratigraphic model (biofacies and biozonation) for the Middle Cambrian carbonate platform of the Argentine Precordillera

A preliminary biostratigraphic model that combines trilobite biofacies and biozonation is proposed for the early Marjumian (Middle Cambrian) of the Precordillera of western Argentina. This interval involves a variety of paleogeographic�paleoenvironmental settings across the carbonate platform, ranging from its interior to exterior areas beyond the platform margin and including both open-marine and near-shore environments. This model is based on three stratigraphic sections of the basal part of the Alojamiento Formation, which crops out in the Cordón del Alojamiento (Provincia de Mendoza) and Cordón de Santa Clara (Provincia de San Juan); and three sections of the Soldano Member of La Laja Formation in the Sierra Chica de Zonda (Provincia de San Juan). Three biofacies were recognized on the basis of trilobite associations that show a marked environmental distribution: 1) The Ptychagnostidae Biofacies is represented by an assemblage exclusively dominated by agnostoids, most of them belonging to Ptychagnostus; this assemblage occurs in mudstones and calcareous shales deposited below storm wave-base seaward of the platform margin; 2) the Peronopsidae Biofacies also developed in the external areas but it occurs in limestones deposited between fair-weather and storm wave-base; this assemblage is likewise dominated by agnostoids, but instead belonging to Peronopsis, with the rest of the fauna comprising polymeroids (Dolichometopidae, Oryctocephalidae, Zacanthoididae and Alokistocaridae); 3) the Alokistocaridae Biofacies occurs in grainstones, mudstones and calcareous shales deposited between fair-weather and storm wave-base under changeable conditions located near the platform margin and in the interior. It is dominated by alokistocarids whose relative abundance increases landward from 52% to 58% and to 95%. The remaining components belong to Dorypygidae, Zacanthoididae and Oryctocephalidae; Eodiscidae and Peronopsidae comprise minor proportions in the most seaward location. Due to the contrasting, environmentally mediated associations, these sections belong to three essentially synchronous biozones erected previously for the Middle Cambrian of western Laurentia, the Ptychagnostus gibbus, Oryctocephalus and Ehmaniella Biozones

Chapter 19 Global Cambrian trilobite palaeobiogeography assessed using parsimony analysis of endemicity

<p>Palaeobiogeographical data on Cambrian trilobites obtained during the twentieth century are combined in this paper to evaluate palaeoceanographic links through <em>c.</em> 30 myr, once these arthropods biomineralized. Worldwide major tectonostratigraphic units are characterized at series intervals of Cambrian time and datasets of trilobite genera (629 for Cambrian Series 2, 965 for Cambrian Series 3, and 866 for the Furongian Series) are analysed using parsimony analysis of endemicity. Special attention is given to the biogeographical observations made in microcontinents and exotic terranes. The same is done for platform-basinal transects of well-known continental margins. The parsimony analysis of endemicity analysis resulted in distinct palaeogeographical area groupings among the tectonostratigraphic units. With these groupings, several palaeobiogeographical units are distinguished, which do not necessarily fit the previously proposed biogeographical realms and provinces. Their development and spatial distributions are broadly controlled by Cambrian palaeoclimates, palaeogeographical conditions (e.g. carbonate productivity and anoxic conditions) and ocean current circulation. </p