The Cambro-Ordovician sequence in the southeastern part of the Conception Bay area, eastern Newfoundland

• Main Author: Nautiyal, Avinash Chandra
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Memorial University of Newfoundland 1966
• Subjects: Tilting; Bell Island; Manuels River; Newfoundland
• Online Access: https://research.library.mun.ca/6971/; https://research.library.mun.ca/6971/1/Nautiyal_AvinashChandra.pdf; https://research.library.mun.ca/6971/3/Nautiyal_AvinashChandra.pdf

The Cambrian - Lower Ordovician rocks studied in this research program occur on Bell Island, Kellys Island, Little Bell Island and in the lower Manuels River valley in the southeastern part of the Conception Bay area, Eastern Newfoundland. They include the Wabana hematitic oolite deposits. The Cambro-Ordovician sequence of the abovementioned areas is composed of relatively unmetamorphosed fossiliferous shale and sandstone, with intercalated and interbedded beds of hematitic oolite. The ore and its host rocks are considered to be primary, shallow-water, marine sediments; with the ore owing its existence to both physical and chemical processes. -- Microfossils discovered in this research program have affinities with previously described European forms and are the first finds made in Newfoundland. Professor Van Ingen in 1914 suggested in an abstract entitled ‘Cambrian and Ordovician faunas of southeastern Newfoundland’ that all the Cambrian and Ordovician faunas which occur in the Avalon Peninsula are related to the Welsh - French facies rather than to the interior North American - Northern Scottish facies, and the present study provides additional evidence in favour of his proposal. -- In the stratigraphic division of the Lower Ordovician rocks of Bell Island, the writer has found it necessary to lower the status of the Wabana Group to formational level. In addition, three new formational names are proposed: Polls Head Formation, Townsquare Formation, and Airfield Formation, for stratal units of Bell Island Group. Finally, it is proposed that the Wabana Formation is conveniently divisible into Lower, Middle and Upper (Grebes Nest) Members. -- Structurally, the mapped areas are uncomplex. Tilting, accompanied by minor faulting and local slumping, has effected the Cambro-Ordovician rocks. Broad folding of the strata in post-Ordovician time resulted in the development of a regional synclinal structure in southern Conception Bay.