Complex caddisfly-dominated bioherms from the Eocene Green River Formation

Abstract

Complex, caddisfly-dominated (Insecta: Trichoptera) carbonate mounds up to 9 m tall and 40 m in diameter formed in the nearshore environment of Eocene Lake Gosiute. The mounds outcrop for 70 km in reef-like geometries along the northern margin of Lake Gosiute in Wyoming. The relationships among the caddisfly larvae, the benthic microbial mat and physicochemical nearshore processes of Eocene Lake Gosiute resulted in unique external and internal carbonate mound morphology. Externally, the large carbonate mounds are formed by the lateral and vertical coalescence of several layers of smaller columns. The smaller columns are generally 1–2 m tall and are 0.5–1 m in diameter. Each layer or generation of smaller columns tends to have a unique external morphology. This suggests that variable paleoenvironmental conditions produced subtle differences in tufa and stromatolite morphology. Internally, each of the smaller columns is composed of a core of caddisfly larval cases surrounded by layers of tufa and stromatolites. The smaller column cores are characterized by centimeter thick microbial-caddisfly couplets in which layers or packets of calcified caddisfly larval cases are covered by microbial mat-mediated, microlaminated carbonate. The microbial-caddisfly couplets suggest that both metazoans and microbes were responsible for column height and shape. In this paper, we propose a mechanism for the growth of these caddisfly-dominated mounds. The base of the Laney Member of the Green River Formation records a freshwater lacustrine transgression over the surrounding floodplains and mudflats of the Cathedral Bluffs Tongue of the Wasatch Formation. In nearshore areas of the lake's northern margin, carbonate hardgrounds developed in some areas of the softer, carbonate-rich, bottom muds. These hardgrounds provided nucleation sites for the carbonate mounds and columns by providing a stable substrate for the benthic microbial mat and for caddisfly larval case attachment during pupation. The larval cases became calcified, and became a new stable substrate for the benthic microbial mat during, or shortly after, pupation. The microbial-caddisfly couplets may record a yearly cycle in which caddisfly pupation and aggregation behavior regularly interrupted the microbial mat-mediated carbonate buildups in these unique carbonate mounds.