Devonian-Mississippian Carbonate Sequence in the Maiyumerak Mountains, Western Brooks Range, Alaska: ABSTRACT

Abstract

Essentially continuous, dominantly carbonate sedimentation occurred from at least the Early Devonian through the Mississippian in the area that is now the Maiyumerak Mountains, western Brooks Range. This succession is in striking contrast to Paleozoic sequences in the eastern Brooks Range and in the subsurface across northern Alaska, where uppermost Devonian-Mississippian clastic and Carboniferous carbonates unconformably overlie Proterozoic or lower Paleozoic metasedimentary or sedimentary rocks. Conodonts obtained throughout the Maiyumerak Mountains sequence indicate that any hiatus is less than a stage in duration, and there is no apparent physical evidence of unconformity within the succession. The sequence is best exposed northwest of the Eli River, where Emsian-Eifelian dolostones (Baird Group) are conformably overlain by Kinderhookian-Osagian sandy limestones (Utukok Formation) and Osagian-Chesterian fossiliferous limestones (Kogruk Formation) of the Lisburne Group. Conodont species assemblages and sedimentary structures indicate deposition in a range of shallow-water shelf environments. The sequence extends at least 30 km, from the Noatak Quadrangle northeast into the Baird Mountains Quadrangle; its easternmost extent has not been definitively determined. The Ellesmerian orogeny, thought to have produced the extensive middle Paleozoic unconformity seen through much of northern Alaska apparently had little effect on this western Brooks Range sedimentary succession.