Growth history of Lower Mississippian Waulsortian mounds: Distribution, stratal patterns, and geometries, New Mexico

Abstract

The factors controlling the localization and growth of Lower Mississippian Waulsortian mounds have been difficult to establish because of limited exposure of individual mounds and mound-bearing platforms in western Europe, where the Waulsortian facies have been studied most intensively. Mounds on the Lower Mississippian homoclinal ramp of the Lake Valley Formation in the Sacramento Mountains, however, are exposed exceptionally well at platform, outcrop, and mound scales in an area roughly 5 km by 20 km, and provide the opportunity to better understand these aspects of Waulsortian mounds.