Influence of Pre-Mississippian Paleogeology on Carboniferous Lisburne Group, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Northeastern Alaska: ABSTRACT

Abstract

The Carboniferous Lisburne Group of northern Alaska formed an extensive carbonate platform, which was later deformed as part of the Brooks Range fold and thrust belt. In the northeast, the Lisburne Group is parautochthonous and analogous to that at Prudhoe Bay. The Lisburne's paleogeography and facies relationships pertain to assessment of the petroleum potential of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The Franklinian paleogeology, unconformably underlying the Ellesmerial sequence, has influenced sedimentation patterns in the Lisburne Group. The transgressive Endicott Group (Kekiktuk conglomerate and Kayak Shale) and Lisburne Group thin northward over Franklinian basement highs. In the Sadlerochit Mountains, the Katakturuk Dolomite formed a paleotopographic high over which the Endicott Group pinched out and the Lisburne Group thinned. Shallow-marine oolitic grainstone developed in the cyclic Pennsylvanian Wahoo Limestone. To the south in the Shublik Mountains, a repeated sequence of Katakturuk Dolomite and the Nanook Limestone were lower, so the Endicott Group lapped over the area and was later overlain by comparable Lisburne Group rocks. In the Fourth Range, the Lisburne Group is thicker and limestones also occur in the upper Endicott Group. Oolitic grainstone in the Wahoo Limestone is rare, and broad ooid shoals apparently pinched out into deeper watermore » carbonates on a southward sloping carbonate ramp.« less