LOWER ORDOVICIAN FAUNAS, STRATIGRAPHY, AND SEA-LEVEL HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE BEEKMANTOWN GROUP, NORTHEASTERN NEW YORK

Abstract

Abstract The Lower Ordovician middle Beekmantown Group is a very thin carbonate platform succession on the northern New York Promontory that thickens north into the Ottawa aulacogen near Montreal. The Tribes Hill Formation (Rossodus manitouensis Zone) records the earliest Ordovician (late Skullrockian, late early Tremadocian) eustatic high that submerged Laurentia, and produced the lowest Ordovician sequence along the New York Promontory. These dolostones are succeeded in the Beekmantown, New York, area by late Tulean?–Blackhillsian transgressive systems tract quartz arenites of the lower Fort Cassin Formation (Ward Member). The “Fort Ann Formation” (middle Stairsian, upper Tremadocian) of the southern Lake Champlain lowlands (=Theresa Formation sandstones in the Ottawa graben) is absent at Beekmantown, and moderate Stairsian (late Tremadocian) eustatic rise apparently did not inundate the Beekmantown area after Skullrockian–Stairsian boundary interval offlap. Highstand carbonates of the upper Fort Cassin...