Core samples of the Madison Group (Mississippian) from four wells in the Williston Basin, Montana, have yielded microfauna and microflora that are less abundant and diversified than those from outcrops of the Madison to the west because of less favorable environmental conditions in the Williston Basin area during Madison time.Mamet Zones 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 (or possibly 12) are represented.Microfossil distribution supports the interpretation that the upper part of the Madison in the Williston Basin is no younger than early Meramecian (early Visean) and that the Madison is bounded above by the same regional disconformity that has been widely observed in surface sections.
Anomalous stratigraphic positions of 2 Mississippian corals described in U.S. Geological Survey, Bull. 1071-F (GeoScience Abstracts 3-1484) prompted a reexamination of the material. Specimens designated Caninia aff. C. arcuata are now designated Diphyphyllum sp., and those designated Cleistopora placenta are now designated Michelinia sp.
The Lower Ordovician series of the Great Valley area of western Maryland is made up of about 3600 feet of carbonate strata, divisible into three formations comprising the Beekmantown group. The Stonehenge limestone lies at the base of the group and is correlated with the Gasconade dolomite of the Ozark region and its equivalents. The Stonehenge is succeeded by a thick sequence of limestones and dolomites named Rockdale Run formation, which contains strata of Roubidoux through Smithville age. The uppermost formation is the Pinesburg Station dolomite of questionable Early Ordovician age. Deposition appears to have been essentially continuous from Late...
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Lower Carboniferous strata of Wyoming (Mississippian to early middle Pennsylvanian) represent 2 marine depositional sequences separated by a period of epeirogenic uplift and erosion. The Mississippian part of the succession is a wedge that thickens northwestward from a zero edge in S.E. Wyoming; this wedge is disconformably overlain by predominantly thin-bedded terrigenous strata of the upper part of the succession. In W. Wyoming, the lower depositional sequence is represented by the Madison group, which includes the Mission Canyon and Lodgepole limestones. Throughout most of central Wyoming, the lower depositional sequence is represented by the Madison limestone, which includes 6 members, ranging from Kinderhookian to early Meramecian. In the Hartville uplift area of E. Wyoming, the lower depositional sequence is represented by the Guernsey formation, which consists of limestone and dolomitic limestone unconformably lying on Precambrian, Cambrian, and Ordovician rocks. Strata equivalent to the Madison limestone in the Black Hills include the Lower Mississippian Englewood formation (red and purple dolomite, limestone, and shale) and the Kinderhookian-to-Osagean Pahasapa limestone. 110 references.