<p>Organic-walled microfossils are abundant and taxonomically diverse in Cambrian-Ordovician strata; some are important for biostratigraphy and for the correlation of geological successions. New assemblages of Cambrian-Ordovician acritarchs from Kolguev Island, Arctic Russia and Middle Cambrian ichnofossils of endoliths from Peary Land, North Greenland are studied. Twenty-seven acritarch species are described in detail and 10 taxa are left under open nomenclature. The diagnosis of one genus is restricted, and two other are emended. New combinations are proposed for three species and one new species is recognised. The studied acritarch assemblages are taxonomically rich and age-diagnostic and used to recognise Upper Cambrian and Tremadoc strata on Kolguev Island. The sedimentologically continuous successions provide for the first time palaeontological evidence of Cambrian strata in the north-eastern sector of Europe. The exact level of the Cambrian-Ordovician boundary was distinguished together with stratigraphic intervals equivalent to the <i>Peltura</i> and <i>Acerocare</i> zones of the Upper Cambrian of Baltica. The newly established relative age of the lowermost sedimentary succession overlying the Timanian unconformity allows verification of the minimum age of the Timanian deformation and the time-span of the hiatus bound to this unconformity. Endoliths occur in the fossil record from the Early Archean and they played an important role in the formation of stromatolites and the process of bioerosion and biodegradation. Endoliths that have actively bored into brachiopod shells or carbonate grains (euendoliths), and some that inhabited the cavities inside brachiopod shells (cryptoendoliths) are described. Borings within the carbonate grains extended with a dentritic pattern, whereas those within the brachiopod shells were formed by a multifilamentous euendolith which produced characteristic longitudinally ridged galleries. The cryptoendolithic morphologies include indeterminate coccoid masses and at least two filamentous forms. However, considerable variation in the dimensions of the currently phosphatised diagenetic crusts of the cryptoendoliths hinders discrimination.</p>

Organic-walled microfossils are abundant and taxonomically diverse in Cambrian-Ordovician strata; some are important for biostratigraphy and for the correlation of geological successions. New assemblages of Cambrian-Ordovician acritarchs from Kolguev Island, Arctic Russia and Middle Cambrian ichnofossils of endoliths from Peary Land, North Greenland are studied. Twenty-seven acritarch species are described in detail and 10 taxa are left under open nomenclature. The diagnosis of one genus is restricted, and two other are emended. New combinations are proposed for three species and one new species is recognised. The studied acritarch assemblages are taxonomically rich and age-diagnostic and used to recognise Upper Cambrian and Tremadoc strata on Kolguev Island. The sedimentologically continuous successions provide for the first time palaeontological evidence of Cambrian strata in the north-eastern sector of Europe. The exact level of the Cambrian-Ordovician boundary was distinguished together with stratigraphic intervals equivalent to the Peltura and Acerocare zones of the Upper Cambrian of Baltica. The newly established relative age of the lowermost sedimentary succession overlying the Timanian unconformity allows verification of the minimum age of the Timanian deformation and the time-span of the hiatus bound to this unconformity. Endoliths occur in the fossil record from the Early Archean and they played an important role in the formation of stromatolites and the process of bioerosion and biodegradation. Endoliths that have actively bored into brachiopod shells or carbonate grains (euendoliths), and some that inhabited the cavities inside brachiopod shells (cryptoendoliths) are described. Borings within the carbonate grains extended with a dentritic pattern, whereas those within the brachiopod shells were formed by a multifilamentous euendolith which produced characteristic longitudinally ridged galleries. The cryptoendolithic morphologies include indeterminate coccoid masses and at least two filamentous forms. However, considerable variation in the dimensions of the currently phosphatised diagenetic crusts of the cryptoendoliths hinders discrimination.

In the Middle to Late Ordovician a boost of marine biodiversity occurred which is regarded as the most rapid diversity in Earth’s history, and termed the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event. This time is also unique in that at least four marine meteorite craters with a good record of post-impact sediments are preserved in Baltoscandia. Catastrophic impacts can serve as constructive events and produce wide-ranging environments providing new ecological niches for a diverse biota to occupy. Additionally, they generate distinctive patterns of biological destruction and recovery. This, and the study of distribution and ecospace utilisation of Late Ordovician faunas, has been analysed in two almost contemporary (around 455 million years ago) meteorite craters (Lockne and Tvären, Sweden). Within the confined space of the impact craters environments varied from shallow and reef-like to over 200 m in depth and from well oxygenated to hypoxic. These types of environments favored colonization of different individual groups. In Tvären rhynchonelliformean brachiopod assemblages from the shallow crater rim include a range of morphotypes, not established elsewhere in the crater. Within the crater depression rhynchonelliformean brachiopods were not established until the upper third of the remaining crater fill. Colonization of post-impact faunas varies dependent on topography, depth and susbstrate within the impact craters. This is recognised for scolecodonts in Tvären and for gastropod-like mollusks, linguliform and craniiform brachiopods in both of the craters, as they inhabit a wide range of ecospace. A succession of different taxa is observed from the deepest part of each crater and upwards towards inferably more shallow, higher energy, water settings. The development of new community types and narrowly-defined niches in the craters helped further drive both α and β biodiversity during a critical phase of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event.

Middle Ordovician (Whiterockian) sandstone units within the Oil Creek, McLish, and Tulip Creek formations of the Simpson Group of Oklahoma, and the Everton (Calico Rock Member) and St. Peter formations of Arkansas were deposited on the southern margin of Laurentia. They represent the first major siliciclastic input to the southern U.S. Midcontinent above the post-Sauk unconformity. Samples were collected from outcrops of the major sandstone units to determine their U-Pb detrital zircon age distributions for provenance. Samples were prepared and analyzed using laser ablation - inductively coupled plasma - mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). Probability-density plots were created to determine likely source areas for sediment, based on comparing detrital zircon ages to known ages of basement terranes. Detrital zircon grains from the Early Whiterockian Calico Rock sandstone indicate a majority of its zircon population was ultimately derived from the 900-1300 Ma Grenville orogenic province, with secondary input ultimately derived from the 1300-1550 Ma Granite-Rhyolite/Anorogenic Province and the Archean Superior province along the Transcontinental Arch. It is likely, at this time, that zircons were also sourced from reworked sediments from more proximal secondary sources. With sea level rise and transgression, the depositional shoreline and the sediment source areas moved to the north and west. The basal Oil Creek Sandstone of the Simpson Group was deposited unconformably above the Arbuckle Group in southern Oklahoma, and its zircon population is dominated by grains from Archean source terranes along the Transcontinental Arch. The basal sandstone unit of the McLish Formation indicates renewed sediment input containing zircons from 1300-1550 Ma Granite-Rhyolite/Anorogenic and 1600-1700 Ma Yavapai-Mazatzal terranes along the Transcontinental Arch. The Nemaha Ridge in northeastern Kansas likely acted as a source of first-cycle sediment in the southern midcontinent during this time. Small populations of detrital zircon grains between 1800 Ma and 2000 Ma occur in the majority of the samples. Their probability density peaks are generally centered at roughly 1850 Ma, suggesting an ultimate source in the Penokean orogenic province along the Transcontinental Arch.

Late Ordovician Red River strata of southeastern Saskatchewan were deposited in a broad epicontinental sea. In the lower part, the Yeoman and Herald formations comprise two cycles of carbonateevaporite sequences. Although these units possess an overall layer-cake aspect, thickness variations especially in the Herald Formation show that accumulation was affected by syndepositional flexure, differential subsidence and displacement of fault-bounded blocks. The mainly laminated dolomudstones and anhydrites of the Lake Alma and Coronach members of the Herald Formation were deposited under relatively tranquil conditions. These units host different kinds of synsedimentary deformation features, interpreted to have been induced by earthquakes generated because of movements along basement faults thought to have been oriented orthogonally NE−SW and NW−SE. The low-energy environmental setting was conducive to preserving these features, referred to as seismites.<p> The variety of seismites in the Herald Formation is related to the varying rheology of the carbonate or evaporite sediment, as well as shaking intensity. Brittle and quasi-brittle failure is represented by faults, microfaults, shear-vein arrays and pseudo-intraclastic breccias, mostly in dolomudstones which must have been stiff at the time of deformation. Plastic behaviour is recorded by soft-sediment deformation, comprising a family of features that includes loop bedding, folded laminae and convolute bedding. Indeed, these structures in enterolithic anhydrite are more reasonably interpreted as due to deformation than crystal growth, volume expansion and displacement, the more usual explanations. Sediment shrinkage and concomitant fluidization are recorded by dikelets containing injected carbonate mud or granular gypsum, the latter now preserved as anhydrite. Evidence for wholesale liquefaction, however, was not observed. These rheological differences were caused by the primary nature of the sediment plus modifications due to early diagenesis and burial confinement. Shaking intensity is difficult to gauge, but it is presumed that a minimum of VI on the modified Mercalli scale was required to produce these features. Consequently, shaking of lesser magnitude was probably not recorded.<p> The geographic distribution of seismites should reflect the location of basement faults presumed to have been active during deposition, and indeed there is a concentration adjacent to the known location of syndepositonal fault lineaments. In addition, the stratigraphic distribution of seismites records higher frequencies of activity of these same faults. These distributions show that earthquake-induced ground motion was common during deposition of the Lake Alma Member in southeastern Saskatchewan but less so during deposition of the Coronach Member.<p> Seismites serve as proxies for the activity of relatively nearby syndepositional faults making up the tectonic fabric of sedimentary basins. They also point to basement features that, if re-activated, can induce fracture porosity or influence subsurface fluid flow. Syndepositional tectonism undoubtedly had a much more profound influence on many successions than is presently accepted, and its effects are more widespread than currently appreciated.

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No description available.

The uppermost Cambrian-Lower Ordovician Kamouraska Formation in the external Humber Zone of the Quebec Appalachians consists of dominant thick massive to graded quartz arenite beds, subordinate pebble conglomerate and intercalated thin shale and siltstone beds. It was deposited by hyperconcentrated to concentrated density flows in a meandering submarine canyon on the continental slope bordering the Iapetus Ocean. Turbidity currents deposited beds with turbidite structure divisions. The sandstones consist of well sorted, well rounded quartz sand with frosted grains. Scanning electron microscopy reveals the presence of textures supporting eolian transport before redeposition in the deep sea. The Kamouraska quartz arenites are considered an ancient equivalent of Pleistocene eolian-sand turbidites on an abyssal plain off West Africa consisting of Sahara sand. Sand provenance is attributed to eolian equivalents of the Cairnside Formation of the Potsdam Group. The quartz arenites of the Kamouraska Formation provide a variant to tectonic sandstone provenance proposed in the scheme of Dickinson and Suczek (1979).

La reconnaissance de systèmes sédimentaires hybrides (houle-marée) dans l'enregistrement sédimentaire n'est pas triviale lorsque l'un des processus (ici la marée) ne laisse pas de traces sédimentaires directes permettant de l'identifier. La succession sédimentaire de l'Ordovicien inférieur (formations des Fezouata et du Zini) de la région de Zagora (Anti-Atlas ; Maroc) enregistre une dominance de la houle. Cependant, de nombreuses structures et géométries de dépôts sédimentaires sont atypiques de l'action de la houle. L'explication proposée dans ce travail est la modulation de l'action de la houle par la marée qui va s'exprimer de différentes façons en fonction de la bathymétrie. Un modèle sédimentaire de dépôt est proposé pour ce système hybride. Les Fezouata ont non seulement un intérêt sédimentologique mais aussi un grand intérêt paléontologique par la présence de gisements à préservation exceptionnelle qui enregistrent les débuts de la Grande Biodiversification Ordovicienne. L'élaboration du modèle sédimentaire de dépôt a permis de contraindre les faciès sédimentaires associés aux fossiles retrouvés, permettant ainsi de définir un contexte paléoenvironnemental de vie de ces communautés primitives. Afin de mieux caractériser les différentes structures sédimentaires ainsi que leurs distributions au sein de la zone intertidale d'un environnement mixte, deux analogues, un méga- et un macro-tidal tout deux dominés par la houle, ont été choisis : Berck-Plage (Pas-de-Calais ; France) et la pointe du Cap-Ferret (Gironde ; France). La zone intertidale de Berck-Plage a permis de montrer que la quasi majorité des structures sédimentaires est formée par un courant oscillatoire et que la géomorphologie côtière (barres-et-bâches), induisant la réfraction des fronts d'ondes (houle) incidentes, joue un rôle majeur dans la distribution et la formation des structures sédimentaires. Des morphologies particulières en mamelons ont été observées à Berck-Plage mais l'homogénéité granulométrique de la zone d'étude n'a pas permis l'observation de leurs structures internes. Des morphologies similaires ont ainsi été étudiées à la pointe du Cap-Ferret. Cette dernière étude met en avant la formation de structures sédimentaires en mamelons comme étant le résultat de flux supercritiques initiés par le reflux de la houle préalablement réfractée par la géomorphologie non linéaire de la côte / Recognition of hybrid sedimentary systems (wave-tide) in the sedimentary record is not trivial when one of the processes (here, the tide) does not leave direct sedimentary traces allowing its identification. The Lower Ordovician sedimentary succession (Fezouata and Zini formations) of the Zagora region (Anti-Atlas, Morocco) records a dominance of wave action. However, many sedimentary structures and depositional geometries are atypical of a wave dominated sedimentary system. The explanation proposed in this work is a modulation of the wave action by tides, which is expressed in different manners depending to the bathymetry. A model of deposition is then proposed for this hybrid sedimentary system. The Fezouata not only have a sedimentological interest but also a great paleontological interest due to the presence of exceptionally well-preserved fossils dating from the initial steps of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event. The development of the model deposition allowed to constrain the sedimentary facies associated with the fossils discovered, thus allowing to provide a paleoenvironmental life context for these primitive communities. In order to better characterize the different sedimentary structures and their distribution through the intertidal zone of hybrid environments, two analogues, one mega- and the other macro-tidal, both dominated by wave action were chosen: Berck-Plage (Pas-de-Calais; France) and the tip of Cap-Ferret (Gironde; France). The analysis of the intertidal zone of Berck-Plage has shown that the majority of the sedimentary structures are formed under oscillatory flows and that the coastal geomorphology (in ridges-and-runnels), inducing refraction of the incident wave fronts, plays a major role in the distribution and formation of the sedimentary structures. Peculiar dome-like morphologies were observed at Berck-Plage but the grain size homogeneity in this area did not allow the observation of their internal structures. Similar morphologies have been studied at the tip of Cap-Ferret. This last study highlights that the formation of dome-like bedforms is the result of supercritical flows initiated by the backwash of waves previously refracted by the non linear coastal geomorphology

Jusqu'à récemment, l'essentiel de l'information sur les premiers ecosystèmes marins complexes provenait de gisements dits à préservation exceptionnelle, d'âge Cambrien, répartis à travers le globe. Leur caractéristique est de préserver des organismes faiblement sclérotisés, reflétant ainsi fidèlement les faunes de l'époque. Cependant, la découverte de tels sites dans l'Ordovicien inférieur du Maroc permet non seulement d'évaluer pour la première fois avec précision la biodiversité marine de cette époque mais aussi, à qualité de préservation égale, de comparer la vie marine cambrienne et ordovicienne. L'établissement d'un cadre biostratigraphique et envrionnemental précis des niveaux fossilifères a montré que la préservation exceptionnelle était restreinte au sein de deux intervalles stratigraphiquesresserrés datant du Trémadocien supérieur et du Floien moyen. Les donnéessédimentologiques ont mis en évidence un environnement de plateforme peu profond. Ces résultats étaient un prérequis à l'ouverture de fouilles systématiques permettant des analyses paléoécologiques qualitatives et quantitatives à haute résolution. Les résultats préliminairesindiquent l'existence probable de conditions environnementales inhospitalières, du moins temporairement, associées aux niveaux à préservation exceptionnelle. Elles ont également distingué des assemblages in situ (biocénoses) et des associations d'éléments transportés (taphocénoses). Parallèlement, de nouvelles données importantes sur la morphologie, l'écologie, et le mode de vie présumé chez certains groupes ont pu être acquises / Until recently, most of the information on the first complexe marine ecosystems came from Cambrian Konservat-Lagerstätten, distributed all over the world. Their particularity is to preserve a wide array of soft-bodied and lightly sklerotized organisms, accurately reflecting past communities. However, the discovery of such Lagerstätten in the Lower Ordovician ofMorocco offers unique insights into the first animal biodiversifications. Indeed, the Fezouata Shale does not only allow for the time to document Lower Ordovician marine communities, but also to draw comparisons between Cambrian and Ordovician marine realms with the same precision. The establishment of a sound biostratigraphic and palaeoenvironmentalframework for the fossiliferous localities demonstrated that exceptional preservation was restricted to two relatively narrow intervals: a 60-meter-thick late Tremadocian lower interval and a 15-meter-thick middle Floian one. Sedimentological data suggest relatively shallow offshore conditions. These results were a prerequistie to the opening of systematic excavation in order to perform high-resolution quantitative and qualitative palaeocological analyses. Preliminary results point to the likely occurrence of -at least temporarily- unhospitable environmental conditions associated with exceptional preservation. They also enabled the recognition of original in situ communities (biocoenoses) and time-averaged associations including transported elements (taphocoenoses). Simultaneously, important new data on the morphology, ecology and presumed mode of life of fossil groups have been collected