Boat Harbour formation

Unit Name: Boat Harbour formation
Unit Type: Lithostratigraphic
Rank: Formation
Status: Informal
Usage: Currently in use
Age Interval: Early Ordovician (485.4 - 470 ma)
Age Justification: Biostratigraphy (Ji and Barnes, 1994).
Province/Territory: Newfoundland & Labrador

Originator: Knight, 1980b.

Distribution:

The Port au Port Peninsula of western Newfoundland, Canada. The Boat Harbour Formation is exposed completely along the west coast of Isthmus Bay, and partially along the shorelines of Fiods Cove, Ship Cove, Piegon Head and Lower Cove (Ji and Barnes, 1994).

Locality Data:

Thickness(m): Typical 180.

Lithology:

The Boat Harbour Formation includes a series of complete or partial shallowing upward sequences, with flaser and lenticular bedded, thinly stratified and laminated, commonly shaly and mud-cracked, limestones and dolostones and minor dolomitic lime mudstones. The formation is conspicuously fossiliferous (Ji and Barnes, 1994). Within the upper part of the formation, about 50 m from the top, a "Pebble Bed" marks a disconformable break in sedimentation (Fortey, 1984; Knight, 1978, Boyce, 1979). Its base is defined by the first appearance of distinctively interbedded dark grey limestone and buff to light grey dolostone (Knight and James, 1987).

Fossils:

Lower Ordovician conodonts (Ji and Barnes, 1994).

Relationship:

The Boat Harbour Formation is part of the St. George Group. It conformably overlies the Watts Bight Formation and conformably underlies the Catoche Formation (Ji and Barnes, 1994).

References:

Boyce, W.D., 1979. Further developments in western Newfoundland Cambrian-Ordovician biostratigraphy, pp. 7-10: in R.V. Gibbons (ed.), Report of Activities for 1978; Newfoundland Department of Mines and Energy, Mineral Development Division, Report 79-1, 205 p.

Fortey, R.A., 1984. Global Early Ordovician transgressions and regressions and their biological implications. In Bruton, D.L. (ed.). Aspects of the Ordovician System. Paleontological Contributions from University of Oslo, 295, pp. 37-50.

Ji, Z. and Barnes C.R., 1994. Lower Ordovician conodonts of the St. George Group, Port au Port Peninsula, western Newfoundland, Canada, Palaceontographica Canadiana No. 11, 149 p.

Knight, I. and James, N.P., 1987. The stratigraphy of the Lower Ordovician St. George Group, western Newfoundland; the interaction between eustasy and tectonics. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences = Revue Canadienne des Sciences de la Terre, October 1987, Vol. 24, Issue 10, pp. 1927-1951

Knight, I., 1978. Platformal sediments on the Great Northern Peninsula stratigraphic studies and geological mapping of the north St. Barbe district, pp. 140-150: in R.V. Gibbons (ed.) Report of Activities for 1977; Newfoundland Department of Mines and Energy, Mineral Development Division, Report 78-1, 184 p.

Knight, I., 1980b. Cambro-Ordovician carbonate stratigraphy of western Newfoundland; sedimentaiton, diagenesis and zinc-lead mineralization: Newfoundland Department of Mines and Energy, Mineral Development Division, Paper given at 82nd CIMM Meeting, Open File 1154, 43 p.

Source: CSPG Lexicon of Canadian Stratigraphy, Volume 6, Atlantic Canada; G.L. Williams, L.R. Fyffe, R.J. Wardle, S.P. Colman-Sadd, Boehner, R.C. (editor)
Contributor: Michael Pashulka
Entry Reviewed: No
Name Set: Lithostratigraphic Lexicon
LastChange: 15 Feb 2011