Type Locality:

Settlement of Goldenville, Guysborough County, Nova Scotia (NTS 11 E/1). Woodman (1904a) identified two sections as most suitable for measurement: the first starts 1.6 km west of the now abandoned Moose River gold mines (NTS 11 D/15), Halifax County, and runs north to the base of the Halifax Formation (total thickness 5100 m); the second begins 8 km west of the Fifteen Mile Stream (NTS 11 E/1, 2) gold district, Halifax County, and also runs north to the base of the Halifax Formation (total thickness 5,385 m). The second thicker section should perhaps be regarded as the type section.

Distribution:

The maximum measured thickness is about 5,400 m, with the base not exposed. The formation occupies a large area of southern mainland Nova Scotia and is folded, together with the overlying Halifax Formation, into numerous, generally upright folds, trending northeast to east.

Locality Data:

Thickness(m): Maximum 5400.

Lithology:

Massive grey to greenish-grey quartzose sandstones, generally poorly sorted, with chlorite-rich matrix, interbedded with generally subordinate grey to black slate. The rocks have been regionally metamorphosed to greenschist and, locally, amphibolite facies. Gold-bearing quartz veins occur at many localities. The sandstones are believed to have been deposited by turbidity currents and related processes.

Relationship:

The Goldenville Formation is overlain conformably by slates of the Lower Ordovician and ?younger Halifax Formation, although Harris and Schenk (1975) suggested the two formations are in part contemporaneous. It is intruded by Upper Paleozoic granitic plutons. Where the Halifax Formation is absent, the Goldenville is unconformably overlain by the Lower Carboniferous Horton and Windsor groups and by the Upper Triassic Wolfville Formation of the Fundy Group. The Meguma Group includes the Goldenville and overlying Halifax formations.

History:

Rocks now included in the Goldenville Formation were first mapped by Jackson and Alger (1828, 1829a, 1829b) as the Quartz Rock and, possibly, in part as the Transition Clay-Slate Formation. Campbell (1863) first recognized the formation as a single stratigraphic unit repeated by folding, and named it the Quartzite Group. Faribault (1887) adopted Campbell's subdivisions, naming the formation the Lower or Quartzite Group, whereas Bailey (1898a) described equivalent rocks of southwest Nova Scotia as the Quartzite Division. Ami (1900d) proposed the name Guysborough Formation, but this was not generally adopted and was dismissed as inappropriate by Woodman (1904a), who named and defined the Goldenville Formation. Faribault (1903) had previously used the term the Goldenville quartzite formation in a figure caption (not recognized as a definition under the North American Stratigraphic Code, 1983). Some authors (e.g., Douglas et al., 1938) refined to the unit as the Goldenville Series. Woodman (1904a) named the Meguma Series after the Micmac word, a root of the native term for their own tribe. Stevenson (1956, 1959) redefined it as the Meguma Group, including in it the Goldenville and overlying Halifax formations.

Remark:

Superseded by Goldenville Group.

References:

Ami, H.M., 1900d. pp. 179A-180A: in G.M. Dawson, Summary Report on the Operations of the Geological Survey for the Year 1900; Geological Survey of Canada, Annual Report for 1900, 203A p.

Crosby, D.G., 1962. Wolfville map-area, Nova Scotia (21 H/1); Geological Survey of Canada, Memoir 325, 67 p.

Douglas, G.V., Milner, R.L., and MacLean, J., 1938. The deposition of the Halifax Series: Nova Scotia Department of Mines and Energy, Annual Report 1937, Part 2, pp. 34-45.

Faribault, E.R., 1903. Deep gold mining; The Nova Scotian, Special Mining Number, pp. 22-28.

Harris, I.M. and Schenk, P.E., 1975. The Meguma Group: Maritime Sediments, vol. 11, pp. 25-46.

Pickerill, R.K. and Keppie, J.D., 1981. Observations on the ichnology of the Meguma Group of Nova Scotia: Maritime Sediments and Atlantic Geology, vol. 17, pp. 130-138.

Poole, W.H., 1971. Graptolites, copper and potassium-argon in Goldenville Formation, Nova Scotia, pp. 9-11: in R.G. Blackadar (ed.), Report of Activities, Part A; Geological Survey of Canada, Paper 71-1A, 259 p.

Schenk, P.E., 1970. Regional variation of the flysch-like Meguma Group (Lower Paleozoic) of Nova Scotia, compared to Recent sedimentation off the Silurian Shelf; pp. 127-153: in J. Lajoie (ed.), Flysch Sedimentology in North America; Geological Association of Canada, Special Paper 7, 272 p.

Smitheringale, W.G., 1960. Geology of Nictaux-Torbrook map-area, Annapolis and Kings counties, Nova Scotia; Geological Survey of Canada, Paper 60-13, 32 p.

Stevenson, I.M., 1956. Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia; Geological Survey of Canada, Paper 55-27, map with marginal notes.

Stevenson, I.M., 1959. Shubenacadie and Kennetcook map-areas, Colchester, Hants and Halifax counties, Nova Scotia: Geological Survey of Canada, Memoir 302, 88 p.

Woodman, J.E., 1904a. Nomenclature of the gold-bearing metamorphic series of Nova Scotia; American Geologist, vol. 33, pp. 364-370.