Type Locality:

From 500 m north of Ragged Reef, the Joggins section (NTS 21 H/9), south to the highway bridge over the Little Shulie River, north of Shulie, (NTS 21 H/10), Cumberland County, Nova Scotia.

Distribution:

Ryan et al. (1991) estimated the total thickness of the Ragged Reef to be about 1000 m. This is based on the 677 m exposed at the type section, plus the Shulie section and the Spicers Cove area, which together add about 200-300 m. The formation occurs in most of the major synclines of the Cumberland Basin, but thins towards the east. It is absent or very thin in the Tatamagouche Syncline area and about 350 m thick in the Wallace Syncline.

Lithology:

Moderately to well sorted, coarse-grained, grey and red sublitharenite and subarkose, polymictic pebble to cobble conglomerates, with interbedded, red and grey mudstones and siltstones. The sandstones and conglomerates are trough cross-stratified and form multistoried - multilateral sequences up to 30 m thick. Fine-grained, red to grey, planar-stratified sandstones, 0.5 to 2 m thick, occur in the mudstones. Laterally, the Ragged Reef may be dominated by the coarse, sandy facies or the red mudstone facies. Also present are local, thin, bituminous limestones and coal seams. The fine to coarse ratio varies from 0.7 to 2.0.

Relationship:

The Ragged Reed Formation conformably overlies the Springhill Mines Formation, with which it may interfinger in the subsurface, and is conformably overlain by the Malagash Formation. A probably correlative unit is the Tynemouth Creek Formation of southern New Brunswick (Plint and van de Poll, 1982). The Ragged Brook Formation is one of eight formations of the Cumberland Group (Davies et al., 2005). These are, in approximate ascending order: the Claremont, the Boss Point, the Little River, the Joggins, the Springhill Mines, the Polly Brook (which is collectively/laterally equivalent to the Little River, the Joggins and the Springhill Mines), the Ragged Reef, and the Malagash formations

History:

Strata of the Ragged Reef Formation were previously included in Divisions 1 and 2 of Logan (1845), Divisions X and XI of Fletcher (in Poole, 1908b), the Cumberland Upper Coarse Facies of Shaw (1951). Ryan (1985) also included the strata in the Cumberland Upper Coarse Facies.

References:

Davies, S.J., Gibling, M.R., Rygel, M.C., Calder, J.H. and Skilliter, D.M., 2005. The Pennsylvanian Joggins Formation of Nova Scotia: sedimentological log and stratigraphic framework of the historic fossil cliffs; Atlantic Geology, vol. 41, pp. 115-142.

Dolby, G. 1988: Palynological analysis (of) samples from the Cumberland Basin and Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.; Part II. Unpublished report prepared for the Nova Scotia Department of Mines and Energy, 34 p.

Dolby, G., 1987. Palynology analysis of samples from the Cumberland Basin and Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Project 86/10,12; Unpublished report prepared for the Nova Scotia Department of Mines and Energy, Mineral Resources Division, Cumberland Basin Project, 58 pages.

Logan, W.E., 1845. Section of the Nova Scotia Coal Measures, as developed at the Joggins on the Bay of Fundy, in descending order, from the neighbourhood of the West Ragged Reef to Minudie, reduced to vertical thickness; Geological Survey of Canada, Report of Progress for 1843, pp. 92- 159.

Plint, A.G. and van de PolI, H.W., 1982. Alluvian fan and piedmont sedimentation in the Tynemouth Creek Formation (Lower Pennsylvanian) of southern New Brunswick: Maritime Sediments and Atlantic Geology, vol. 18, pp. 104-128.

Poole, H.S., 1908b. A section of Carboniferous rocks in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia: (1) Detailed section of rocks from West Ragged Reef to the Joggins Mines and Minudie, by Sir William E. Logan (republished); and (2) From Shulie to Spicer Cove by Hugh Fletcher, B.A., of the Geological Survey of Canada: Proceedings and Transactions of the Nova Scotian Institute of Science, vol. 11, pp. 417-550.

Ryan, R.J., 1985. Upper Carboniferous strata of the Tatamagouche Syncline, Cumberland Basin, Nova Scotia; In: Geological Survey of Canada, Current Research Part B, Paper 85-1B, pp. 481-490.

Ryan, R.J., Boehner, R.C. and Calder, J.H. 1991. Lithostratigraphic revisions of the upper Carboniferous to lower Permian strata in the Cumberland Basin, Nova Scotia and the regional implications for the Maritimes Basin in Atlantic Canada; Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology, vol. 39, No. 4, pages 289-314.

Shaw, W.S., 1951. The Cumberland basin of deposition; Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 165 p.