Storm-dominated Lower Cambrian depositional environments in the Ravenswood area, Lander County, Nevada

A Lower Cambrian sedimentary sequence 40 meters thick is exposed in the Ravenswood area, Lander County, Nevada. This sequence is divided into 7 lithofacies which are interpreted to represent marine, littoral to sublittoral environments including offshore bars, sheet deposits (proximal, intermediate, distal), patch reefs, and storm-surge ebb channels; The lithology, paleontology, and sedimentary structures reflect deposition in a wave-dominated or storm-dominated system. Paleocurrent indicators suggest that strong westerly (present orientation of continent) winds created landward-directed currents transporting carbonate debris from the shelf to nearshore environments. Subsequently, storm-surge-ebb flows transported nearshore sediments seaward; The lithofacies presented herein indicate that sediments were composed of mixtures of carbonate and siliciclastic material during deposition. The processes responsible for this mixing are punctuated mixing (occurred as a result of storm-transported carbonate sediment into a clastic environment), and facies mixing (occurred with the forming of archaeocyathan bioherms). These bioherms are interpreted to have formed as isolated patch reefs in a sublittoral environment.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (MS)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Geoscience

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Year

1992

Author dc:creator

• Wilson, Readin Isaac

Contributors dc:contributor

• Stephen Rowland

Statement dc:rights

• IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

https://oasis.library.unlv.edu/rtds/194

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:oasis.library.unlv.edu:rtds-1193