Stratigraphy and Depositional Environment of Upper Cambrian Red Lion Formation, Southwestern Montana

Linda L. Hayden, John H. Bush

The Red Lion Formation was examined along a northwest-southeast transect from Missoula to Bozeman, Montana. Lateral equivalents are the Snowy Range Formation east of Bozeman and the upper "Fishtrap Dolomite" in northwest Montana. The basal Dry Creek Member (0-5 m) consists of shale interbedded with quartz siltstones and sandstones. The overlying Sage Member, up to 115 meters in thickness, is characterized by ribbon carbonate beds containing lime mudstone and quartzose calcisiltite couplets arranged in fining-upward sequences 1-5 cm thick. Couplets are interlayered in places with thin (1-5 cm) to medium bedded (6-70) units of laminated and non-laminated calcareous siltstones, flat-pebble conglomerates, trilobite packstones, cryptalgal boundstones, bioturbated lime mudstone and shales. In places, the upper Sage contains columnar and domal algal features. The Red Lion Formation is considered to be one Grand Cycle with the Dry Creek representing a lower inner detrital half-cycle and the Sage an upper carbonate half-cycle. The Dry Creek formed as the result of a westward clastic pulse from the inner detrital belt across an intrashelf basin onto outer middle carbonate peritidal complexes of the underlying Pilgrim Formation. Lower Sage ribbon rocks were deposited in storm-crossed, below wave-base areas. During deposition of the upper Sage, shallowing formed discontinuous algal-peritidal complexes over much of western and central Montana. These complexes were less extensive than earlier Cambrian buildups owing to slower rates of basin subsidence and clastic inpu suppressing carbonate production.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91040©1987 AAPG Rocky Mountain Section Meeting, Boise, Idaho, September 13-16, 1987.