A Reevaluation of Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation, Western Interior

Christos Mantzios

Comparison of the Brushy Basin member of the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation in the Colorado Plateau with the Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous Morrison-Cloverly sequence in the Bighorn basin, Wyoming, shows great similarities in their depositional environments and stratigraphy. The lower Brushy Basin member is a fluvial deposit composed of channel sandstones and overbank mudstones which display a great number of pedogenic features. Similar depositional setting has been observed in the Morrison Formation in the Bighorn basin, Wyoming, where pedogenic features suggest a distal floodplain setting with low-sinuosity channels cutting through. In both localities the dominant clay mineral is illite.

The upper Brushy Basin member in the Colorado Plateau is composed mostly of gray and purple mudstones rich in montmorillonite. Devitrified tuff beds and bentonite occur in certain levels throughout the unit. Pedogenic features are not conspicuously developed. The Lower Cretaceous Cloverly Formation in the Bighorn basin, Wyoming, is strikingly similar in terms of lithological aspects. The depositional environment is interpreted in both localities as a playa deposit. A great variety of nodules is present such as silcretes, septaria, and silica-carbonate nodules. Radiometric dating of bentonites in central Utah revealed that the upper Brushy Basin member is Early Cretaceous in age.

Field and geochemical data support these conclusions and aid the understanding of the exact nature of the depositional basin, environments, stratigraphy, and paleotectonics of the Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous interval in the Western Interior.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91022©1989 AAPG Annual Convention, April 23-26, 1989, San Antonio, Texas.