Stromatolite Beds from Lower Triassic Virgin Formation, Spring Mountains, Nevada

Jennifer K. Schubert, David J. Bottjer

Extensive beds of marine stromatolites are a typical feature of the Precambrian and lower Paleozoic stratigraphic record. Because stromatolites of younger age are generally thought to have been deposited in refugia of nonmarine salinity, two beds of large marine stromatolites found in the lower Triassic (Scythian) Virgin Formation (Spring Mountains, Nevada) are unusual in their occurrence.

Stromatolite mounds averaging about 1 m in height merge laterally to form the largest and stratigraphically lowest of the two stromatolite beds (about 1 m thick), and mounds in a higher bed (averaging about 75 cm thick) may be separated by several meters and are 50 cm to 1 m high. Spaces between mounds are filled with accumulations of the overlying sediment, and, in the lower stromatolite bed, thin beds of crinoidal debris. Mounds in both beds consist of broad stromatolite domes, which range from 5 to 25 cm high and 10 to 55 cm wide, and drape slightly over one another, exhibiting a hummocky upper surface in outcrop. Where weathered in cross section, the domes appear to consist of roughly hemispherical laminae defined by alternating lighter and darker gray layers, or may consist of se eral smaller columns, which appear to have grown together.

The occurrence of these two large stromatolite beds in marine post-Paleozoic rocks may be related to the unique conditions following the Permian-Triassic mass extinction event. Lower diversity and abundance of those grazing organisms thought to have caused the Phanerozoic retreat of stromatolites to refugia may have permitted the growth of these relatively large stromatolites in the Early Triassic.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91024©1989 AAPG Pacific Section, May 10-12, 1989, Palm Springs, California.