Abstract: A Global Cyclostratigraphic Analysis of the Evolution of the Culpeper, Newark, and Fundy Rift Basins

Martin D. Matthews, Martin A. Perlmutter

Global cyclostratigraphic concepts can be used in two modes: (1) hindcasting the general pattern of stratigraphy in a basin where little or no control exists, or (2) as an aid to understanding the interplay of processes responsible for the evolution of specific stratigraphic patterns within a well known basin.

The Culpeper, Newark, and Fundy basins formed during the opening of the Atlantic as part of North America's East Coast rift system. The similarity of tectonic style and time of development facilitate the recognition of the importance of climate, and climatic change, to the stratigraphic development of these basins.

At the time of formation, these basins were in a monsoonal climate that ranged from relatively wet in the southwest (deep lakes, Waterfall Formation, Culpeper basin) to arid in the northeast (aeolian dunes, Wolfville Formation, Fundy basin). Superimposed on this general trend is a long term stratigraphic change in each basin due to continental drift, the opening of the Atlantic Ocean, and the tectonic evolution of each basin. Within the Fundy basin, this change is illustrated by the shift from aeolian dunes (Wolfville Formation) to the lakes of the McCoy Brook Formation. The spatial pattern of facies, their evolution, and finer scale features, such as the interbedding of deep lakes and caliche lakes in the Fundy basin's McCoy Brook Formation, and the well known chemical/clastic cycles in the Newark basin's Lockatong Formation, are explained using global cyclostratigraphic concepts.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90986©1994 AAPG Annual Convention, Denver, Colorado, June 12-15, 1994