Occurrence and distribution of Silurian deposits
Excluding peat and coal, which form from vegetation, the same kinds of strata in the process of forming today were also deposited during Silurian time. Because of the high sea level coupled with the low relief of many continents, production of certain Silurian sediments was proportionately different than that in the present world, however. Chief among these are limestones, which form primarily from the carbonate detritus of coral skeletons, shells, and calcified algae. Unless such detritus is produced in great quantities or rapidly buried, it tends to dissolve in cold (temperate to polar) waters. In warm (tropical to subtropical) shallow waters, carbonates may collect more gradually to form continuous layers of limestone. The geographic locations of Laurentia, Baltica, and in part Siberia within 30° latitude on either side of the Silurian equator ensured the development of extensive platform carbonates. In North America, Silurian limestones or dolomites are found across an enormous territory stretching along one axis from northern Greenland to West Texas and along another axis from Quebec’s Anticosti Island to the Great Basin of Utah and Nevada. Parts of Baltica where carbonate deposition was prevalent include Gotland in Sweden, Estonia, and the Ukrainian region of Podolia; carbonate deposition was also prevalent over much of Siberia. Platform carbonates of this kind rarely exceed 200 to 300 metres (about 650 to 1,000 feet) in thickness. Other important limestone units that were more-restricted in Silurian time and space include the Wenlock Limestone (Shropshire, Eng.), the Ryterraker Formation (southern Norway), the Xiangshuyan Formation and lateral equivalents (South China), and the Hume Limestone (New South Wales, Australia).
Evaporites
Evaporites, including salt (halite), anhydrite, and gypsum, are chemical precipitates that usually accumulate as layers through evaporation of marine waters isolated in shallow bays. This process is most effective under warm, arid climate conditions commonly found at latitudes of about 30° or less. Distributed through parts of Michigan, Ohio, and New York, strata from the Upper Silurian Salina Group laid down during the Ludlow and Pridoli Epochs is one of the world’s most famous evaporite deposits. A maximum aggregate thickness of 600 metres (1,970 feet) occurs in Michigan, where one individual halite bed reaches a thickness of l65 metres (540 feet). A halite bed 2 metres (6.6 feet) thick occurs in the Interlake Formation formed during the Wenlock Epoch in North Dakota. Gypsiferous beds occur in parts of the Upper Silurian Yangadin and Holuhan formations of Siberia, as well as in comparable formations in Latvia and Lithuania. Upper Silurian evaporites from the Pridoli Epoch are characteristic of three different basins in Western Australia. Minor amounts of halite and anhydrite occur in the Dirk Hartog Formation in the Carnarvon Basin; more extensive halite or anhydrite beds or those of both have been discovered in comparable formations from the Canning and Bonaparte Gulf basins.
Clastic rocks
Clastic wedges
Clastic rocks, including conglomerates, sandstones, and shales, generally occur in wedge-shaped deposits adjacent to land areas from which terrigenous materials (items derived from the erosion of land) erode under conditions of moderate to high annual rainfall. With steady accumulation over protracted periods of time, such deposits tend to become very thick and subside under their own weight, forming troughlike structures parallel to their sediment source. In contrast to thin platform deposits, clastic wedges may be thousands of metres—more than 1 km (0.6 mile)—thick. Taconica was a long narrow highland roughly corresponding to the present position of the Appalachian Mountains in North America. During the Llandovery Epoch these highlands shed the Shawangunk Conglomerate (500 metres, or 1,640 feet, thick) near its front in southeastern New York state and distributed the Tuscarora-Clinch sandstones (150 to 250 metres, or about 490 to 820 feet, thick) throughout central Pennsylvania and western Virginia from more than 80 km (about 50 miles) beyond its front. These deposits accrued from sediments carried by braided streams (a series of converging and diverging streams) crossing coastal plains to a wave-swept shore. Arthrophycus trails (those made by annelids tolerant of low salinity) are recorded in the more seaward portions of the Tuscarora Sandstone. Collectively attributed to the Clinton Group, a variety of Upper Llandovery rocks with high iron content subsequently were deposited from New York to Alabama. These strata often contain marine fossils, but their iron was derived from Taconica. Tiny pellets, or oolites (rock composed of small calcium grains), coated with hematite occur in seams up to 2 metres (about 6.6 feet) thick in New York; massive iron-rich sandstones are found in Pennsylvania; and oolitic ironstone beds up to 15 metres (50 feet) thick occur in Alabama (in the Red Mountain Formation).
Evidence of another Laurentian highland, called Pearya, is found in the Canadian Arctic in the vicinity of northern Ellesmere Island. Clastic sediments eroded from this source were deposited in the Hazen Trough. One Lower Silurian (Llandovery) unit called the Danish River Formation is composed of interstratified conglomerates, sandstones, and shales 1 km (about 0.6 mile) thick. The Caledonian highlands dominated depositional patterns on the paleocontinent of Baltica. Much of the highland front followed approximately the present spine of Norway and affected a broader area through generation of river-transported sandstones that gradually spread across Sweden to Poland in one direction and through northern England to southeastern Ireland in the other direction. Known traditionally as the Old Red Sandstone, these rocks date back to the Ludlow Epoch in southern Norway, mixed with those of the Pridoli Epoch and early Devonian times in northern England, and early Devonian age in southeastern Ireland and Poland. This variation in age reflects the growth of the Caledonian highlands and their ability to shed clastic debris farther and farther afield. In Western Australia, similar thick red sandstones belonging to the Upper Silurian Tumblagooda Sandstone were derived from a Precambrian massif called the Yilgarn Block.
In contrast to sandstones that accumulated because of river transport, eolian (wind-driven) sandstones are those deposited under desert conditions. The Mereenie Sandstone in central Australia (Amadeus Basin) is one of the few examples of a possible Silurian desert sandstone.
Platform margins
In addition to clastic wedges closely linked to a land source, Silurian shales also formed on continental platform margins, as in the nearly 500 metres (1,640 feet) of strata belonging to the Road River Group in the Canadian Yukon. Based on sections in the Mackenzie Mountains, a distance of only one to a few kilometres separated the edge of a shallow-water carbonate platform from the deepwater shales of the basin. Submarine avalanches (turbidity flows) brought the 1,200 to 1,500 metres (approximately 3,900 to 4,900 feet) of interbedded shales and fine sandstones constituting the Aberystwyth Grit Formation to a deepwater basinal setting in west-central Wales. Less commonly, Silurian shales passively accumulated in broad platform settings. The Longmaqi Formation of the Yangtze platform in South China is one such shale body, which indicates the base of the Silurian System throughout parts of Yunnan, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Hubei, Hunan, and Guizhou provinces. As much as 500 metres (1,640 feet) thick in places, these shales developed in quiet waters with low dissolved oxygen content. Similar conditions prevailed during early Silurian times well within Baltica, including southern Sweden and Denmark. The importance of the Qalibah Formation as a widespread anoxic black shale (that is, an organic-rich shale formed under low oxygen conditions) in Saudi Arabia is tied to petroleum production.
Tillites
Silurian sandstones and shales rest directly on Upper Ordovician tillites—masses of sedimentary rock made up of unweathered material and glacial till—in Saudi Arabia (Tabuk Formation) and throughout large parts of North Africa. In South America, which was fused with Africa during the Silurian Period, glaciation persisted well into the Wenlock Epoch. The Cancaniri Formation, including a prominent segment 60 metres (about 200 feet) thick that bears the Zapla Tillite, extends 1,500 km (about 930 miles) from northern Argentina over the Andes Mountains across Bolivia to Peru. Alpine glaciers advanced from high elevations down to tidewater areas to deposit these layers, including faceted and glacially striated boulders 1.5 metres (about 5 feet) in diameter. Similarly, the widespread Lower Silurian Nhamunda Formation in the Amazon region of Brazil includes diamictite (a non-sorted conglomerate made up clastic material) beds consisting of highly diverse clastics related to tillites.
Volcanic rocks
Examples of rocks used to make absolute age determinations for the Silurian Period include a volcanic breccia dating back to the Llandovery Epoch from the Descon Formation on Esquibel Island in Alaska, ash beds (bentonites) from the Buildwas Formation at the base of the Wenlock Series and the Ludlow Elton Formation in Shropshire, Eng., and the Laidlaw Volcanics of the Ludlow Series near Canberra, Australia. Compared with other time periods, the Silurian Period was relatively quiet in terms of volcanic activity. Moderate activity in those parts of the British Isles, the Canadian Maritimes, and coastal New England is collectively attributed to the appending of Avalonia to Baltica. Approximately 1,000 metres (about 3,300 feet) of basalt flows belonging to the Skomer Volcanics in southwestern Wales are dated to the Llandovery Epoch. Rhyolite and andesite lavas were extruded in the area of the English Mendip Hills during Wenlock time. Basalts, rhyolites, and porphyritic andesites from the Newbery Volcanics in northeastern Massachusetts were formed during the Pridoli Epoch. Rhyolitic and andesitic flows of Silurian age also are known in the region of Passamaquoddy Bay in Maine, as are volcanic flows and breccias in adjacent New Brunswick. A Silurian chain of volcanic islands stood off the Laurentian craton, stretching from the Klamath Mountains of northern California to Alaska. Likewise, andesitic and basaltic sites of volcanism stretched along the edge of Baltica, as framed by the Ural Mountains.
The most extensive Silurian volcanism occurred in eastern Australia, principally in New South Wales but also in Victoria and Queensland. Activity was initiated during early Wenlock time with the Paddys River and Uriarra volcanic events. This was expanded during the Ludlow Epoch with the Laidlaw, Mineral Hill, Bennetts Creek, Mullions Range, and Bells Creek volcanics and concluded during Pridoli time with the Bombay Creek and Woodlawn volcanics and the Currawan Basalt event. Most of this volcanic activity took place in terrestrial environments. In New South Wales more than 200 intrusive granitic bodies of the late Silurian or early Devonian are geochemically linked to these silica-rich volcanics, but their precise age is difficult to establish.
