Correlation of Triassic strata
- Key People:
- Gideon Algernon Mantell
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Correlation is the technique of piecing together information from widely separated rock outcrops in order to create an accurate chronological profile of an entire geologic time period. In order to accomplish this, geologists attempt to measure the absolute ages of rock strata using techniques such as radioisotope dating, or they attempt to establish relative ages of strata by comparing their mineralogy, fossil content, and other attributes. The Triassic System is dominated by sedimentary rocks, which, unlike igneous rocks, generally do not yield reliable radiometric data, which are used to establish absolute age. Therefore, the relative ages of Triassic sedimentary rocks—derived from the techniques of superposition, lithology, and biochronology—must be used for correlation. Of these three tools, biochronology, the dating of rock strata according to the known succession of fossilized life-forms found within them, has traditionally been regarded as the most accurate and reliable, although more modern methods of sequence stratigraphy are improving the accuracy of interregional correlation.
Alpine strata
While conodonts, palynomorphs (spores and pollen of plants), radiolarians, and tetrapods are now proving to be useful for correlation of marine and nonmarine strata from the Triassic, the most widely used fossils in biochronology are still those of the ammonoids. This is because these pelagic swimming or floating cephalopods fulfill the basic requirements for ideal zone fossils: they were widespread geographically, evolved rapidly, and were not dependent on any type of substrate. Ammonoids thrived in Triassic seas in offshore environments along with pelagic bivalves such as Claraia and Halobia. While ammonoids have been used successfully to erect a series of biozones, each one probably representing no more than one million years, the problem has been to find complete sequences of undisturbed marine strata that represent all stages of Triassic time in any one general region. Because the Germanic facies (the rock series originally proposed in the 19th century as representing the Triassic Period) are mostly of continental, not marine, origin, the marine Triassic of the Alps has traditionally been used as a standard for the period, with the two most important localities being Salzkammergut in the northern Austrian Alps and St. Cassian (now San Cassiano) in the Dolomites to the south. Unfortunately, there are very few ammonoids common to both these sections. Indeed, the Alpine succession in general is not without its drawbacks when an attempt is made to determine sequential faunal relationships. In the red Hallstatt limestone facies in the Alps and throughout the Tethyan region, ammonoids often occur in lenses (that is, deposits bounded by converging surfaces that are thick in the middle and thin toward the edges) in areas of tectonic complexity. Furthermore, faunas are often condensed through possible postdepositional submarine solution, which results in “cemeteries” of ammonoids of different ages in close association. Also, fracturing and solution occurring at nearly the same time during the Triassic apparently caused local mixing and inversion of zones as younger beds collapsed into solutional voids in older strata. Such condensed and mixed assemblages have led to difficulties for paleontologists attempting to use the Alpine zonal scheme as a standard for correlating marine Triassic sequences in other regions. Nevertheless, the importance of the Alpine Triassic should not be underestimated in the history of Triassic studies, because by the end of the 19th century its fossils permitted initial correlations to be made with the Germanic Muschelkalk and with marine sequences in the Arctic, Pacific, Himalayas, and Pakistan.
North American strata
Isolated occurrences of marine Triassic rocks in western North America were known by 1890, but discoveries of several hundred new localities from the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin and the Sverdrup Basin of Arctic Canada between about 1955 and 1980 added much information to the biochronology of the region. It also was recognized that more than half the world’s known genera of ammonoids occurred in North America, testifying to the cosmopolitan nature of the group. Dissatisfaction with the problems of using the Alpine succession as a standard for Triassic time led to the proposal of a new zonal scheme based on relatively complete and in-place sequences in Arctic Canada, northeastern British Columbia, and the western United States. This proposal was primarily the work of the Canadian paleontologist E. Timothy Tozer, who, with the American paleontologist Norman J. Silberling, provided precisely defined stratotypes for all the recognized North American biozones. The North American zonal scheme is now accepted by most authorities as the standard for Triassic global biostratigraphy and allows Alpine (western Tethyan) and Boreal (Siberian) zones to be placed in their proper chronological sequence.
Paleomagnetic techniques
It should be borne in mind that, because of the endemism (restriction in the geographic distribution) of most ammonoid species, it is often difficult to correlate faunal assemblages between widely separated regions. Because ammonoids and conodonts are found together, a conodont biochronology can often be accurately intercalibrated with the ammonoid zonation, as established for North America by Michael J. Orchard. Additional tools for correlation include the development of a Triassic sea-level curve for the Sverdrup Basin of Arctic Canada and a Triassic magnetic polarity timescale derived from paleomagnetic studies of mainly sedimentary sequences. Correlating rocks by means of polarity time units imprinted on rocks at the time they form is known as magnetochronostratigraphy and is likely to become more important in the future.