19 Depositional systems and resource distribution in eastern and southern North America: from orogens to coastal plains

We welcome studies related to the sourcing, dispersal, and deposition of clastic sediments from the hinterlands to the coast, including the provenance, paleogeography, sedimentology, and economic significance of these deposits.

Tuesday, 10 March 2026
8:30 AM - 11:30 AM
RCC, 105

Sediment Routing from Northern Appalachia/Peri-Gondwana Terrane to Southwest Missouri During the Early Mississippian.

Paper number: 19-2
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 8:50 AM – 9:05 AM

Authors

Abstract

The Early Mississippian Northview Formation in southwest Missouri was deposited as a brief pulse of siliciclastics onto a regional carbonate platform. We analyzed detrital zircons from the Northview to help identify its provenance. Results point to an eastern source area impacted by early Acadian orogenesis and magmatism.

Northview zircon age spectra have a prominent Appalachian (300 - 500 Ma) population but are conspicuously different from most plots of Carboniferous sediment sourced from Appalachia. The highest and sharpest peak in Northview plots is centered around 380 Ma, a mid-Devonian age coinciding with early Acadian magmatism. Most Carboniferous sediment from Appalachia has much lower peaks at ≥400 Ma. The Northview has a prominent Gondwanan population (500 - 750 Ma), and its Grenville population (900 - 1300 Ma) is much subdued relative to Carboniferous siliciclastics sourced from middle Appalachia.

Early Acadian magmatism in North America was centered in northern New England. To reach Missouri, sediment from this area would have to bypass the Michigan basin to the north or dodge multiple basins along routes farther south. An alternative source would be a peri-Gondwanan block approaching from the southeast. Sediment from such terrane would have likely followed a path that is now obscured by today’s Mississippi Embayment.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 58, No. 1

doi: 10.1130/abs/2026SE-411662

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