Mission Creek Quarry (? Wallowa terrane) (Triassic of the United States)

Also known as Lapwai Quarry (LQ)

Where: Idaho (46.3° N, 116.7° W: paleocoordinates 20.5° N, 52.7° W)

When: Late/Upper Triassic (237.0 - 201.4 Ma)

• Lower upper Norian (Sevatian: age based on the ammonite Gnomohalorites cordilleranus Tozer, 1979, see Nützel & Erwin 2004)

Environment/lithology: lagoonal or restricted shallow subtidal; lithified wackestone and lithified packstone

• Lagoonal limestone (Dasycladacean-Porostromate Wackestone-Packstone and Floatstone-Rudtsone)
• The Mission Creek Quarry or Lapwai Quarry (LQ) is particularly famous for its fossil-rich silicified beds that contain a rich and diversified invertebrate lower upper Norian (Sevatian: age based on the ammonite Gnomohalorites cordilleranus Tozer, 1979, see Nützel & Erwin 2004) fauna, including bivalves (Newton, unpublished data), brachiopods (Cooper 1942; Hoover 1991), corals (Squires 1956; Stanley 1979, 1986), and gastropods (Haas 1953; Nützel & Erwin 2001, 2004). Only few authors have investigated the quarry and most studies are based on the collection of J. S. Williams, J. Reed, and Norman D. Newell Newell (see Squires 1956 for details). These silicified beds are found south of the quarry, near a zig-zagging gravel road, few meters below the transition to a Hurwal-type (red/ brown argillite) lithology (see Rigaud 2012 for details).

•The here described algae/porostromate-rich wackestone-floatstone/rudstone levels were recovered from other, slightly older sedimentary strata (in a stratigraphic position estimated to be 55-65 meters below the silicified beds). The preservation of these older levels is uneven and marbleized limestone rocks are majoritarily observed. However, in some levels, usually darker (dark gray) or yellowish, fossils such as corals (Stanley 1986) and foraminifers (Rigaud et al. 2015a) are preserved and may abound.

•The here reported algae come from yellowish levels found at the foot of the quarry.

Size class: mesofossils

Preservation: original aragonite, replaced with calcite

Primary reference: I. I. Bucur, S. Rigaud, N. Del Piero, A. Fucelli, E. Heerwagen, C. Peybernes, G. Peyrotty, C. Verard, J. Chablais and R. Martini. 2020. Upper Triassic calcareous algae from the Panthalassa Ocean. Rivista Italiana di Paleontologia e Stratigrafia 126(2):499-540 [W. Kiessling/T. Jujihara]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 234334: authorized by Wolfgang Kiessling, entered by Toshiro Jujihara on 29.03.2024

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names
unclassified
  -
Pseudodiplopora borzai, Pseudodiplopora ? sp.
Rhodophyceae
  - Solenoporaceae
Solenopora sp.
Solenopora sp. Dybowski 1877
Ulvophyceae
 Bryopsidales - Halimedaceae
Collarecodium nezpercae n. sp.
Collarecodium nezpercae n. sp.
LQ27 [MHNG-GEPI-2020-0031]