REVISED STRATIGRAPHY AND DEPOSITIONAL HISTORY FOR THE CAMBRIAN-ORDOVICIAN KITTATINNY SUPERGROUP: SUSSEX COUNTY, NEW JERSEY AND ORANGE COUNTY, NEW YORK

The Kittatinny Supergroup of the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-New York tri-state area has long been recognized as part of the Cambrian-Ordovician passive margin that succeeded the Neoproterozoic-Cambrian rifted margin of Laurentia (Willard, 1955; 1958; Drake, 1965; Markewicz and Dalton, 1977; Faill, 1999). The Kittatinny Supergroup in the tri-state area, as part of the post-rift stratigraphic succession, was deposited across the Pennsylvania embayment and New York promontory (and the intervening New Jersey transform) of the Neoproterozoic-Cambrian rifted margin (Thomas, 1993). Detailed sedimentological and stratigraphic measurement (1:98 scale), and geologic mapping (1:24,000 scale) of the Kittatinny Supergroup in Sussex County, New Jersey and Orange County, New York permitted refined understanding of Cambrian-Ordovician depositional history on this part of the Laurentian passive margin (LaPorta, 2009). Along-strike facies and thickness variations in the Kittatinny Supergroup are hypothesized as resulting from differential post-rift subsidence and tectonic evolution of the Pennsylvania embayment vs. the New York promontory (LaPorta, 2009).

Detailed sedimentological and stratigraphic measurements, along with the identification of previously undocumented fauna, also permitted revision of the Kittatinny stratigraphy, allowing for the identification and segregation of additional stratigraphic units in the supergroup. Three new formations (Limeport, Upper Allentown and Stonehenge) and eight new members (Wildcat Road, Wheatsworth Mills, Gruenwald, Glacial Quarry, Edison, Rte. 94, Carlton Village, and Canal Road) were elucidated. New standard sections for all members and formations of the Kittatinny Supergroup in Sussex County, New Jersey and Orange County, New York were identified, breaking some of the connections with previously defined standard sections in Pennsylvania, to which the New Jersey-New York stratigraphy has been forced to fit over decades.