MACROFAUNA FROM THE MT. KINDLE FORMATION, NWT CANADA

The Mt. Kindle Fm. was deposited across a broad area of what is now the Northwest Territories of Canada and is exposed in the Mackenzie Mountains. This 90-190m thick unit unconformably overlies the Late Cambrian-Early Ordovician Franklin Mountain Fm. and is unconformably overlain by the Devonian Bear Lake Fm. The purpose of this research is to systematically classify and describe the Mt. Kindle macrofauna from two localities and place the fauna into the publishsed biostratigraphic and paleoecological context. Macrofauna samples were collected from the Donnelly River locality 78m above the base unit. Conodonts indicate that 90m the unit is Silurian and that at 62m the unit is Ordovician. Samples from the Dodo Canyon locality are from low in the section where conodonts indicate it is Ordovician. The macrofossils were studied using a streomicroscope and petrographic microscope. Transverse and horizontal sections were cut, and thin sections were professionally prepared to study the cnidarians. The cnidarian samples included a variety of cateniform baring species, and were identified using corralite and tabularium measurements. The macrofauna includes tabulate corals (Paleofavosites?, Catenipora cf. robusta, Catenipora cf. agglomeratiformis), colonial rugose corals (Palaeophyllum?), solitary rugose corals (Bighornia?), indeterminate straight cephalopds, and indeterminate rhynchonellid and orthid brachiopods. The two Catenipora corals place the macrofauna in the upper Ordovician range, supporting the Ordovician conodont age determinations.