THE KINGSTON PEAK FORMATION AND CRYOGENIAN GLACIATION IN DEATH VALLEY

Lauren Wright and Benny Troxel’s extensive and foundational studies of the Kingston Peak Formation (KP) demonstrated that Cryogenian glacial deposits were ubiquitous in SE Death Valley. They also documented complicated facies changes and evidence for syn-sedimentary tectonism within Neoproterozoic strata that confuse both local and regional correlations and have inspired hypotheses that relate the breakup of Rodinia with global cooling. Current research on the KP builds off of Lauren and Benny’s efforts by refining local correlations between SE Death Valley and the Panamint Range and regional correlations with the Windermere Supergroup to integrate data from the KP with Cryogenian records globally. New geochronological constraints from the Windermere Supergroup in Canada, Idaho, and the Panamint Range demonstrate that both the Sturtian and Marinoan glaciations are represented in the Cordillera, but are commonly difficult to distinguish due to overlapping unconformities and dramatic lateral facies changes. Tracing and constraining these unconformities, originally identified by Lauren and Benny, remains critical for reconstructing the geological history of Death Valley and understanding the relationship between tectonism in western Laurentia and the Snowball Earth glaciations. Here we discuss new geochronological and stratigraphic constraints on the Cryogenian strata of Death Valley, as well as future challenges for fully integrating the KP into temporally constrained global records.