STRUCTURE, STRATIGRAPHY, AND PALEONTOLOGY OF AN UPPER TRIASSIC SECTION ON THE WEST COAST OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
The highly deformed section at Open Bay is one of the few good exposures of a thick sedimentary unit within the prebatholithic rocks along coastal British Columbia. It provides new structural information relating to emplacement of a part of the Coast Range batholith and it contains an important Upper Triassic fauna unusually well represented. Structural and paleontological analyses are mutually supporting and are purposely combined in one paper.Thirteen ammonite genera from 14 localities clearly substantiate McLearn's tentative assignment to the Tropites subbullatus zone (Upper Karnian) and suggest a restriction to the T. dilleri subzone as defined in northern California.Contrary to an earlier view, the beds are lithologically similar across the whole bay except for variations in the intensity of deformation and thermal alteration. Their contact with slightly older relatively undeformed flows is apparently a zone of dislocation. Stratigraphic thicknesses cannot be measured with confidence, and subdivision into "Marble Bay Formation" and "Open Bay Group" cannot be accepted. Open Bay Formation is redefined to include all the folded marble and interbedded pillow lava at Open Bay. Lithologic and biostratigraphic correlation is suggested with the lower middle part of the Quatsino Formation on Iron River, 24 miles to the southwest. Basalt flows and pillowed volcanics west of Open Bay are correlated with the Texada Formation within the Karmutsen Group.The predominant folding is shown to precede, accompany, and follow intrusion of numerous andesitic pods and to precede emplacement of quartz diorite of the batholith. Structural asymmetry is shown to have originated through gentle cross-folding and emplacement of minor intrusives during deformation.