Facies, paleoenvironments, and basin analysis of the Late Neoproterozoic (Ediacaran) Upper Conception and St. John's groups, West Conception Bay, Newfoundland

The Avalon Peninsula of eastern Newfoundland contains one of the best deep-water succession of fossiliferous Ediacaran (ca. 630--542 Ma) strata known anywhere. Most previous studies of this region have focused on the southeastern Avalon Peninsula.; My studies, in the Bay Roberts and Spaniards Bay localities, extend the stratigraphic and basin analysis to the northern "West Conception sub-basin". The studied area contains a terminal Neoproterozoic succession that is approximately 1200 m thick, and consists of deep-marine, fine-grained siliciclastic and volcaniclastic deposits. Two major successions can be identified (TR1-TR2). The basal TR1 (720 m thick) consists of unorganized coarsening-and thinning-upward decameter-scale succession, and is composed of thick-bedded TDE turbidites (FA1: Drook association), thin and medium-bedded T(C)DE turbidites (FA2: Mistaken Point association) and thin-medium-bedded reddish T(B)DE turbidites (FA3: Reddish Mistaken Point association). (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...