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pg 039: Geology of the Marathon region, Texas Publication 6445288.

 
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quartz fragments from the Dagger Flat sandstone. The conglomerate also contains small angular pebbles of black chert, like that in the Maravillas itself, and blocks of fine-grained calcareous gray sandstone of an unknown horizon. Near Rock House Gap a boulder of the calcareous sandstone 5 feet long is embedded in the conglomerate (pl.5, B). At both localities the basal conglomerate contains abundant abraded corals and brachiopods. At Monument Spring fine conglomerates in the upper part of the lower member are interbedded with lenses and layers of black chert a few inches thick, which are clearly not transported and are probably not due to replacement of some previous rock (fig. 13, A). It is likely that they are chert deposits of primary origin.

The limestone layers above the conglomerates at Rock House Gap are very fossiliferous (pl. 5, A). The dense platy limestones contain orthoid brachiopods and graptolites, and the more granular layers, which form lenses, contain orthoid brachiopods and such trilobites as Cryptolithus. The shale zone near Monument Spring is an ashen-gray soft shale on which the dark-colored imprints of graptolites stand out with sharp contrast. A few feet from the top of the Maravillas at Monument Spring, in hard black shale partings between nodular cherts, a large graptolite fauna was collected.

Dagger Flat anticlinorium

-In the Dagger Flat anticlinorium the conglomerate beds of the Maravillas chert are fewer and thinner, and the differentiation between the lower calcareous and the upper cherty parts of the formation is not sharply marked. Near the middle of the formation along the southeast flank of the anticlinorium there are reef-like aggregates of bryozoans, some of which form massive beds with a maximum thickness of 10 feet. These are absent in the northwest flank of the anticlinorium and farther to the northwest. There are also some massive limestones with very irregular bedding, evidently having a channel structure. They contain a few comminuted fossils. The following section (sec. 13, pl. 2) of the Maravillas chert is characteristic of the southeastern exposures of the formation:

Section on northwest slope of Threemile Hill Caballos novaculite. Maravillas chert: Feet 26. Massive black chert, with three thin beds of limestone 50 25. Limestone, with siliceous bands 4 24. Black chert in beds several feet thick, with two thin beds of limestone 42 23. Laminated gray limestone, - with thin conglomerate lenses 3 22. Very massive black chert in 2- to 3-foot beds, with much interbedded dense limestone near middle 77 Section on northwest slope of Threemile Hill-Continued Maravillas chert-Continued. Feet 21. Massive limestone, with fragmental silicified fossils 4 20. Massive black chert 2 19. Reef-like mass of irregularly bedded limestone, packed with silicified bryozoans 4 18. Limestone in 6-inch beds alternating with black chert and grading down into massive limestone crowded with fossils 21 17. Massive black or bluish chert 4 16. Massive limestone, with fine fossil debris and lenses crowded with bryozoans, interbedded with finely laminated limestone and with beds of chert a few inches thick 40 15. Massive chert 2 14. Thick-bedded limestone, with lenticular chert beds and near the middle a layer of bryozoan limestone 32 13. Very massive, highly silicified limestone, containing long chert lenses and having crossbedded and channeled structure. It is packed with comminuted bryozoans, most of which are found in the channel fillings 5 12. Massive limestone, with bryozoans in lower part- 6 11. Massive black chert 2 10. Thin-bedded limestone, interbedded with black chert 9 9. Massive limestone, with lenses crowded with bryozoans 2 8. Thin-bedded gray finely crystalline to dense limestone 9 7. Thin-bedded black chert 2 6. Limestone, crowded with silicified bryozoans 5. Massive black chert 1 4. Finely granular thin-bedded dark-gray limestone in beds a few feet thick, with some black chert lenses 42 3. Brown chert and some black chert, in regular 1-foot beds, with some thin interbedded layers of limestone 18 2. Finely granular gray limestone 1 1. Brown chert in beds a few inches thick 8 Total 390% Woods Hollow shale; not well exposed near contact with Maravillas.

Southeastern exposures

-In the southeasternmost exposures of the formation chert greatly predominates over limestone. In the Santiago Mountains, 8 miles south of Maravillas Gap (Santiago Peak quadrangle), it is nearly all black chert with a few thin lenticular limestone beds. On Rough Creek, in the Dove Mountain quadrangle, it consists of black chert with bands of gray chert in 3-inch to 1-foot beds and with two or three layers of black limestone. In this region there is a few feet of dark-green shale between the uppermost cherts and the base of the Caballos.

MICROSCOPIC AND CHEMICAL CHARACTER

Thin sections of the cherts from the Maravillas formation show them to consist of a fine-textured mass of

 

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