Systematics and biostratigraphy of a new trilobite fauna collected from the subsurface Earlie Formation (Wuliuan Stage, Miaolingian Series, Cambrian) in southwestern Saskatchewan

Abstract

Trilobites were recovered from four cores of the middle Cambrian Earlie Formation in southwestern Saskatchewan. Fossils occur in silty mudstone with interbedded siltstone and limestone, deposited in the inner detrital belt of the craton interior, under low-energy, subtidal conditions. Taxa identified include Kootenia dawsoni (Walcott 1889), Asaphiscus wheeleri Meek 1873, Blainia gregaria Walcott 1916b, Parehmania princeps Deiss 1939b, Ehmania weedi Resser 1935, Bolaspis labrosa (Walcott 1916a), and corynexochid gen. and sp. indet., indicating an age ranging from the lower to upper Altiocculus subzone of the Ehmaniella Zone, upper Wuliuan Stage. The upper Eldon and lower Pika formations located farther west in subsurface Alberta and the Rocky Mountains are considered to be age equivalent. Biostratigraphy confirms that strata overlying the Basal Sandstone Unit are diachronous and become progressively younger eastward. The trilobite fauna is lower in diversity relative to those in temporally equivalent units in the Rocky Mountains as well as the Great Basin, indicating that it may have experienced some environmental stressors, and that seafloor colonization was sporadic and opportunistic.