Evidence for an Albian Hudson arm connection between the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway of North America and the Labrador Sea

Abstract

Numerous researchers have alluded to the existence of a Cretaceous Hudson Arm connection between the Labrador Sea and the Western Interior Seaway of North America. However, the evidence for this marine connection has been circumstantial. In this paper we present sedimentary geochemical data that indicate a marine influence in the Albian Mattagami Formation of the Moose River basin, James Bay Lowlands, Ontario. The facies associations between dinoflagellate-bearing laminated mudstones, fluvial sandstones, and early pyrite mineralization are interpreted to indicate deposition in the central basin of an estuary. We use the facies association between the estuarine fill and coeval kaolinitic paleosols in the Moose River basin, and in similar deposits in Quebec and Labrador, to reconstruct a southern shoreline of the Albian Hudson Arm to the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway. We suggest that development of the Hudson Arm connection between the Labrador Sea and the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway may be related to a regional extensional regime associated with rifting between Labrador and Greenland, and the passage of eastern North America over Cretaceous hotspots.

Track analysis of the marine palaeofauna from the Turonian (Late Cretaceous)

“…The northern tracks (generalized tracks 5 and 6) are congruent with the occurrence of the Western Interior Seaway (WIS), based on sedimentological and geochemical data, as well as on foraminiferal and dinoflagellate assemblages (see Fielitz, 1996;Schröder-Adams et al, 1996;White et al, 2000). Maximum transgression, which occurred from the latest Cenomanian to early Turonian, created fully marine conditions and allowed the establishment of a Tethyan fauna in the Canadian portion of the WIS (Schröder-Adams et al, 1996).…”

Climate model boundary conditions for four Cretaceous time slices

“…While all paleogeographic reconstructions indicate that South America and Africa have fully separated by the early Albian, the sea strait between them is represented as shallow and narrow enough that flow in the strait was unlikely to be significant and is not readily resolvable at our horizontal resolution (∼2.8 • latitude ×2.8 • longitude). Consequently, and to ensure that our boundary conditions represent a suite of South Atlantic opening stages (closed in the Aptian, closed but with an extensive embayment in the At the Cenomanian/Turonian boundary, the Cretaceous Interior Seaway of Western North America is open in our boundary conditions (White et al, 2000) and, based on the presence of marine Cenomanian/Turonian strata west of Greenland (Dam et al, 1998), we opt to reduce the elevation of western Greenland and emplace a seaway just west of Greenland. While the reconstructions of Blakey (http://jan.…”

A Chemostratigraphic Model for the Development of Parasequences and Its Application to Sequence Stratigraphy and Paleoceanography, Cretaceous Western Interior Basin, USA

“…During maximum transgression, the KWIS extended latitudinally from Arctic Canada to the proto-Gulf of Mexico and longitudinally from southwestern Utah-northeastern Nevada to MinnesotaIowa (Kauffman, 1985). A KWIS connection to the Labrador Sea through central Canada and the Hudson Bay region began as early as the late Albian sea level highstand (White et al, 2000). On the KWIS relative sea level curve established by Kauffman and Caldwell (1993), one secondorder transgressive-regressive cycle and nine third-order transgressive-regressive cycles exist from the 9.2 GEOLOGICAL SETTING…”