Notes on Certain Ordovician Faunas of the Inyo Mountains, California

Author: Phleger, Fred B.

Year: 1932

Degree: Master's thesis

Advisor: Popenoe, Willis Parkison

Committee Member: Unknown, Unknown

Option: Paleontology; Geology

DOI: 10.7907/5KXB-FZ74

Abstract

The Inyo range is situated in east central California. It is bordered on the west by Owens valley and on the east by Deep Spring and Saline valleys. The range trends northwest-southeasterly, and is separated on the south from the Coso mountains by a broad depression east of Olancha. Mount Montgomery is its northern extremity. Together with the White mountains, a term now restricted to the northern portion of the range, the Inyos are about 110 miles in length. The average elevation is about 10,000 feet.

The sedimentary rocks of the range have a total thickness of more than 36,000 feet, with every system from the pre-Cambrian to the Jurassic, excepting the Silurian, represented. Structurally, the sedimentary rocks from a broad, low anticline flanked on the west by a complemental syncline, both of which strike to the northwest and plunge to the southeast. Southwardly the stratigraphic position of the rocks exposed becomes successively higher, with the pre-Cambrian outcropping in the north and the Jurassic in the south. This simple structure has been modified by complex faulting.

During the fall of 1931 the writer spent several day in the Inyo range with Dr. John H. Bradley, Jr. collecting fossils, and it was at his suggestion that the present study was begun. The field work was continued during the following winter and spring.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the faunas and stratigraphy of the Barrel Springs and Mazourka formations of Ordovician age as exposed in the Inyo range north and east of Independence, California.

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