P.I.s will investigate new evidence that the clastic sediments of the Lower and Middle Cambrian of Avalonian North America did not accumulate on a stable platform. Differential subsidence across the block-faulted Avalonian orogen may have exerted an influence on local accumulation rates, sedimentary completeness, onlap- offlap direction and distribution of communities. P.I.s will establish precise intra-regional correlations in the Lower Cambrian of eastern Newfoundland through the use of small shelly fossils and traditional trilobite biostratigraphy. Marker beds will also be used. In addition to extending a small shelly fossil biostratigraphy and a synthesis of depositional tectonics from the Lower into the Moddle Cambrian of eastern Newfoundland, this project will further document the timing and pattern of diversification of metazoan life in the early Paleozoic.
