Meltwater
Meltwater is water released by the melting of snow or ice, including glacial ice, tabular icebergs and ice shelves over oceans. Meltwater is found in the ablation zone of glaciers, where the rate of snow cover is reducing. Meltwater can be produced during volcanic eruptions, in a similar way in which the more dangerous lahars form; when meltwater pools on the surface rather than flowing, it forms melt ponds. As the weather gets colder meltwater will re-freeze. Meltwater can melt under the ice's surface; these pools of water, known as subglacial lakes can form due to geothermal friction. Meltwater provides drinking water for a large proportion of the world's population, as well as providing water for irrigation and hydroelectric plants; some cities around the world have large lakes. Cities that source water from meltwater include Melbourne, Los Angeles, Las Vegas amongst others. Glacial meltwater comes by pressure and geothermal heat. There will be rivers flowing through glaciers into lakes; these brilliantly blue lakes get their color from "rock flour", sediment, transported through the rivers to the lakes.
This sediment comes from rocks grinding together underneath the glacier. The fine powder is suspended in the water and absorbs and scatters varying colors of sunlight, giving a milky turquoise appearance. Meltwater acts as a lubricant in the basal sliding of glaciers. GPS measurements of ice flow have revealed that glacial movement is greatest in summer when the meltwater levels are highest. Meltwater can be an indication of abrupt climate change. An instance of a large meltwater body is the case of the region of a tributary of Bindschadler Ice Stream, West Antarctica where rapid vertical motion of the ice sheet surface has suggested shifting of a subglacial water body, it can destabilize glacial lakes leading to sudden floods, destabilize snowpack causing avalanches. Dammed glacial meltwater from a moraine-dammed lake, released can result in the floods, such as those that created the granite chasms in Purgatory Chasm State Reservation. In a report published in June 2007, the United Nations Environment Programme estimated that global warming could lead to 40% of the world population being affected by the loss of glaciers and the associated meltwater in Asia.
The predicted trend of glacial melt signifies seasonal climate extremes in these regions of Asia. Meltwater pulse 1A was a prominent feature of the last deglaciation and took place 14.7-14.2 thousand years ago. Extreme Ice Survey Groundwater Kryal Moulin Snowmelt Surface water June 4, 2007, BBC: UN warning over global ice loss United Nations Environment Program: Global Outlook for Ice and Snow
Precambrian
The Precambrian is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of the Phanerozoic eon, named after Cambria, the Latinised name for Wales, where rocks from this age were first studied; the Precambrian accounts for 88% of the Earth's geologic time. The Precambrian is an informal unit of geologic time, subdivided into three eons of the geologic time scale, it spans from the formation of Earth about 4.6 billion years ago to the beginning of the Cambrian Period, about 541 million years ago, when hard-shelled creatures first appeared in abundance. Little is known about the Precambrian, despite it making up seven-eighths of the Earth's history, what is known has been discovered from the 1960s onwards; the Precambrian fossil record is poorer than that of the succeeding Phanerozoic, fossils from the Precambrian are of limited biostratigraphic use. This is because many Precambrian rocks have been metamorphosed, obscuring their origins, while others have been destroyed by erosion, or remain buried beneath Phanerozoic strata.
It is thought that the Earth coalesced from material in orbit around the Sun at 4,543 Ma, may have been struck by a large planetesimal shortly after it formed, splitting off material that formed the Moon. A stable crust was in place by 4,433 Ma, since zircon crystals from Western Australia have been dated at 4,404 ± 8 Ma; the term "Precambrian" is recognized by the International Commission on Stratigraphy as the only "supereon" in geologic time. "Precambrian" is still used by geologists and paleontologists for general discussions not requiring the more specific eon names. As of 2010, the United States Geological Survey considers the term informal, lacking a stratigraphic rank. A specific date for the origin of life has not been determined. Carbon found in 3.8 billion-year-old rocks from islands off western Greenland may be of organic origin. Well-preserved microscopic fossils of bacteria older than 3.46 billion years have been found in Western Australia. Probable fossils 100 million years older have been found in the same area.
However, there is evidence. There is a solid record of bacterial life throughout the remainder of the Precambrian. Excluding a few contested reports of much older forms from North America and India, the first complex multicellular life forms seem to have appeared at 1500 Ma, in the Mesoproterozoic era of the Proterozoic eon. Fossil evidence from the Ediacaran period of such complex life comes from the Lantian formation, at least 580 million years ago. A diverse collection of soft-bodied forms is found in a variety of locations worldwide and date to between 635 and 542 Ma; these are referred to as Vendian biota. Hard-shelled creatures appeared toward the end of that time span, marking the beginning of the Phanerozoic eon. By the middle of the following Cambrian period, a diverse fauna is recorded in the Burgess Shale, including some which may represent stem groups of modern taxa; the increase in diversity of lifeforms during the early Cambrian is called the Cambrian explosion of life. While land seems to have been devoid of plants and animals and other microbes formed prokaryotic mats that covered terrestrial areas.
Tracks from an animal with leg like appendages have been found in what was mud 551 million years ago. Evidence of the details of plate motions and other tectonic activity in the Precambrian has been poorly preserved, it is believed that small proto-continents existed prior to 4280 Ma, that most of the Earth's landmasses collected into a single supercontinent around 1130 Ma. The supercontinent, known as Rodinia, broke up around 750 Ma. A number of glacial periods have been identified going as far back as the Huronian epoch 2400–2100 Ma. One of the best studied is the Sturtian-Varangian glaciation, around 850–635 Ma, which may have brought glacial conditions all the way to the equator, resulting in a "Snowball Earth"; the atmosphere of the early Earth is not well understood. Most geologists believe it was composed of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, other inert gases, was lacking in free oxygen. There is, evidence that an oxygen-rich atmosphere existed since the early Archean. At present, it is still believed that molecular oxygen was not a significant fraction of Earth's atmosphere until after photosynthetic life forms evolved and began to produce it in large quantities as a byproduct of their metabolism.
This radical shift from a chemically inert to an oxidizing atmosphere caused an ecological crisis, sometimes called the oxygen catastrophe. At first, oxygen would have combined with other elements in Earth's crust iron, removing it from the atmosphere. After the supply of oxidizable surfaces ran out, oxygen would have begun to accumulate in the atmosphere, the modern high-oxygen atmosphere would have developed. Evidence for this lies in older rocks that contain massive banded iron formations that were laid down as iron oxides. A terminology has evolved covering the early years of the Earth's existence, as radiometric dating has allowed real dates to be assigned to specific formations and features; the Precambrian is divided into
Chert
Chert is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of crystals of quartz that are small. Quartz is the mineral form of silicon dioxide. Chert is of biological origin but may occur inorganically as a chemical precipitate or a diagenetic replacement. Geologists use chert as a generic name for any type of cryptocrystalline quartz. Chert is of biological origin, being the petrified remains of siliceous ooze, the biogenic sediment that covers large areas of the deep ocean floor, which contains the silicon skeletal remains of diatoms, silicoflagellates, radiolarians. Depending on its origin, it can contain small macrofossils, or both, it varies in color, but most manifests as gray, grayish brown and light green to rusty red. Chert occurs in carbonate rocks as oval to irregular nodules in greensand, limestone and dolostone formations as a replacement mineral, where it is formed as a result of some type of diagenesis. Where it occurs in chalk or marl, it is called flint, it occurs in thin beds, when it is a primary deposit.
Thick beds of chert occur in deep marine deposits. These thickly bedded cherts include the novaculite of the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and similar occurrences in Texas and South Carolina in the United States; the banded iron formations of Precambrian age are composed of alternating layers of chert and iron oxides. Chert occurs in diatomaceous deposits and is known as diatomaceous chert. Diatomaceous chert consists of beds and lenses of diatomite which were converted during diagenesis into dense, hard chert. Beds of marine diatomaceous chert comprising strata several hundred meters thick have been reported from sedimentary sequences such as the Miocene Monterey Formation of California and occur in rocks as old as the Cretaceous. In petrology the term "chert" is used to refer to all rocks composed of microcrystalline, cryptocrystalline and microfibrous quartz; the term does not include quartzite. Chalcedony is a microfibrous variety of quartz. Speaking, the term "flint" is reserved for varieties of chert which occur in chalk and marly limestone formations.
Among non-geologists, the distinction between "flint" and "chert" is one of quality – chert being lower quality than flint. This usage of the terminology is prevalent in North America and is caused by early immigrants who brought the terms from England where most true flint was indeed of better quality than "common chert". Among petrologists, chalcedony is sometimes considered separately from chert due to its fibrous structure. Since many cherts contain both microcrystalline and microfibrous quartz, it is sometimes difficult to classify a rock as chalcedony, thus its general inclusion as a variety of chert; the cryptocrystalline nature of chert, combined with its above average ability to resist weathering, recrystallization and metamorphism has made it an ideal rock for preservation of early life forms. For example: The 3.2 Ga chert of the Fig Tree Formation in the Barbeton Mountains between Swaziland and South Africa preserved non-colonial unicellular bacteria-like fossils. The Gunflint Chert of western Ontario preserves not only bacteria and cyanobacteria but organisms believed to be ammonia-consuming and some that resemble green algae and fungus-like organisms.
The Apex Chert of the Pilbara craton, Australia preserved eleven taxa of prokaryotes. The Bitter Springs Formation of the Amadeus Basin, Central Australia, preserves 850 Ma cyanobacteria and algae; the Rhynie chert of Scotland has remains of a Devonian land flora and fauna with preservation so perfect that it allows cellular studies of the fossils. In prehistoric times, chert was used as a raw material for the construction of stone tools. Like obsidian, as well as some rhyolites, felsites and other tool stones used in lithic reduction, chert fractures in a Hertzian cone when struck with sufficient force; this results in a characteristic of all minerals with no cleavage planes. In this kind of fracture, a cone of force propagates through the material from the point of impact removing a full or partial cone; the partial Hertzian cones produced during lithic reduction are called flakes, exhibit features characteristic of this sort of breakage, including striking platforms, bulbs of force, eraillures, which are small secondary flakes detached from the flake's bulb of force.
When a chert stone is struck against an iron-bearing surface sparks result. This makes chert an excellent tool for starting fires, both flint and common chert were used in various types of fire-starting tools, such as tinderboxes, throughout history. A primary historic use of common chert and flint was for flintlock firearms, in which the chert striking a metal plate produces a spark that ignites a small reservoir containing black powder, discharging the firearm. Cherts are subject to problems. Weathered chert develops surface pop-outs when used in concrete that undergoes freezing and thawing because of the high porosity of weathered cher
Baraboo Range
Baraboo Range is a syncline located in Columbia and Sauk Counties, Wisconsin. It consists of eroded Precambrian metamorphic rock, it varies from 5 to 10 miles in width. The Wisconsin River traveling in a north to south direction, turns to the east just north of the range before making its turn to the west towards the Upper Mississippi River; the eastern end of the range was glaciated during the Wisconsinian glaciation, while the western half was not, marks the eastern boundary of Wisconsin's Driftless Area. The city of Baraboo is in the center of the valley; the range was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1980. The range is an example of a buried mountain range exposed through erosion, to once again undergo the forces of surface erosion; the rocks are as much as 1.5 billion years old, among the oldest exposed rocks in North America, consisting of gray to pink Baraboo Quartzite and red rhyolite. The Baraboo River divides the range in half, flowing through Upper Narrows Gorge near Rock Springs and travels onto its confluence with the Wisconsin River downstream from Portage through the Lower Narrows.
The Baraboos are composed of resistant Precambrian quartzite which has formed an erosional remnant or monadnock, resulting in topographic prominence. The mountains may have formed as long ago as the late Precambrian; these formations were buried by Paleozoic sedimentary strata and are still being uncovered by the erosion of the softer, overlying rocks. Devil's Lake, the centerpiece of Devil's Lake State Park, was formed from terminal moraines blocking access to its outlet, creating what is today an endorheic lake. Steven Dutch, Devil's Lake, Retrieved July 27, 2007 Wisconsin Online, Retrieved July 27, 2007 Baraboo Range Protection Plan, Sauk County, Retrieved July 27, 2007 Devil's Lake State Park: Rocks and Water Through the Ages, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Retrieved July 27, 2007 Media related to Baraboo Range at Wikimedia Commons
Marshfield, Wisconsin
Marshfield is a city in Wood County and Marathon County in the U. S. state of Wisconsin. It is located at the intersection of U. S. Highway 10, Highway 13 and Highway 97; the largest city in Wood County, its population was 19,118 at the 2010 census. Of this, 18,218 were in Wood County, 900 were in Marathon County; the city is part of the United States Census Bureau's Marshfield-Wisconsin Rapids Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Wood County. The portion of the city in Marathon County is part of the Wausau Metropolitan Statistical Area. Marshfield is home to the Marshfield Clinic, a large healthcare system that serves much of Central and Western Wisconsin. In 2010, Marshfield was ranked 5th in a list of "The Best Small Cities to Raise a Family" compiled by Forbes magazine. In 1851 and 1853, when the area was still forested, surveyors working for the U. S. government marked all the section corners in the 6 by 6 miles square which now includes Marshfield and Cameron, working on foot with compass and chain.
When done, the deputy surveyor filed this general description: This Township is nearly all Dry land, There being no Swamp of consequence in it. There being to rocks in it; that part which contains Fir & Hemlock. The surface meadow. There is some good Pine it but to much scattering to make it an object; the Township is well watered with small streams but none of them are of sufficient size for Milling purposses. The streams are lined with many of them producing good hay. There are no improvements in this Township. Marshfield was settled much than many surrounding towns. DuBay started his trading post 40 miles east on the Wisconsin River around 1818. A sawmill was built at Nekoosa in 1832. A sawmill was built at Neillsville around 1847; the first building at Marshfield came in 1872. The city was named for one of the original owners of land in the area. In 1872 the Wisconsin Central Railway was building the leg of its line from Stevens Point through the forest to what would become Colby, heading north for Lake Superior.
The railway needed a supply depot between those two towns, Marshfield was about midway. At the railroad's request, Louis Rivers, his wife and child, his brother Frank came to the area and started cutting an opening in the forest, they built a two-room log hotel at what is now the corner of Depot and Chestnut streets, with bunks in the west room and tables, benches and store in the east room. That crude building between the stumps was the first permanent structure in Marshfield; the first industry was a spoke factory located near the railroad. In 1878 William H. Upham, a "Yankee" migrant of English descent from Massachusetts and governor of Wisconsin, built a sawmill near the railway, with a millpond. By 1885 he had added a planing mill, a furniture factory and a flour and feed mill. Other businesses started, too: an alcohol factory, saloons, newspapers, a milliner. There were churches and schools; the city was incorporated in 1883. By 1885 the population exceeded 2,000, ranging from the Uphams in their fine Italianate homes to laborers living in shacks along the railroad.
In 1887, a fire struck. On June 27, after a dry three weeks, fire broke out among the drying piles in the Upham mill's lumberyard, ignited by a spark from a train; the fire spread, consuming the sawmill and flour mill, headed south into homes and the business district. Men tried to stop the inferno dynamiting stores to create a fire break, but the updraft lifted embers and dropped them onto more buildings; when it was over, 250 buildings were destroyed. The next day, Upham announced. Neighbors in Stevens Point and Wisconsin Rapids sent trainloads of supplies; the city ruled that buildings on Central should henceforth be built from brick though Marshfield had been built on wealth generated by lumber. The late 1800s saw a burst of railroad building. In 1872 the Wisconsin Central built the first line through town. In 1887 Upham Manufacturing started a line south from town to haul logs from Richfield. In 1890 a line to Neillsville was built. In 1891 a line was built from Centralia, another was built to Greenwood, a third from Wausau to Marshfield came from the north.
In 1901 a second line was built from Wisconsin Rapids to Marshfield. In 1903 38 passenger trains stopped daily in Marshfield. So many tracks intersected in the community that Marshfield was nicknamed "Hub City"; the hub was agricultural. Dairying began to organize as cheese factories started up, such as the one at Nasonville in 1885. Roddis and Blum Brothers made wooden cheese boxes in Marshfield. By 1921 the Blum plant was making 3,500 boxes a day. In 1907 the first cold storage plant was built in town, to store local cheese before shipping it by rail to larger markets. Ice cream factories followed, processing of eggs and liquid milk. In 1923 a spokesman for the Soo Line Railroad said that Marshfield shipped more dairy products than any other city in the United States. St. Joseph's hospital began with six beds in 1890. Operated by the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother, it offered early health insurance. Lumbermen could pay a flat rate, in exchange St. Joseph's would care for them in case of injury. In 1916, six local doctors formed a group practice clinic in the second story of the Thiel building downtown, calling themselves Marshfield Clinic.
German immigrants made up two thirds of Marshfield's population in the 1890s. One of the two early newspapers, Die Demokrat, was published in German. Many had family back in
Cranberry
Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the subgenus Oxycoccus of the genus Vaccinium. In Britain, cranberry may refer to the native species Vaccinium oxycoccos, while in North America, cranberry may refer to Vaccinium macrocarpon. Vaccinium oxycoccos is cultivated in central and northern Europe, while Vaccinium macrocarpon is cultivated throughout the northern United States and Chile. In some methods of classification, Oxycoccus is regarded as a genus in its own right, they can be found in acidic bogs throughout the cooler regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Cranberries are low, creeping vines up to 2 meters long and 5 to 20 centimeters in height; the flowers are dark pink, with distinct reflexed petals, leaving the style and stamens exposed and pointing forward. They are pollinated by bees; the fruit is a berry, larger than the leaves of the plant. It is edible, but with an acidic taste that overwhelms its sweetness. In 2016, 98% of world production of cranberries resulted from the United States and Chile.
Most cranberries are processed into products such as juice, sauce and sweetened dried cranberries, with the remainder sold fresh to consumers. Cranberry sauce is a traditional accompaniment to turkey at Christmas dinner in the United Kingdom, at Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners in the United States and Canada. There are three to four species of cranberry, classified into two sections: Subgenus Oxycoccus, sect. OxycoccusVaccinium oxycoccos or Oxycoccus palustris is widespread throughout the cool temperate Northern Hemisphere, including northern Europe, northern Asia, northern North America, it has small 5–10 mm leaves. The flowers are dark pink, with a purple central spike, produced on finely hairy stems; the fruit is a small pale pink berry, with a refreshing sharp acidic flavor. Vaccinium microcarpum or Oxycoccus microcarpus occurs in northern North America, northern Europe and northern Asia, differs from V. oxycoccos in the leaves being more triangular, the flower stems hairless. Some botanists include it within V. oxycoccos.
Vaccinium macrocarpon or Oxycoccus macrocarpus native to northern North America across Canada, eastern United States, south to North Carolina at high altitudes). It differs from V. oxycoccos in the leaves being larger, 10–20 mm long, in its apple-like taste. Subgenus Oxycoccus, sect. OxycoccoidesVaccinium erythrocarpum or Oxycoccus erythrocarpus native to southeastern North America at high altitudes in the southern Appalachian Mountains, in eastern Asia. Cranberries are related to bilberries and huckleberries, all in Vaccinium subgenus Vaccinium; these differ in having bell-shaped flowers, the petals not being reflexed, woodier stems, forming taller shrubs. Some plants of the unrelated genus Viburnum are sometimes called "highbush cranberries". Cranberries are susceptible to false blossom, a harmful but controllable phytoplasma disease common in the eastern production areas of Massachusetts and New Jersey; the name, derives from the German, first named as cranberry in English by the missionary John Eliot in 1647.
Around 1694, German and Dutch colonists in New England used the word, cranberry, to represent the expanding flower, stem and petals resembling the neck and bill of a crane. The traditional English name for the plant more common in Europe, Vaccinium oxycoccos, originated from plants with small red berries found growing in fen lands of England. In North America, the Narragansett people of the Algonquian nation in the regions of New England appeared to be using cranberries in pemmican for food and for dye. Calling the red berries, the Narragansett people may have introduced cranberries to colonists in Massachusetts. In 1550, James White Norwood made reference to Native Americans using cranberries. In James Rosier's book The Land of Virginia there is an account of Europeans coming ashore and being met with Native Americans bearing bark cups full of cranberries. In Plymouth, there is a 1633 account of the husband of Mary Ring auctioning her cranberry-dyed petticoat for 16 shillings. In 1643, Roger Williams's book A Key Into the Language of America described cranberries, referring to them as "bearberries" because bears ate them.
In 1648, preacher John Elliott was quoted in Thomas Shepard's book Clear Sunshine of the Gospel with an account of the difficulties the Pilgrims were having in using the Indians to harvest cranberries as they preferred to hunt and fish. In 1663, the Pilgrim cookbook appears with a recipe for cranberry sauce. In 1667, New Englanders sent to King Charles ten barrels of cranberries, three barrels of codfish and some Indian corn as a means of appeasement for his anger over their local coining of the Pine Tree shilling. In 1669, Captain Richard Cobb had a banquet in his house, serving wild turkey with sauce made from wild cranberries. In the 1672 book New England Rarities Discovered author John Josselyn described cranberries, writing: Sauce for the Pilgrims, cranberry or bearberry, is a small trayling plant that grows in salt marshes that are overgrown with moss; the berries are of a pale yellow color, afterwards red, as big as a cherry, some round, others oval, all of them hollow with sower as
Cambrian
The Cambrian Period was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 55.6 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 541 million years ago to the beginning of the Ordovician Period 485.4 mya. Its subdivisions, its base, are somewhat in flux; the period was established by Adam Sedgwick, who named it after Cambria, the Latin name of Wales, where Britain's Cambrian rocks are best exposed. The Cambrian is unique in its unusually high proportion of lagerstätte sedimentary deposits, sites of exceptional preservation where "soft" parts of organisms are preserved as well as their more resistant shells; as a result, our understanding of the Cambrian biology surpasses that of some periods. The Cambrian marked a profound change in life on Earth. Complex, multicellular organisms became more common in the millions of years preceding the Cambrian, but it was not until this period that mineralized—hence fossilized—organisms became common; the rapid diversification of life forms in the Cambrian, known as the Cambrian explosion, produced the first representatives of all modern animal phyla.
Phylogenetic analysis has supported the view that during the Cambrian radiation, metazoa evolved monophyletically from a single common ancestor: flagellated colonial protists similar to modern choanoflagellates. Although diverse life forms prospered in the oceans, the land is thought to have been comparatively barren—with nothing more complex than a microbial soil crust and a few molluscs that emerged to browse on the microbial biofilm. Most of the continents were dry and rocky due to a lack of vegetation. Shallow seas flanked the margins of several continents created during the breakup of the supercontinent Pannotia; the seas were warm, polar ice was absent for much of the period. Despite the long recognition of its distinction from younger Ordovician rocks and older Precambrian rocks, it was not until 1994 that the Cambrian system/period was internationally ratified; the base of the Cambrian lies atop a complex assemblage of trace fossils known as the Treptichnus pedum assemblage. The use of Treptichnus pedum, a reference ichnofossil to mark the lower boundary of the Cambrian, is difficult since the occurrence of similar trace fossils belonging to the Treptichnids group are found well below the T. pedum in Namibia and Newfoundland, in the western USA.
The stratigraphic range of T. pedum overlaps the range of the Ediacaran fossils in Namibia, in Spain. The Cambrian Period was followed by the Ordovician Period; the Cambrian is divided into ten ages. Only three series and six stages are named and have a GSSP; because the international stratigraphic subdivision is not yet complete, many local subdivisions are still used. In some of these subdivisions the Cambrian is divided into three series with locally differing names – the Early Cambrian, Middle Cambrian and Furongian. Rocks of these epochs are referred to as belonging to Upper Cambrian. Trilobite zones allow biostratigraphic correlation in the Cambrian; each of the local series is divided into several stages. The Cambrian is divided into several regional faunal stages of which the Russian-Kazakhian system is most used in international parlance: *Most Russian paleontologists define the lower boundary of the Cambrian at the base of the Tommotian Stage, characterized by diversification and global distribution of organisms with mineral skeletons and the appearance of the first Archaeocyath bioherms.
The International Commission on Stratigraphy list the Cambrian period as beginning at 541 million years ago and ending at 485.4 million years ago. The lower boundary of the Cambrian was held to represent the first appearance of complex life, represented by trilobites; the recognition of small shelly fossils before the first trilobites, Ediacara biota earlier, led to calls for a more defined base to the Cambrian period. After decades of careful consideration, a continuous sedimentary sequence at Fortune Head, Newfoundland was settled upon as a formal base of the Cambrian period, to be correlated worldwide by the earliest appearance of Treptichnus pedum. Discovery of this fossil a few metres below the GSSP led to the refinement of this statement, it is the T. pedum ichnofossil assemblage, now formally used to correlate the base of the Cambrian. This formal designation allowed radiometric dates to be obtained from samples across the globe that corresponded to the base of the Cambrian. Early dates of 570 million years ago gained favour, though the methods used to obtain this number are now considered to be unsuitable and inaccurate.
A more precise date using modern radiometric dating yield a date of 541 ± 0.3 million years ago. The ash horizon in Oman from which this date was recovered corresponds to a marked fall in the abundance of carbon-13 that correlates to equivalent excursions elsewhere in the world, to the disappearance of distinctive Ediacaran fossils. There are arguments that the dated horizon in Oman does not correspond to the Ediacaran-Cambrian boundary, but represents a facies change from marine to evaporite-dominated strata — which w
Wood County, Wisconsin
