Correlation of pre-Carboniferous carbonate successions of northern Alaska

Fault-bounded successions of pre-Carboniferous (meta)carbonate rocks occur throughout northern Alaska. Successions studied in detail are those in the York Mountains (Seward Peninsula), the western and eastern Baird Mountains (western Brooks Range), the Snowden Mountain area (central Brooks Range), and the Sublik and Sadlerochit Mountains (eastern Brooks range); they are correlated on the basis of the lithofacies and conodont biostratigraphy. Available lithologic and biogeographic data are best explained by postulating that these successions accumulated on a single continental margin or platform that had faunal exchange with both Siberia and North America, rather than on a series of discrete platforms juxtaposed by later tectonic events.