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Age of the Silurian Lower Red Beds in South China: Stratigraphical Evidence from the Sanbaiti Section

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Abstract

The age of the Silurian Lower Red Beds in the Upper Yangtze region remains debatable. Twenty-four samples were collected for conodont biostratigraphical studies from the Paiyunan Formation in the Sanbaiti Section, Huaying, Sichuan Province. The conodont fauna from the Paiyunan Formation, together with the graptolites from the underlying Lungmachi Formation, indicates that the Lower Red Beds at Sanbaiti correspond to the lower Telychian. Comparative analysis indicates that most exposures of the Lower Red Beds in the Upper Yangtze region can be assigned, in general, to the Telychian Stage, except for several localities, where the Lower Red Beds can be roughly dated as an interval between the upper Aeronian and lower Telychian.

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Acknowledgments

Drs. Guangxu Wang, Qiulai Wang and Xiaole Zhang from NIGP, China are acknowledged for providing useful information when preparing the manuscript. Ms. Wenmin Zhang from NIGP, China is thanked for carrying out the heavy liquid separation. The authors are indebted to Dr. Yong Yi Zhen and an anonymous reviewer, as well as the editors, for their valuable comments to improve the paper considerably. This work was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. XDB26000000), the National Science and Technology Major Project of China (No. 2017ZX05035002-001), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41972162 and 41725007), and the Estonian Research Council (No. PRG836). This is a contribution to the IGCP Project 652 ‘Reading Geologic Time in Paleozoic Sedimentary Rocks’. The final publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/s12583-020-1350-6.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210008, China

    Zhongyang Chen, Chengyuan Wang, Qing Chen & Chao Li

  2. Department of Geology, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, 19086, Estonia

    Peep Männik

  3. State Key Laboratory for Mineral Deposits Research, School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Junxuan Fan

  4. State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Institute of Sedimentary Geology, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu, 610059, China

    Zongyuan Sun

  5. Jiangsu Huohe Information Technology Co., Ltd., Nanjing, 210028, China

    Dongyang Chen

  6. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Chao Li

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Chen, Z., Männik, P., Fan, J. et al. Age of the Silurian Lower Red Beds in South China: Stratigraphical Evidence from the Sanbaiti Section. J. Earth Sci. 32, 524–533 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12583-020-1350-6

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