The National Subcommission on the Stratigraphy of the Lower Palaeozoic of Belgium has evaluated the previous and present definitions of the Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian lithostratigraphical units (groups, formations and members) and presents in this paper the results of this evaluation. Some of these units described in published or unpublished documents are considered to be junior synonyms of previously described units. Other units were given a higher or lower ranking. Units that are too thin or too thick were abandoned. The Subcommission reached agreement on the validity and usefulness of all the units that are described below.
For each of them, a lithological and sedimentological description is given, the area of distribution and possible facies changes, the thickness of the unit, the arguments for the age determination, some remarks about the history of the definitions, and the names of units considered to be junior synonyms. In the Brabant Massif 32 formations are (re) defined and described, in the Condroz inlier 18 formations, in the Stavelot Massif 3 groups, 8 formations and 8 members, with an additional formation with an unspecified Mid Ordovician-earliest Devonian age, in the Rocroi Massif 3 groups, 7 formations and 2 members, in the Givonne Inlier 4 formations and in the Serpont Inlier 2 formations. The formations are shown in chronostratigraphical tables with a colour encoding the dominant lithology or sedimentology.
A new geological map, mostly subcrop, of the Brabant Massif is presented, based on a revised lithostratigraphy of the outcrop area and on recently acquired palaeontological and lithological data from boreholes in the concealed area. New interpretations of magnetic and gravity data are used to extend the lithostratigraphical units into areas with few or no boreholes. A structural model of the western, northern and southern parts of the Brabant Massif is presented. The main anticlinal axis plunges towards the west-northwest, its core comprising Upper Precambrian (?) to Lower Cambrian terrigenous rocks which outcrop in the southeast. To the north of the main axis, younger rocks appear in regular succession, but to the southwest this picture is complicated by the occurrence of a second anticlinal structure and by a subparallel magmatic arc.
The acritarch assemblages of strata from the base of the Upper Proterozoic Sheepbed Formation to the base of the Lower Cambrian (Atdabanian) Sekwi Formation are described. The sections sampled are in southwestern (internal) structural units where erosion beneath the "sub-Cambrian"(?) unconformity is least evident. Problems of lithostratigraphic correlation of post-Sheepbed, pre-Backbone Ranges formations remain. Acritarchs indicate the age of the Sheepbed Formation and the Blue-flower Formation above it is latest Proterozoic (Vendian), whereas that of the Vampire Formation is Early Cambrian (Atdabanian). The Backbone Ranges Formation has not yielded datable acritarchs, but it is for the most part Cambrian in age, based on other fossil evidence. Comparisons are made with the Russian Platform and southern Canadian Rocky Mountains successions. The total number of acritarch genera increases markedly across the Precambrian–Cambrian transition.
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