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Skoki Formation
The Skoki Formation is a stratigraphic unit of Early to Middle Ordovician age that is present on the western edge of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin in the Canadian Rockies of Alberta and British Columbia.[3] It was named for Skoki Mountain near Lake Louise in Banff National Park by Charles Doolittle Walcott in 1928.[2] The Skoki Formation is fossiliferous and includes remains of brachiopods and other marine invertebrates, as well as conodonts and oncolites.[1] Lithology and depositionThe Skoki Formation formed as a shallow marine shelf along the western shoreline of the North American Craton during Early to Middle Ordovician time.[3][4] Most of the original limestone was subsequently altered to dolomite. Many beds include quartz sand and silt, and some include layers of brown argillite.[1] Distribution and stratigraphic relationshipsThe Skoki is present in the Canadian Rockies of Alberta and British Columbia. It reaches a thickness of up to 186 metres (610 ft) in the southern Rockies and about 500 metres (1800 ft) in the northern Rockies.[1] It conformably overlies the Outram Formation or the Tipperary Quartzite, depending on the location, and underlies the Owen Creek Formation.[5][1] PaleontologyThe Skoki Formation contains several genera of brachiopods, as well as gastropods, conodonts, cephalopods, trilobites, echinoderms, stromatolites, corals, and oncolites.[1] References
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