SUMMARIES OF PRE-CAMBRIAN LITERATURE OF 

 NORTH AMERICA 



EDWARD STEIDTMANN 



University of Wisconsin 



III. QUEBEC 



THE EASTERN PART OF CANADA, NEWFOUNDLAND, 

 AND GREENLAND 



Recent studies of the pre-Cambrian in Nova Scotia and New- 

 foundland have been of a reconnaissance nature and do not modify 

 earlier stratigraphic studies in any important way. In northern 

 Quebec, Cooke, Wilson, and Tanton have extended reconnaissance 

 mapping to new areas. Moore has studied the Belcher Islands 

 of James Bay and finds a series of slates, graywackes, quartzites, 

 limestones, and sandstones similar to the Nastapoka and Richmond 

 groups described by Leith and Low. In northern Quebec, the 

 succession from the base upward includes mainly (i) basic 

 lavas, ferruginous dolomites, iron formations, rhyolites, other 

 volcanics of the Keewatin type, etc.; (2) crystalline limestones, 

 etc., of the Grenville type; (3) intrusives of granite and granite 

 gneiss. In western Quebec, Timiskaming County, rocks of the 

 preceding type are unconformably overlain by conglomerates and 

 other poorly sorted elastics. The youngest rocks are basic intru- 

 sives. The sections made do not all agree as to the relative position 

 of the Grenville and Keewatin types. 



Buddington' finds that the Algonkian rocks of southeastern 

 Newfoundland include 16,000 feet of sediments intruded by 

 granite, syenite, and gabbro, basic and acid dikes and flows. The 

 sediments consist of green and purple cherty slate, volcanic con- 

 glomerate, and upper series 6,000 to 7,000 feet thick of red and 

 green sandstones, conglomerates, and shales, containing fresh 

 feldspars, cross-bedding, and intra-formational conglomerates. The 

 upper sediments show evidence of continental origin. 



*A. F. Buddington, "Reconnaissance of the Algonkian Rocks of Southeast 

 Newfoundland" (Abstract), Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., Vol. XXV, No. i (1914), p. 40. 



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