Upper Ordovician conodont biostratigraphy and the age of the Collingwood Member, southern Ontario, Canada1Earth Science Sector (ESS) Contribution 20100302.

The Upper Ordovician stratigraphy in southern Ontario represents the clastic foredeep associated with the Appalachian Taconic Orogeny transitioning northwest into coeval carbonate platform facies. Ten measured and sampled sections in both the Collingwood area and on Manitoulin Island, Lake Huron, provide two relatively complete composite sections (277 and 95 m, respectively) through the marine part of the sequence. A total of 100 2 kg samples collected for a conodont biostratigraphic study yielded 77 215 well-preserved specimens. Taxonomic study of the fauna, illustrated herein, identified 34 species representing 22 genera and three taxa in open nomenclature. Taxonomic revisions are made to five species of Pseudobelodina and one of Rhipidognathus ; a new species, Pseudobelodina microdentata , is established. The fauna primarily represents the Midcontinent Province with incursions from the North Atlantic Province primarily in the Collingwood area. Four conodont zones are recognized that help refine the ages for the Upper Ordovician upper Lindsay (Collingwood Member), Blue Mountain, Georgian Bay, and Queenston formations. In particular, the Collingwood Member of the Lindsay Formation, a regionally distributed organic-rich shale of hydrocarbon source rock potential, is demonstrated to lie within the Amorphognathus ordovicicus Zone of North Atlantic Province and the Oulodus robustus Zone of Midcontinent Province and to be early Richmondian age.