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Gupa Formation

Gupa Fm


Period: 
Devonian

Age Interval: 
D13(?)-D21 (65), Eifelian (early Middle Devonian)


Province: 
Guangxi

Type Locality and Naming

The type section is located at Yingtang Village of Dale in Xiangzhou County, Guangxi. It was named by Hou Hongfei and Xian Siyuan in 1975.

Synonym (translation option): Guba Fm

[Figure Locations of Dale Fm (A, B) and Gupa Fm and Guche Fm (C) in Dale area]


Lithology and Thickness

Claystone. It is dominated by thin-bedded earth-yellow mudstone, composed mainly of hydromica clay minerals with a few muscovite and quartz clastics, and is intercalated with few thin beds or lenses of clayey limestone and bioclastic limestone near the upper part. It is 85.7 m thick.

[Figure - Outcrops of Gupa Formation in the type locality at Dale showing the mudstone (left) with limestone interbeds (right), length of hammer 28 cm.]


Lithology Pattern: 
Claystone


Relationships and Distribution

Lower contact

A basal bed of clayey limestone separates it at a conformable contact from the underlying Dale Fm.

[Figure Photography showing the boundary between Dale and Gupa Formations (white line), the contact is taken at the change from grayish limestone to yellow mudstone (after Ma et al., 2007).]

Upper contact

It is conformable contact with the overlying Guche Fm.

Regional extent

This formation is mainly distributed in the west side of Dayaoshan Mt. From north to south the clayey content gradually decreases while the calcareous one increases.


GeoJSON

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Fossils

It contains abundant brachiopods including a Xenospirifer fongi assemblage in the lower part and an upper Eospiriferina lachrymosa assemblage, and corals Cylindrophyllum agglomeratum, Phacellophyllum daleense. Utaratuia sinensi; as well as dacyoconarid Nowakia sulcata.


Age 

Eifelian (early Middle Devonian), but its basal beds probably include a part of Emsian (late Early Devonian)

Age Span: 

    Beginning stage: 
Eifelian

    Fraction up in beginning stage: 
0.4

    Beginning date (Ma): 
390.70

    Ending stage: 
Eifelian

    Fraction up in the ending stage: 
0.6

    Ending date (Ma):  
388.90

Depositional setting

It is interpreted as a subtidal sedimentary environment.


Depositional pattern:  


Additional Information


Compiler:  

Hongfei Hou