Wafangdian Fm
Type Locality and Naming
It was named by Morita, G. as the “Wafangdian Horizon” in 1939. The naming section is located in the vicinity of Wafangdian City, Liaoning Province, with its reference section being situated in the vicinity of Gangzidian, Wafangdian city.
Synonym: （瓦房店组）
Lithology and Thickness
Lower coal-bearing member is composed of variegated conglomerate, sandstone, grey-black siltstone, mudstone, carbonaceous shale and coal beds, intercalated with limestone lenses and thin-bedded limestone, yielding bivalve, fish scale, plant and spore-pollen fossils, with a thickness of about 130 m. Upper coal-bearing member is composed mainly of violet sandstone and mudstone, intercalated with grey-green and grey-white sandstones, grey mudstone, grey-black carbonaceous shale and lenticular coal beds, occasionally with calcareous sandstone or marl, with a thickness of about 190 m.
Relationships and Distribution
Lower contact
Its basal part overlies unconformably the Neo-Paleozoic limestone.
Upper contact
Regionally, the schematic strat column indicates the next younger unit as the Zhayao Fm
Regional extent
It is distributed in the Gangzidian region of Wafangdian City. In the drilling cores from the No. 722 drilling well there are found fairly thick variegated beds. Its thickness varies in a range from 100 m to 350 m.
GeoJSON
Fossils
It yields spore-pollen fossils as represented by the Osmundasites-Cyathidites-Chordasporites assemblage.
Age
Depositional setting
The formation belongs to alluvial-fan, fluvial-lacustrine and swamp-facies coal-bearing deposits formed in the intermontane basins.
Additional Information