Because the Cephalopods were so different, Rousseau H. Flower wrote proposing the Canadian System with four divisions of unspecified rank (Flower 1957 p. 17). Quoting from Flower:
"Faunally, the Canadian is relatively isolated from the Ordovician above and is characterized by stocks of its own. In the cephalopods..., the Canadian-Ordovician boundary involves changes never lower than of generic rank, and generally of the rank of families and orders."
Someone looking at only, or mostly Cephalopod fossils could see the column this way. The four divisions are areas where Flower collected cephalopods. The Cassinian from the Ft. Cassin area in Vermont, the Jeffersonian from the Adirondacks in NY, the Demingian from the Florida Mts. in New Mexico, and the Gasconadian from the Ozark Mt. area of Missouri. I don't think his later collections in Utah and Nevada changed anything. His boundary is just above Zone K, which is basically the Hesperonomiella minor bed (e.g. Li and Droser 1999) or the base of the Whiterockian Stage of the Ordovician.
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| Chart modified from Flower 1964 (p. 23, fig. 3) Ross-Hintze Zones on the right. |
These days, the Canadian System of Flower (later referred to as the Canadian Series) has been replaced with the Ibexian Series (Ross et al., 1997) and the Lower Ordovician Series of the ICS.
Flower, R.H., 1957, Studies of the Actinoceratida, Memoir 2, New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources, Socorro, NM.
Flower, R.H., 1964, The Nautiloid Order Ellesmeroceratida (Cephalopoda), Memoir 12, New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources, Socorro, NM.
Li, X., and Droser, M.L., 1999, Lower and Middle Ordovician Shell Beds from the Basin and Range Province of the Western United States (California, Nevada, and Utah) PALAIOS, V. 14.
Ross, R.J., Jr, Hintze, L.F., Ethington, R.L., Miller, J.F., Taylor, M.E. & Repetski, J.E., 1997, The Ibexian, lowermost series in the North American Ordovician. United States Geological Survey Professional Paper, 1579-A.
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