Waterford Formation

Waterford Fm

Period:

Permian

Age Interval:

Middle Permian (Ufimian)

Province:
SouthAfrica-Namibia-Botswana

Type Locality and Naming

Main Karoo Basin (SE), Main Karoo Basin (Western Foredeep) South Africa. Named after the Waterford district in the Eastern Cape. Upper formation in Ecca Gr

Synonym:

Lithology and Thickness

Shallow marine sandstones

Lithology Pattern:

Sandstone

Relationships and Distribution

Lower contact

Conformably overlies the deeper marine mudrocks of the Tierberg Fm in Main Karoo Basin (Western Foredeep) and Fort Brown Fm in Main Karoo Basin (SE).

Upper contact

Conformably overlain by the fully terrestrial fluvial mudstones and sandstones of the lower Beaufort Gr, Koonap Fm in Main Karoo Basin (SE) and Abrahamskraal Fm in Main Karoo Basin (Western Foredeep)

Regional extent

Widespread in Main Karoo Basin

GeoJSON

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Fossils

Age

Middle Permian (Ufimian)

Age Span:

Beginning stage:

Roadian

Fraction up in beginning stage:

0.5

Beginning date (Ma):

271.79

Ending stage:

Roadian

Fraction up in the ending stage:

1.0

Ending date (Ma):

269.21

Depositional setting

Shallow marine, coastal, and deltaic environments; represents the transitional "filled" stage of the Karoo retroarc foreland system, where the basin silted up to sea level prior to the onset of terrestrial fluvial deposition

Depositional pattern:

Additional Information

The Waterford Fm acts as the final regressive marine sequence of the Ecca Gr before the basin transitioned entirely to the continental fluvial environments of the Beaufort Gr.

Compiler:

From the O. Catuneanu et al. / Journal of African Earth Sciences 43 (2005) 211–253