The stratigraphic significance of trace fossils from the Lower Paleozoic Baskahegan Lake Formation near Woodstock, west-central New Brunswick

The first indication of organic activity in Lower Paleozoic siliciclastic t urbidites of the Miramichi Terrane has been found in a small quarry at Graf ton Hill, near Woodstock, west-central New Brunswick. These previously unna med turbidites are assigned to the Baskahegan Lake Formation defined in adj acent Maine. The Grafton Hill site has yielded the ichnotaxa Circulichnis m ontanus, Gordia? marina, Helminthopsis hieroglyphica, Planolites annularius and Planolites montanus. The presence of Circulichnus montanus supports pr evious circumstantial evidence that a considerable part of the Baskahegan L ake Formation is Early Ordovician in age and substantiates correlation with other quartz-rich peri-Gondwanan sequences elsewhere in the Appalachian-Ca ledonide Orogen.