Nearshore to offshore facies and depositional history of the Ordovician Daylesford Limestone New South Wales

The Daylesford Limestone is the basal formation of the Ordovician Bowan Park Group of central western New South Wales. The formation contains four main limestone types and minor intercalated terrigenous beds. Limestones are: (1) grain‐stone, (2) grey skeletal wackestone and packstone, (3) dark grey burrowed wackestone and packstone, and (4) dark grey burrowed lime mudstone. Grainstone and grey skeletal wackstone and packstone are dominant in eastern sections; they are laterally equivalent to, and interfinger with, dark grey muddy limestones that dominate western sections. Lithoclasts are abundant in the grainstone but are absent from muddy sections to the west except in thin beds above disconformities. The rock types of the Daylesford Limestone also tend to occur sequentially above some disconformities; the full sequence is: grainstone (or grey skeletal wackestone and packstone) grading up into dark grey burrowed wackestone and packstone and thence into dark grey burrowed lime mudstone. Each sequence is probably trans‐gressive and reflects deepening water.

During deposition of the Daylesford Limestone, an area to the east was uplifted, providing lithoclasts to be reworked into the neighbouring depositional basin. Uplift also produced numerous regressions and subaerial disconformities. Facies patterns were essentially similar throughout the history of the formation. Grainstone accumulated in high‐energy nearshore environments adjacent to the uplifted area, and grey skeletal wackestone and packstone in low‐energy nearshore environments. Dark grey lime mudstone formed in offshore low‐energy environments to the west of the uplifted area; and dark grey wackestone and packstone in intermediate environments. In parts, burrowing organisms kept pace with sedimentation and locally mixed interbedded grainstone and muddy limestone.