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Oldest direct evidence of lunar-solar tidal forcing encoded in sedimentary rhythmites, Proterozoic Big Cottonwood Formation, central Utah

¹ Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112
² Indiana Geological Survey, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405
³ Department of Geology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506
⁴ Department of Planetary Sciences, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721

The oldest known tidal rhythmites, identified in the Big Cottonwood Formation, Utah, are Late to Middle Proterozoic in age (800 Ma to 1.0 Ga), 250 to 400 m.y. older than the previously oldest known tidal rhythmites. Four tidally forced cycles and one nontidal (seasonal) cycle control lamina thickness patterns. All of these cycles are recognized in outcrop and core and include cycles associated with daily, semimonthly (synodic), monthly (anomalistic), semiyearly, and yearly (seasonal) events. These features form the oldest geological record of lunar-solar tidal forcing and show that the middle to late Precambrian lunar- and solar-generated tides behaved in a manner very similar to that of today. The analysis also suggests that the Big Cottonwood Formation may have undergone a seasonal climate.

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