Comparison of litho-, bio-, and chemostratigraphy in two cores from the northeastern margin of the Michigan Basin (Manitoulin Island) and from within the Ottawa Embayment (eastern Ontario) identifies interbasinal differences of Late Ordovician platform foundering linked to Taconic orogenesis. Graptolite biostratigraphy defines an east-to-west younging (late Edenian to early Maysvillian) of platform burial. A regional unconformity likely caps the platform succession. In both basins, an increased supply of mafic material appears during the final stages of platform collapse, with the accumulation of organic-rich (<8%), petroliferous shales (Collingwood Member — Michigan Basin; Eastview Member — Ottawa Embayment). Both units preserve evidence for deposition coincident with increased dysoxic to possible anoxic bottom-water conditions, but the Collingwood Member accumulated under a relatively stable paleoceanographic environment. Rhythmic interbedding with platform limestone in eastern Ontario, combined with evidence for fluctuating paleoproductivity, suggests the depositional environment of the Eastview Member was more sensitive to higher order controls affiliated with tectonic, oceanographic, and (or) sea level variation. Such interbasinal differences likely reflect a greater rate of subsidence in the Manitoulin region transforming platform sedimentation to a distal ramp facies. In eastern Ontario, a lesser rate of subsidence maintained a shallower water, but open margin, setting. Burial of the Upper Ordovician platform, as preserved in eastern Ontario, occurred during peak dysoxic conditions, with deposition of a hemipelagic facies (Billings Formation) that marks the peak supply of clay-size mafic-derived sediment. Bottom-water ventilation occurred only with appearance of abundant Taconic-derived distal turbidites. An equivalent hemipelagic facies appears to be absent from the Manitoulin region. However, equivalent resedimented deposits are represented by the Blue Mountain Formation.