Pope Mega Group

Last updated
Pope Mega Group
Stratigraphic range: Carboniferous
Type Geological group
Sub-units
  • Grove Church Shale
  • Kincaid
    • Goreville Limestone
    • Cave Hill Shale
    • Negli Creek Limestone
  • Degonia Sandstone
  • Clore Limestone
    • Ford Station Limestone
    • Tygett Sandstone
    • Cora Limestone
  • Palestine Sandstone
  • Menard Limestone
    • Allard Limestone
    • Scottsburg Limestone
    • Walche Limestone
  • Waltersburg Formation
  • Vienna Limestone
  • Tar Springs Sandstone
  • Glen Dean Formation
  • Hardinsburg Formation
  • Haney Formation
  • Fraileys Formation
    • Big Clifty Member
  • Beech Creek Formation
  • Cypress Formation
  • Ridenhower Formation
    • Reelsville Member
    • Sample Member
    • Beaver Bend Member
  • Bethel Formation
  • Downeys Bluff Formation
  • Yankeetown Formation
  • Renault Formation
    • Shellersville Member
    • Levias Member
  • Aux Vases Formation
Overlies Mammoth Cave Group
Lithology
PrimarySandstone, Limestone, Shale
Location
Region Illinois Basin
Country United States of America

The Pope Mega Group is a geologic unit found in the Illinois Basin of southern Illinois, southwestern Indiana, and western Kentucky. [1] [2] In Indiana and Kentucky its equitant is the Buffalo Wallow Group. This unit grades from sandstones at its base into mix of limestones and sandstone and then a shale at its top. [3] In Southern Illinois oil wells are drilled into the Tar Springs formation. [4]

Contents

Stratigraphy

Kinkaid Formation

Also known at the Kinkaid Limestone, this unit is made up of several smaller members. This unit ranges from 0' - 230 ' thick. The Grove Church Shale is at the top, followed by Members, Goreville Limestone, Cave Hill Shale, and Negli Creek Limestone.

Tobinsport Formation

A formation in Illinois containing 4 members that are linked to other formations in the Upper Pope Group. The Negli Creek Limestone of the Kinkaid formation to the west. Mt. Pleasant Sandstone, Bristow Sandstone, and Siberia Limestone. The Siberia is a thin tongue of the Menard formation. [5]

Degonia Formation

This sandstone unit is 0-150' thick.

Clore Formation

This unit is 0-150’ thick. Its units include the Ford Station Limestone, Tygett Sandstone and Cora Limestone Members.

Palestine Formation

This sandstone unit is 0-120' thick.

Menard Formation

The Menard Limestone is a geologic formation in the Illinois Basin of southern Illinois, southwestern Indiana, and western Kentucky.

The type section of both the Walche Limestone Member and the Scottsburg Limestone Member are exposures in Walche's Cut, a railway cutting on the Illinois Central Railroad. [6] [7] [8]

Waltersburg Formation

This formation is 0-100’ thick.

Vienna Formation

This limestone unit is 0-60' thick

Tar Springs Formation

This sandstone unit is 0-150' thick. The Tar Springs consists of interbedded sandstone and shale, creating closed reservoirs within the sand. For this reason it is the largest oil producing formation in Illinois. Estimated to have accounted for more than 60% of the oil production in the state.

Glen Dean Formation

The Glen Dean Formation is a geologic formation in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky. It preserves fossils dating back to the Carboniferous period.

Hardinsburg Formation

The Hardinsburg Formation is a geologic formation in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky. It preserves fossils dating back to the Carboniferous period.

Haney Formation

The Haney Formation is a geologic formation in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky. It preserves fossils dating back to the Carboniferous period.

Fraileys Formation

The Fraileys Formation or Fraileys Shale is a geologic formation in Illinois. It preserves fossils dating back to the Carboniferous period.

Beech Creek Formation

The Beech Creek Formation is a geologic formation in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky. It preserves fossils dating back to the Carboniferous period.

Cypress Formation

The Cypress Formation is a geologic formation in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky. It preserves fossils dating back to the Carboniferous period.

Ridenhower Formation

The Ridenhower Formation is a geologic formation in Illinois. It preserves fossils dating back to the Carboniferous period. It includes the Reelsville Member, Sample Member and Beaver Bend Member.

Bethel Formation

The Bethel Formation is a geologic formation in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky. It preserves fossils dating back to the Carboniferous period.

Energy Production

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Big Clifty Sandstone</span>

The Big Clifty Sandstone is a geologic formation in Illinois and Kentucky. It is a subunit of the Golconda Formation in Kentucky and is correlative with the Fraileys Shale to which it grades to in southern Illinois. The Big Clifty and Golconda are part of the Chesterian Series of late Mississippian age. The Big Clifty Sandstone was deposited in deltaic to marginal marine environment by the paleo Michigan River which in modern directions flowed south from the Canadian shield, the sediment source, and then westward depositing sediment across Illinois, Kentucky, and Indiana, as the Big Clifty Formation of the Stephensport Group. At Mammoth Cave National Park the Big Clifty overlies the Girkin Formation, the uppermost of three cave forming carbonate formations which the Mammoth-Flint Ridge cave system spans. Below the Girkin Formation are the Ste. Genevieve Limestone, and the St. Louis Limestone respectively. The chemically resistant sediments comprising the Big Clifty, and similar siliciclastics, act as a caprock over the dissolving carbonates. The presence of the Big Clifty is one of several contributory factors that create favorable conditions for the formation, and subsequent preservation, of connected cavernous porosity in the Mammoth-Flint Ridge cave system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Payne Formation</span> Carboniferous period geologic formation in Appalachia and Southeastern United States

The Fort Payne Formation, or Fort Payne Chert, is a geologic formation found in the southeastern region of the United States. It is a Mississippian Period cherty limestone, that overlies the Chattanooga Shale, and underlies the St. Louis Limestone. To the north, it grades into the siltstone Borden Formation. It preserves fossils dating back to the Carboniferous period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pottsville Formation</span>

The Pennsylvanian Pottsville Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, western Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, and Alabama. It is a major ridge-former in the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians of the eastern United States. The Pottsville Formation is conspicuous at many sites along the Allegheny Front, the eastern escarpment of the Allegheny or Appalachian Plateau.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Borden Formation</span> Mississippian period geologic formation in Appalachia and Midwest United States

The Mississippian Borden Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, West Virginia, and Tennessee. It has many members, which has led some geologists to consider it a group rather than a formation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fayetteville Shale</span>

The Fayetteville Shale is a geologic formation of Mississippian age composed of tight shale within the Arkoma Basin of Arkansas and Oklahoma. It is named for the city of Fayetteville, Arkansas, and requires hydraulic fracturing to release the natural gas contained within.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bluestone Formation</span>

The Bluestone Formation is a geologic formation in West Virginia. It is the youngest unit of the Upper Mississippian-age Mauch Chunk Group. A pronounced unconformity separates the upper boundary of the Bluestone Formation from sandstones of the overlying Pennsylvanian-age Pocahontas Formation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bluefield Formation</span> Geologic formation in West Virginia, United States

The Bluefield Formation is a geologic formation in West Virginia. It preserves fossils dating back to the Mississippian subperiod of the Carboniferous period. Sediments of this age formed along a large marine basin lying in the region of what is now the Appalachian Plateau. The Bluefield Formation is the lowest section of the primarily siliciclastic Mauch Chunk Group, underlying the Stony Gap Sandstone Member of the Hinton Formation and overlying the limestone-rich Greenbrier Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cleveland Shale</span> Geologic formation in the United States

The Cleveland Shale, also referred to as the Cleveland Member, is a shale geologic formation in the eastern United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cuyahoga Formation</span> Geologic formation in Ohio

The Cuyahoga Formation is a geologic formation in Ohio. The age of the formation is difficult to determine, because of a lack of diagnostic fossils. Roughly, the formation dates from the Late Kinderhookian to the Middle Osagean. Eight members are recognized, among them the Orangeville Shale, Sharpsville Sandstone, and Meadville Shale.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salem Limestone</span>

The Salem Formation is a geologic formation in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Missouri. It preserves fossils dating back to the Mississippian subperiod. This formation is quarried and used as a building material, known as "Indiana limestone", also called Bedford limestone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raccoon Creek Group</span> Geologic group in Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky

The Raccoon Creek Group is a geologic group in Indiana. It preserves fossils dating back to the Carboniferous period.

The Big Clifty Formation is a geologic formation in Indiana. It preserves fossils dating back to the Carboniferous period.

The Pennington Formation is a geologic formation named for Pennington Gap, Virginia. It can be found in outcrops along Pine Mountain and Cumberland Mountain in Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee, where it is the uppermost Mississippian-age formation. The name has also been applied to similar Mississippian strata in the Cumberland Escarpment of eastern Kentucky, though the rocks in that area were later renamed to the Paragon Formation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bloyd Formation</span>

The Bloyd Formation, or Bloyd Shale, is a geologic formation in Arkansas. It preserves fossils dating back to the Carboniferous period.

The Helms Formation is a geologic formation in Texas and New Mexico. It preserves fossils dating back to the Chesterian (Serpukhovian) Age of the Carboniferous period.

The geology of Ohio formed beginning more than one billion years ago in the Proterozoic eon of the Precambrian. The igneous and metamorphic crystalline basement rock is poorly understood except through deep boreholes and does not outcrop at the surface. The basement rock is divided between the Grenville Province and Superior Province. When the Grenville Province crust collided with Proto-North America, it launched the Grenville orogeny, a major mountain building event. The Grenville mountains eroded, filling in rift basins and Ohio was flooded and periodically exposed as dry land throughout the Paleozoic. In addition to marine carbonates such as limestone and dolomite, large deposits of shale and sandstone formed as subsequent mountain building events such as the Taconic orogeny and Acadian orogeny led to additional sediment deposition. Ohio transitioned to dryland conditions in the Pennsylvanian, forming large coal swamps and the region has been dryland ever since. Until the Pleistocene glaciations erased these features, the landscape was cut with deep stream valleys, which scoured away hundreds of meters of rock leaving little trace of geologic history in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic.

The Rancheria Formation is a geologic formation in the Sacramento and San Andres Mountains of New Mexico, the Franklin Mountains of southern New Mexico and western Texas, and the Hueco Mountains of western Texas. It preserves fossils dating back to the Visean Age of the Mississippian.

The Carbondale Group is a Middle Pennsylvanian aged unit found in the Illinois Basin. This geologic unit is made up of siliciclastic rock and coal beds.

The Buffalo Wallow Group is a geologic group found in Indiana and Kentucky. It is equivalent to the Upper Pope Group as the two share some formations. However many of the formations in the Upper Pope pinch out and are not present in the Buffalo Wallow. The Buffalo Wallow is defined as the formations between the top of the Glen Dean Limestone up to the disconformity where it meets the Mansfield Limestone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knox Supergroup</span> Widespread geologic group in the Southeastern United States

The Knox Supergroup, also known as the Knox Group and the Knox Formation, is a widespread geologic group in the Southeastern United States. The age is from the Late Cambrian to the Early Ordovician. Predominantly, it is composed of carbonates, chiefly dolomite, with some limestone. There are also cherty inclusions as well as thin beds of sandstone.

References

  1. Stamm, N. 2020b, Geologic Unit: Menard, National Geologic Map Database, Geolex, United States Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia.
  2. Willman, H.B., Atherton, Elwood, Buschbach, T.C., Collinson, Charles, Frye, J.C., Hopkins, M.E., Lineback, J.A., and Simon, J.A., 1975, Handbook of Illinois stratigraphy: Illinois Geological Survey Bulletin, no. 95, 261 p.
  3. Kolata, D.R. 2005, Bedrock Geology of Illinois: Champaign, Ill. U.S. Geological Survey (Report). Retrieved 16 December 2023.
  4. Askari, Zohreh; Lasemi, Yaghoob (16 December 2022). "Geological characterization and ROZ potential of the Tar Springs Sandstone". U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information.
  5. Gray, Henry H. (1978). Buffalo Wallow Group Upper Chesterian (Mississippian) of Southern Indiana (Report). Indiana Geological & Water Survey.
  6. "Walche Limestone Member". igws.indiana.edu.
  7. Swann, David Henry (November 17, 1963). "Classification of Genevievian and Chesterian (late Mississippian) rocks of Illinois". Report of Investigations No. 216 via www.ideals.illinois.edu.
  8. Droste, J. B., and Keller, S. J., 1995, Subsurface stratigraphy and distribution of oil fields of the Buffalo Wallow Group (Mississippian) in Indiana: Indiana Geological Survey Bulletin 63, 24 p.