Sinnipee Group

Last updated
Sinnipee Group
Stratigraphic range: Ordovician
Type Group
Sub-units Platteville limestone, Decorah Shale & Galena Group [ clarification needed ]
Lithology
Primary Limestone
Other Dolomite, shale
Location
Region Wisconsin
CountryFlag of the United States.svg  United States

The Sinnipee Group is a geological group in Wisconsin. It consists primarily of sedimentary carbonate rocks. Primarily made of dolomite, it also has limestone as a secondary component and can even have shale imbedded with it. It was formed in the Ordovician period and has three rock members: Galena, Decorah, and Platteville formations. [1]

Contents

Formations

The Platteville Limestone is one of the formations of the Sinnipee Group. It is primarily made of limestone. It lies over the Glenwood Shale. In many places, the Platteville Limestone has dolomitic mottles. This member is heavily jointed and the mottles happened before the jointing. This particular member is being quarried heavily. While not as full as the Decorah Shale, the Platteville Limestone is a large layer that has bryozoans, brachiopods, clams, snails, cephalopods, and trilobites that can be found in the limestone sediments. The Platteville Limestone is easily seen along the roads following the Mississippi River due to erosion.

The Decorah Shale is another formation of the Sinnipee Group. It is primarily made of fossiliferous shale. It lies on top of the platteville limestone formed by the shallow sea that covered central North America. Because of its chemistry it tends to erode rapidly. Since the Decorah Shale is fossiliferous the Decorah Shale layer is often used as a place for amateur fossil hunters to begin their collections. It also serves as release of phosphate ions into the ground water system if acid rain is introduced to it. This allows, in some cases, for new minerals. The Decorah Shale formation is made of three members. These members are the Spects Ferry, an argillaceous limestone, [2] argillaceous dolomite, [3] Calcareous shale and argillaceous limestones. [4]

The Galena Group is also a formation of the Sinnipee Group. It is primarily made of Limestone and is deposited on the Decorah Shale. The Galena Group is considered fossiliferous. It is believed that the Galena Group was deposited in a calm marine environment.

Counties

The Sinnipee Group covers around 25% of Wisconsin, [5] including part or all of the following counties: Brown, Calumet, Dane, Dodge, Fond du Lac, Grant, Green, Green Lake, Iowa, Jefferson, Lafayette, Marinette, Oconto, Outagamie, Rock, Walworth, Waukesha, Winnebago.

Formation

Formation of the Sinnipee Group took place in the Ordovician. It is believed that this group formed from a shallow sea that once covered much of North America. Each of its formations have their own pattern to their deposition and each is slightly different however they are unified by a shallow sea.

Landscape

Because of being mostly made of dolomite and limestone the landscape has become a Karst environment. This is important because the karst environment influences the Water movement in the rock layers. The Sinnipee Group has many Springs and several cave systems including Cave of the Mounds. This environment even allows for disappearing streams. Another reason this environment is important is because it has so many places to store water and that water is almost a limitless resource. The water leads to better agricultural yields as well as affecting our land such as watered lawns, and some protection from droughts or floods.

Overburden

The Sinnipee Group over burden consists of glacial till from the Laurentide Ice Sheet that is around 11,000 years ago. However, this till only covers to the driftless zone and does not extend where the glaciers did not.

See also

Related Research Articles

The Devonian Mahantango Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Maryland. It is named for the North branch of the Mahantango Creek in Perry and Juniata counties in Pennsylvania. It is a member of the Hamilton Group, along with the underlying the Marcellus Formation Shale. South of Tuscarora Mountain in south central Pennsylvania, the lower members of this unit were also mapped as the Montebello Formation. Details of the type section and of stratigraphic nomenclature for this unit as used by the U.S. Geological Survey are available on-line at the National Geologic Map Database.

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

The Decorah Shale is a fossiliferous shale that makes up the lowermost formation in the Galena Group. The Decorah lies above the Platteville Limestone and below the Cummingsville Formation in the sedimentary sequence that formed from the shallow sea that covered central North America during Ordovician Time. The Decorah consists of three members : Spechts Ferry, Guttenberg, and Ion. The Spechts Ferry member is organic-rich and suggests a large influx of terrigenous sediment during deposition. The Guttenberg is characterized by nodular calcareous beds and contains several K-bentonite deposits. The Ion Member, present in the southern Decorah in Iowa, is characterized by alternating beds of shale and limestone.

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

The Haynesville Shale is an informal, popular name for a Jurassic Period rock formation that underlies large parts of southwestern Arkansas, northwest Louisiana, and East Texas. It lies at depths of 10,500 to 13,000 feet below the land’s surface. It is part of a large rock formation which is known by geologists as the Haynesville Formation. The Haynesville Shale underlies an area of about 9,000 square miles and averages about 200 to 300 feet thick. The Haynesville Shale is overlain by sandstone of the Cotton Valley Group and underlain by limestone of the Smackover Formation.

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

The Platteville Limestone is the Ordovician limestone formation in the sedimentary sequence characteristic of the upper Midwestern United States. It is characterized by its gray color, rough texture, and numerous fossils. Its type locality is Platteville, Wisconsin. It was heavily used in the early decades of the building of Minneapolis–Saint Paul and Faribault, Minnesota.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Galena Group</span>

The Galena Group or Galena Limestone refers to a sedimentary sequence of Ordovician limestone that was deposited atop the Decorah Shale. It is part of the Ordovician stratigraphy of the Upper Midwestern United States. It was deposited in a calm marine environment, and is fossiliferous.

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

The Palliser Formation is a stratigraphic unit of Late Devonian (Famennian) age in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. It is a thick sequence of limestone and dolomitic limestone that is present in the Canadian Rockies and foothills of western Alberta. Tall cliffs formed of the Palliser Formation can be seen throughout Banff and Jasper National Parks.

The Beaverhill Lake Group is a geologic unit of Middle Devonian to Late Devonian age in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin that is present in the southwestern Northwest Territories, northeastern British Columbia and Alberta. It was named by the geological staff of Imperial Oil in 1950 for Beaverhill Lake, Alberta, based on the core from a well that they had drilled southeast of the lake, near Ryley, Alberta.

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

The Queenston Formation is a geological formation of Upper Ordovician age, which outcrops in Ontario, Canada and New York, United States. A typical outcrop of the formation is exposed at Bronte Creek just south of the Queen Elizabeth Way. The formation is a part of the Queenston Delta clastic wedge, formed as an erosional response to the Taconic Orogeny. Lithologically, the formation is dominated by red and grey shales with thin siltstone, limestone and sandstone interlayers. As materials, comprising the clastic wedge, become coarser in close proximity to the Taconic source rocks, siltstone and sandstone layers are predominant in New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paleontology in Wisconsin</span>

Paleontology in Wisconsin refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The state has fossils from the Precambrian, much of the Paleozoic, some a parts of the Mesozoic and the later part of the Cenozoic. Most of the Paleozoic rocks are marine in origin. Because of the thick blanket of Pleistocene glacial sediment that covers the rock strata in most of the state, Wisconsin’s fossil record is relatively sparse. In spite of this, certain Wisconsin paleontological occurrences provide exceptional insights concerning the history and diversity of life on Earth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bright Angel Shale</span> Cambrian geologic formation found in the Southwestern United States

The Bright Angel Shale is one of five geological formations that comprise the Cambrian Tonto Group. It and the other formations of the Tonto Group outcrop in the Grand Canyon, Arizona, and parts of northern Arizona, central Arizona, southeast California, southern Nevada, and southeast Utah. The Bright Angel Shale consists of locally fossiliferous, green and red-brown, micaceous, fissile shale (mudstone) and siltstone with local, thicker beds of brown to tan sandstone and limestone. It ranges in thickness from 57 to 450 feet. Typically, its thin-bedded shales and sandstones are interbedded in cm-scale cycles. They also exhibit abundant sedimentary structures that include current, oscillation, and interference ripples. The Bright Angel Shale also gradually grades downward into the underlying Tapeats Sandstone. It also complexly interfingers with the overlying Muav Limestone. These characters make the upper and lower contacts of the Bright Angel Shale often difficult to define. Typically, its thin-bedded shales and sandstones erode into green and red-brown slopes that rise from the Tonto Platform up to cliffs formed by limestones of the overlying Muav Limestone and dolomites of the Frenchman Mountain Dolostone.

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

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">Milwaukee Formation</span>

The Milwaukee Formation is a fossil-bearing geological formation of Middle Devonian age in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. It stands out for the exceptional diversity of its fossil biota. Included are many kinds of marine protists, invertebrates, and fishes, as well as early trees and giant fungi.

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

The Greenhorn Limestone or Greenhorn Formation is a geologic formation in the Great Plains Region of the United States, dating to the Cenomanian and Turonian ages of the Late Cretaceous period. The formation gives its name to the Greenhorn cycle of the Western Interior Seaway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Montoya Group</span>

The Montoya Group is a group of geologic formations in westernmost Texas and southern New Mexico. It preserves fossils dating back to the late Ordovician period.

The Favel Formation is a stratigraphic unit of Late Cretaceous age. It is present in southern Manitoba and southeastern Saskatchewan, and consists primarily of calcareous shale. It was named for the Favel River near Minitonas, Manitoba, by R.T.D. Wickenden in 1945.

The Mount Hawk Formation is a stratigraphic unit of Late Devonian age. It is present on the western edge of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin in the Rocky Mountains and foothills of Alberta. It consists primarily of limestone and mudstone, and was named for Hawk Mountain in Jasper National Park by R. de Wit and D.J. McLaren in 1950.

The Fairholme Group is a stratigraphic unit of Late Devonian (Frasnian) age. It is present on the western edge of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin in the Rocky Mountains and foothills of Alberta and British Columbia. It was named for the Fairholme Range near Exshaw in the Canadian Rockies by H.H. Beach in 1943.

The Waynesboro Formation is a limestone, dolomite, and sandstone geologic formation in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. In some areas it is composed of limestone and dolomite. The Waynsboro Formation is one of the formations that make up the Shenandoah Valley. It dates back to the Cambrian period and is not considered fossiliferous.

The Huntersville Chert or Huntersville Formation is a Devonian geologic formation in the Appalachian region of the United States. It is primarily composed of mottled white, yellow, and dark grey chert, and is separated from the underlying Oriskany Sandstone by an unconformity. The Huntersville Chert is laterally equivalent to the Needmore Shale, which lies north of the New River. It is also laterally equivalent to a sandy limestone unit which is often equated with the Onondaga Limestone. These formations are placed in the Onesquethaw Stage of Appalachian chronostratigraphy, roughly equivalent to the Emsian and Eifelian stages of the broader Devonian system.

The Maligne Formation is a stratigraphic unit of Late Devonian (Frasnian) age. It is present on the western edge of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin in the Rocky Mountains and foothills of Alberta and British Columbia. It consists primarily of argillaceous limestone and calcareous mudstone, and was named for the Maligne River in Jasper National Park by P.W. Taylor in 1957.

References

  1. "Sinnipee Group". United States Geological Survey. Retrieved 20 October 2014.
  2. "Geologic Unit: Spects Ferry". United States Geological Survey. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
  3. "Geologic Unit: Guttenberg". United States Geological Survey. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
  4. "Geologic Unit: Ion". United States Geological Survey. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
  5. "Aggregate Resources of the Sinnipee Group in Eastern and Southern Wisconsin". United States Geological Survey. Retrieved 20 October 2014.