Tallahatta Formation

Last updated
Tallahatta Formation
Stratigraphic range: Paleogene
Type Formation
Unit of Claiborne Group
Sub-unitsBasic City Shale (or Clay) Member, Holly Springs Sand Member, Meridian Sand Member, Neshoba Sand Member
Underlies Winona Formation
Overlies Carrizo Formation
Lithology
Primary shale, sand
Location
RegionFlag of Alabama.svg  Alabama,Flag of Florida.svg  Florida Flag of Georgia (U.S. state).svg  Georgia (U.S. state), Flag of Mississippi.svg  Mississippi, and subsurface in Flag of Kentucky.svg  Kentucky [1]
CountryFlag of the United States.svg  United States
Type section
Named forTallahatta Hills, Alabama

The Tallahatta Formation is a geologic formation found on the surface in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi. It is also located in the subsurface of Kentucky. [1] The Tallahatta formation is part of the Claiborne Group [2] and contains four members: the Basic City Shale in Mississippi, the Holy Springs Sand Member in Mississippi, the Meridian Sand Member in Alabama and Mississippi, and the Neshoba Sand Member in Mississippi. [1] [3] It preserves fossils dating back to the Paleogene period, specifically the Eocene. [1]

Contents

History

As early as 1823, the rocks that would later become the Tallahatta Formation was referred to as "Buhrstone", a type of porous limestone. [3] Other terms used to describe this rock were "Siliceous Claiborne" in Mississippi and the "Choctaw buhrstone" in Alabama. [1] [2] These rocks became known as the Tallahatta Formation in 1898. [3] Originally, the Winona Formation was considered part of the Tallahatta as the Winona Sand Member before it was split off as a separate formation. [3] No submembers exist in Georgia or Florida for this formation. In South Carolina, the basal member of the Claiborne Group is called the Conagree Formation, which correlates to the Tallahatta Formation. [4] It has been proposed that the Tallahatta Formation in Georgia be renamed the Conagree Formation. [5]

Members

Basic City Shale

The Basic City Shale Member gets its name from Basic, Mississippi. It is also called the Basic Claystone or Basic Clay Member. [3] It is a siliceous shale interlaminated with beds of sandstone and siltstone. [2] It is described as "sparingly fossiliferous" [3] and contains signs of bioturbation. It was deposited in a near-shore, quiet marine environment. [2] It overlays the Meridian Sand Member.

Holly Springs Sand Member

The Holly Springs Sand Member takes its name from Holly Springs, Mississippi. It was originally considered a member of the Wilcox Formation in Mississippi and is dominated by coarse grained, cross bedded sand. The name was abandoned, upgraded to a formation, and added as a member of the Tallahatta Formation. It is still considered a separate formation in Missouri as part of the Wilcox Group. [6]

Meridian Sand Member

The Meridian Sand Member was named for Meridian, Mississippi and is a very coarse to medium, nonfossiliferous sand. [3] It was also called the Meridian Formation, the Meridian Sand, or the Meridian Buhrstone, and is not always grouped as part of the Tallahatta Formation and some earlier works considered it part of the Wilcox Group. [7] It is the oldest member of the Tallahatta Formation and is thought to represent a fluvial deposition. [7]

Neshoba Sand Member

The Neshoba Sand Member was named for Neshoba Co., Mississippi and is a non-fossiliferous sand. It was considered part of the Winona Formation, but was separated out due to its low glauconite concentration and the presence of an unconformity. [2] [3] The sand grains grow steadily coarser from top to bottom, and is thought to represent a marine regression depositional environment. [3]

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">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">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">Mowry Shale</span>

The Mowry Shale is an Early Cretaceous geologic formation. The formation was named for Mowrie Creek, northwest of Buffalo in Johnson County, Wyoming.

The Kiowa Formation or Kiowa Shale is a Cretaceous geologic formation in Kansas, diminishing to member status in Colorado and Oklahoma. In Colorado, the Kiowa Shale was classified as a member of the now abandoned Purgatoire Formation. In the vicinity of Longford, Kansas, the local Longford member comprises thinly bedded siltstone, clay, polished gravel, lignite, and sandstone suggests a river and estuary environment.

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

The Jordan Formation is a siliciclastic sedimentary rock unit identified in Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. Named for distinctive outcrops in the Minnesota River Valley near the town of Jordan, it extends throughout the Iowa Shelf and eastward over the Wisconsin Arch and Lincoln anticline into the Michigan Basin.

The Albemarle Group is a geologic group in North Carolina composed of metamorphosed mafic and felsic volcanic rock, sandstone, siltstone, shale, and mudstone. It is considered part of the Carolina Slate Belt and covers several counties in central North Carolina. It preserves fossils dating back to the Ediacaran period in the Floyd Church member.

The Java Formation is a geologic formation in Kentucky, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia. It preserves fossils dating back to the Devonian period. The formation comprises the Pipe Creek Shale, Wiscoy Sandstone Member in New York, and Hanover Shale Member except in Tennessee.

The Hatchetigbee Bluff Formation is a geologic formation in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi. The youngest unit of the Wilcox Group preserves fossils dating back to the Ypresian stage of the Eocene period, or Wasatchian in the NALMA classification. The formation is named for Hatchetigbee Bluff on the Tombigbee River, Washington County, Alabama.

The Odenville Limestone is a geologic formation in Alabama. It preserves fossils dating from the early Ordovician Period.

The Winona Formation is a sand geologic formation in Mississippi. It preserves fossils dating back to the Paleogene period.

The Weches Formation is a greensand, slay, and shale geologic formation in Louisiana and Eastern Texas. It preserves fossils dating back to the Paleogene period, specifically the Eocene.

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

The Oread Limestone is a geologic unit of formation rank within the Shawnee Group throughout much of its extent. It is exposed in Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Iowa. The type locality is Mount Oread within Lawrence, Kansas. It preserves fossils of the Carboniferous period. Although it has significant shale members, its limestone members are resistant and form escarpments and ridges. Limestone from the unit is a historic building material in Kansas, particularly in the early buildings of the University of Kansas; standing examples include Spooner Hall and Dyche Hall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graneros Shale</span> Geological formation

The Graneros Shale is a geologic formation in the United States identified in the Great Plains as well as New Mexico that dates to the Cenomanian Age of the Cretaceous Period. It is defined as the finely sandy argillaceous or clayey near-shore/marginal-marine shale that lies above the older, non-marine Dakota sand and mud, but below the younger, chalky open-marine shale of the Greenhorn. This definition was made in Colorado by G. K. Gilbert and has been adopted in other states that use Gilbert's division of the Benton's shales into Carlile, Greenhorn, and Graneros. These states include Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and New Mexico as well as corners of Minnesota and Iowa. North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana have somewhat different usages — in particular, north and west of the Black Hills, the same rock and fossil layer is named Belle Fourche Shale.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wellington Formation</span> Geological formation

The Wellington Formation is an Early Permian geologic formation in Kansas and Oklahoma. The formation's Hutchinson Salt Member is more recognized by the community than the formation itself, and the salt is still mined in central Kansas. The Wellington provides a rich record of Permian insects and its beddings provide evidence for reconstruction of tropical paleoclimates of the Icehouse Permian with the ability in cases to measure the passage of seasons. Tens of thousands of insect fossil recovered from the Wellington shales are kept in major collections at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology and Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.

The Red Eagle Formation is a geologic formation ranging from Oklahoma, through Kansas, into southeast Nebraska of the United States. Its members define the Carboniferous-Permian boundary in Kansas.

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

The Blanco Formation, originally named the Blanco Canyon Beds, is an early Pleistocene geologic formation of clay, sand, and gravel whitened by calcium carbonate cementation and is recognized in Texas and Kansas.

The Belle Fourche Formation or Belle Fourche Shale is a fossiliferous early Late-Cretaceous geologic formation classification in Wyoming. Named for outcrops in Belle Fourche River, Wyoming, this unit name is also used in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

The La Jolla Group is a group of geologic formations in coastal southwestern San Diego County, Southern California. Its locations include the coastal La Jolla San Diego region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roca Formation (United States)</span>

The Roca Formation is an early Permian geologic formation (Wolfcampian) with its exposure running north and south through Kansas and extending into Nebraska and Oklahoma, notably comprising varicolored black, brown, gray, green, red, and blue shales, mudstones, and limestone, some of which representing Permian paleosols.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Unit Summary Geologic Unit: Tallahatta". National Geologic Map Database Geolex. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Thomas, Emil P. "The Claiborne" (PDF). Mississippi State Geological Survey Bulletin. 48: 15–28. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Merrill, Robert K.; Sims, James J.; Gann, Delbert E.; Liles, Kenneth J. (1985). "Newton County geology and mineral resources" (PDF). Mississippi Bureau of Geology Bulletin. 126: 24–33. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
  4. ↑ Smith, Le Brun N. (1958). "The Eocene Congaree Formation" (PDF). Mineral Industries Laboratory Monthly Bulletin. 2 (8): 54. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
  5. ↑ Huddlestun, Paul F.; Summerour, Joseph H. (1996). "The Lithostratigraphic Framework of the Uppermost Cretaceous and Lower Tertiary of Eastern Burke County, Georgia" (PDF). Georgia Geologic Survey Bulletin. 1996: 31–43. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
  6. ↑ "Significant Publications Geologic Unit: Holly Springs". National Geologic Map Database Geolex. USGS. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
  7. 1 2 "Significant Publications Geographic Unit: Meridian". National Geologic Map Database Geolex. USGS. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.