Indian Springs Shale Member

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Indian Springs Shale Member

• Of the Big Clifty Group in
• Southern Indiana

Geology 220 Invertebrate Palaeontology Class
Project, 2002 University of Regina Todd A.
Radenbaugh
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Sequence of Stratigraphic Units

• Sulpher Section, IN

From Horowitz and Kelly 1987
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Chesterian Section Near Sulphur, IN

• Late Mississippian
• Middle Chesterian
• Study site
• Junction of I-64 and IN State road 37

• Rocks collected

Adapted from Horowitz and Kelly 1987
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Big Clifty Formations - Outcrop

• 30 meters of exposed outcrop

Haney Limestone Indian Springs Shale Big Clifty
Sandstone
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Sedimentary Features

• Lower units
• Sandy few fossils
• Upper units
• finer grained and fossiliferous

From Horowitz and Kelly 1987
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Chesterian Series

• Mississippian Rock.
• Stephensport Group.
• Big Clifty Formation.
• composed in descending order of 1 to 4 m of gray
  fossiliferous shale and interbedded limestone, 1
  to 3 m of varicolored mudstone and siltstone, 8
  to 12 m of thin-bedded fine-grained sandstone,
  and in places as much as 2 m of black
  pyritiferous shale at the base.
• The top 1 to 4 m is the Indian Spring Shale.

From Horowitz and Kelly 1987
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Indian Springs Shale Member

• Indian Springs Shale Member.
• upper part of the Big Clifty Formation with a
  distinctive and diverse fauna.
• 1 to 4 m of gray fossiliferous shale and inter
  bedded thin limestone underlain by 1 to 3 m of
  varicolored shale and siltstone.
• Two sections
• Upper unit fossiliferous
• Lower unit few macrofossils

From Horowitz and Kelly 1987
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Upper Shale Unit

• Interbedded limestone and calcareous shale
• Highly fossiliferous
• Fossils more abundant in shale

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Haney Limestone

• Overlies Indian Spring Shale
• Skeletal limestone and Micritic dolomite
• Crinoids and Fenestrates
• Represents an offshore facies

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Indian Springs Shale Fossils

• Highly diverse Brachiopods

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Indian Springs Shale Fossils

• Bryozoans
• Crinoids
• Blastoids

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Analyzed in the Lab

• Various methods were used to study the
  paleoecology of the Indian Springs Shale

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More stuff
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Add your own data

• Point counting
• Relative abundance
• Importance values
• Rock descriptions
• Diversity indices
• More