Bedrock Geologic Database of the Vincennes 30- x 60-Minute Quadrangle, Indiana

Abstract

Located in the eastern Illinois Basin, the Vincennes 1:100,000-scale quadrangle comprises portions of Daviess, Knox, Sullivan, and Greene Counties in Indiana. It is situated in the rolling topography of the Wabash Lowland and dominated by Pennsylvanian-age coal-bearing strata. Pennsylvanian siliciclastics in the Vincennes quadrangle host economically significant coal seams. The most widespread coal beds occur in the Carbondale Group, but the Raccoon Creek Group hosts superior coal quality (low sulfur, low ash) in Indiana. Both surface and underground mining of these coals have been extensive, with expansive impacts on the landscape and subsequent reclamation. Bedrock outcrop is largely obscured by multiple cycles of glacial sediments, and extensive fluvial activity of the Wabash River has formed deep channels (paleo and active) filled with outwash and alluvium. The geological map of Gray and others (1970) is the fundamental compilation of previous geological knowledge from this area. Additional geological information for the Vincennes quadrangle comes from previous 1:24k-scale mapping through the STATEMAP program. Specifically, Fraser and others (1998) conducted bedrock mapping in the 7.5-minute Wheatland and Washington quadrangles, and Fraser and Zlotin (1997) did some mapping in the 7.5-minute Montgomery quadrangle. Conolly and others (1996) performed a coal availability study in the 7.5-minute Wheatland quadrangle. However, the most information for the 1:100k Vincennes quadrangle and, more broadly, the western corridor, comes from the Indiana-scale coal seam mapping conducted between 2011 and 2017 based on the Indiana Coal Stratigraphic Database (NCRDS) and Indiana Coal Quality Database (ICQD), and geophysical logs from petroleum wells archived in the Petroleum Database Management System (PDMS). These data were previously presented in Esri-based Indiana Coal Atlas StoryMaps for the entire western corridor (Drobniak and others, 2017a, 2017b, 2017c, 2017d). This geologic map was funded in part through the STATEMAP Program supported by the U.S. Geological Survey under Cooperative Agreement No. G21AC10646. The Bedrock Geologic Database of the Vincennes 30- x 60- Minute Quadrangle is a composite geodata set that conforms to "GeMS (Geologic Map Schema)--a standard format for the digital publication of geologic maps," available at http://ngmdb.usgs.gov/Info/standards/GeMS/. Metadata records associated with each element within the geodata set contain more detailed descriptions of their purposes, constituent entities, and attributes. An OPEN shapefile version of the data set is also available. It consists of shapefiles, DBF files, and delimited text files and retains all information in the native geodatabase, but some programming will likely be necessary to assemble these components into usable formats.