Environmental and tectonic influences on the formation and distribution of carbonate nodules above the Springfield coal seam, southern Illinois Basin

Abstract

Carbonate nodules have been encountered for many years in the southern Illinois Basin, in parts of southern Illinois, southern Indiana, and southwestern Kentucky. The nodules occur as oblate spheroids of calcium carbonate that are isolated in the shale immediate roof of coal mines. They are common in the Springfield coal seam, known as the No. 5 seam in Illinois, and as the No. 9 seam in western Kentucky. Several different mechanisms have been proposed for the formation of various semi-spherical objects in coal measure rocks. The distribution and association with rooted horizons suggest that carbonate nodules in black fossiliferous shale observed in the roof of a studied mine in the Springfield seam represent pedogenic carbonate paleosols, which formed in a caliche-favoring environment subsequent to Springfield mire deposition. This interpretation is supported by 87Sr/ 86Sr isotope ratios of 0.710893 ± 13 to 0.711035 ± 12, which indicate a freshwater rather than seawater source. Petrographic examination of rock textures and mineral grains indicates that nodules collected from two Illinois Basin coal mines are composed of subangular grains of fine-grained, crystalline microspar. Although the carbonate is not ferroan, iron hydroxide stains interstices between microspar grains. The rounded, commonly pinched boundaries of nodules truncate commonly imbricated microspar grains. In contrast, concentric growth patterns are not observed except as defined by secondary, subhedral to euhedral pyrite crystals that form a diffuse, concentric replacement zone around the nodule's outer rind. Polished slickensides, with well-developed radial slickenlines, are developed at highly compacted margins in black shale or mudstone that commonly encases the carbonate nodules. Of the 450 carbonate nodules documented at a study mine in the southern Illinois Basin, the long axes of 36% are preferentially aligned parallel to regional structures such as anticline axes and drag folds that are interpreted to have formed in response to compression during the Late Pennsylvanian-Permian Alleghanian orogeny. Mapping also suggests that clusters of carbonate nodules are spatially associated with the trends of low-angle drag folds in the immediate roof of the Springfield seam at the study mine. The preferential elongation and distribution with respect to tectonic structures suggest that regional compression influenced the shape and distribution of carbonate nodules, and that nodule lithification may have been approximately contemporaneous with regional deformation.