Sedimentology and Lithofacies of the Eocene Skookumchuck Formation in the Centralia Coal Mine, Southwest Washington: ABSTRACT

Abstract

The late middle to late Eocene Skookumchuck Formation is well exposed in highwalls of the Centralia mine, southwest Washington. Three coal zones and intervening sandstone-rich successions occur in a 220-m-thick interval that extends from below the Smith to above the Tono No. 1 coal beds. The Smith-Big Dirty, Lower-Upper Thompson, and Tono No.`s. 1-2 coal zones contain coal beds that range from 0.5 to 15 m thick. The coal beds are interbedded with coarsening-upward units of mudstone, siltstone, and sandstone that are burrowed, flaser-and lenticular-bedded, mud-draped in their lower part, and rippled, wavy bedded, and tabular crossbedded (with reactivation surfaces) in their upper part. These coarsening-upward units are commonly overlain erosionally by fining-upward beds of trough-crossbedded, rippled, burrowed, and rooted sandstones. Coal formed in low-lying peat mires above mean high tide levels. Two discrete facies occur in the sandstone-rich successions between the coal zones. The first facies consists of very fine to coarse grained sandstones that have sharply defined bases and tops and are heavily bioturbated, horizontally bedded, trough crossbedded, hummocky bedded, and rippled. The second facies of the sandstone-rich successions consists of sandstone, siltstone, and mudstone beds with common ripple lamination, lenticular and flaser bedding, trough crossbedding, biotrubation, bivalvemore » fossils, and root marks. Upward thinning of coal beds is consistent with deposition during a major transgression. These coals formed in mires of the tidally influenced coastal plain in the Centralia mine area, in contrast to coals elsewhere in Washington that accumulated in mires of the fluvial- and distributary-channel-influenced coastal plain. The Northcraft volcanic center to the east probably deflected fluvial drainages of the coastal plain to the north and south.« less