Ohio Shale Research Articles

Division of Black Ohio Shale in Eastern Kentucky: GEOLOGIC NOTES

In the upper part of the Devonian Ohio Shale and its equivalents in eastern Kentucky and nearby Ohio, West Virginia, and Tennessee, a useful marker bed, herein named the Three Lick Bed, has been identified. The Three Lick Bed consists of three greenish-gray shale beds separated by fissile, brownish-black shale. The distinctive greenish-gray shale beds are easily recognized in outcrop in seven sections on the east flank of the Cincinnati arch from southern Ohio into Tennessee, have a distinctive signature on wire-line logs, and can be identified in well cuttings in much of eastern Kentucky and adjacent parts of Ohio and West Virginia. The Three Lick Bed correlates with the middle unit of the Gassaway Member of the Chattanooga Shale in Tennessee, with the lower part of the Camp Run Member of the New Albany Shale in Indiana, and with part of the Chagrin Shale in easter Ohio.

Occurrence of Foerstia (Protosalvinia) in Lincoln County, West Virginia

Fossilized fragments of the Late Devonian pelagic alga Foerstia ( Protosalvinia ) were collected from the Columbia Gas Transmission Corporation well 20403 that was drilled in the western part of Lincoln County in southwestern West Virginia. This is the first report of an occurrence of Foerstia ( Protosalvinia ) in West Virginia, and its presence in the core supports the physical correlation of the zone that contains these fossils with the Huron Member of the Ohio Shale.

MORPHOLOGY OF PROTOSALVINIA FROM THE UPPER DEVONIAN OF OHIO AND KENTUCKY

Protosalvinia has a large thallus on which P. arnoldii and P. ravenna forms develop. Light and scanning electron microscopy of Upper Devonian compression forms of Protosalvinia arnoldii, P. ravenna and P. furcata from the Ohio Shale of Kentucky and Ohio, statistical analyses of their cellular dimensions and patterns, and mathematical constructs of thallus shapes and sizes indicate that P. ravenna and P. furcata forms could be ontogenetically derived from a P. arnoldii stage. Tetrads, interpreted as the meiotic sporangial products, are morphologically identical for the three forms; tetrads contain a sporopollenin fraction and occur singly in closed, hypodermal conceptacles. Solitary, multicellular, stalked clavate structures occur in similar closed chambers. Fossil thalli are composed of hydrocarbons with some lignin‐like compounds interpretable as cuticular in nature. P. ravenna and P. furcata are morphological forms of a single species showing phenotypic plasticity within an onshore‐offshore paleoecological gradient. The form of thallus and the resistant spores are interpreted as adaptations to a littoral environment. The morphology and mode of reproduction of Protosalvinia suggest a heteromorphic diplobiontic life‐cycle, similar to the Heterogeneratae (Phaeophyta).

The 1968 Ohio Foray

The 1968 Ohio Foray of the Mycological Society of America preceded the annual meeting of the Mycological Society with the American Institute of Biological Sciences at the Ohio State University, Columbus. The Foray took place on Labor Day weekend. On Saturday we went to an oak woodland in which some pine plantations had been developed in south central Ross County 62 miles south of Columbus in Scioto Trails State Forest and State Park (I). The area is hilly, unglaciated, and lies west of the Scioto River. Sunday we visited two hollows, coves, or valleys in the Hocking Hills in Hocking State Forest. This was mixed woodland with hardwoods, hemlock [Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carr.] and scrub pine (Pinus virginiana Mill.). In the morning we collected in Crane Hollow (II), after lunch in the picnic area at Conkle's Hollow State Park, and in the afternoon we collected in Long Hollow (III). En route to Crane Hollow we stopped briefly along S. R. 180 about 2 miles west of Enterprise, Hocking Co. (II-A). Here several interesting fungi were found among herbs and willows along a nearby creek. The Hocking Hills are characterized by rugged terrain, the gorges being cut in conglomerate sandstone commonly called Black Hand. The area is unglaciated and the forests on the cliff slopes are relatively undisturbed. Monday's trip was to Camp Lazarus Boy Scout Preserve (IV) in Delaware Co. about 20 miles north of Columbus. Here we collected in a beech-maple forest with small pine plantations on glacial till over Ohio shale along a tributary of the Olentangy River, itself a tributary of the Scioto River. We wish to thank the Ohio State Department of Natural Resources, Division of Parks and Recreation, and Division of Forests and Conservation, and the management of Camp Lazarus, for permission to collect in these areas.

Oil and Gas Developments in North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio

The area covered by this report is CSD District 20, including Delaware, North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. Along the Atlantic coastal plain in North Carolina, 5 dry exploratory holes were drilled having a combined total footage of 6,785. In Maryland, 1 dry exploratory hole was drilled to the Oriskany Formation in Garrett County to a total depth of 5,340 ft. In Virginia, only a few of the 12 wells drilled in Chesterfield, Lee, and Tazewell Counties were completed as producers. Most of the gas production for the year came from Tazewell County, whereas the oil production was all in Lee County. The total footage drilled in Virginia was 22,069. Exploration in Pennsylvania resulted in 1 new shallow-field discovery, 3 new shallower pool discoveries, and 1 new deeper pool discovery. The greatest amount of Oriskany Sandstone development drilling was in the Elk Run gas field in western central Pennsylvania, whereas the most active deep drilling was in Erie and Crawford Counties (northwestern Pennsylvania) where development drilling continued in the Lower Silurian gas fields. Developments continued in the old shallow sandstone oil and gas areas of Warren and Venango Counties, as did waterflooding in the Bradford district, McKean County, and the continuation of development drilling in the Run gas field of Jefferson, Indiana, and Clearfield Counties. There were 5 major areas of interest in West Virginia: southern Monongalia County where 6 successful gas wells were completed in South Burns Chapel field in the Onondaga-Oriskany interval; the Kanawha-Putnam Counties area where Rocky Fort field underwent rapid development in the Newburg sand (Upper Silurian); northern Kanawha County where several wells were drilled for Injun oil (middle Mississippian); Nicholas County where a new gas field was being developed in the Big Lime (middle Mississippian Greenbrier Limestone); and in Roane County where 94 Injun oil wells were completed. Drilling activity in Ohio was directed toward the Cambrian in central Ohio, and the Silurian Clinton sandstones and the Lower Mississippian Berea Sandstone in southeastern Ohio. Early in 1967 a plug-back operation in a Precambrian test drilled in 1966 discovered oil in the Devonian Ohio Shale section in southeastern Ohio. Discovery of oil from the Ordovician Trenton Limestone-Dolomite in the north-central part of the state created a minor flurry of excitement.

Upper Devonian Radiolaria from the Huron Member of the Ohio Shale

Fifty-seven species of Radiolaria, 55 of them new, distributed among 11 genera, 8 of them new, are described from 3 calcareous concretions of the Upper Devonian Huron Member of the Ohio Shale. Of these, 5 are spumelline forms and 2 are interpreted as primitive cyrtellarians. Five species are doubtfully assigned to the Paleozoic family Albaillellidae Deflandre, 1952, and 5 are classed incertae sedis. This material, because of its unusually fine preservation, partially elucidates the ancestry of later Radiolaria.

UPPER DEVONIAN CORRELATIONS IN WESTERN UTAH AND EASTERN NEVADA

From the Devils Gate limestone, Pilot shale, and Pinyon Peak limestone of the eastern Great Basin, the writers have obtained 54 species of 28 conodont genera. Species of the genus Palmatolepis can be used in refined Devonian correlation and classification with the standard stages based on ammonoid genera in Europe. Three distinct assemblage zones, designated A, B, and C, are classified as Upper Manticoceras, uppermost Manticoceras or Lower Cheiloceras and Upper Cheiloceras or Lower Platyclymenia, respectively. The upper part of the Devils Gate can be correlated with the lower and middle Pilot and the upper Pinyon Peak. Zone A, present in these formations, can be correlated with zone II of the Houy formation in Texas, the Independence shale and its equivalents in Iowa and Illinois, the Olentangy shale of Ohio, and the lower part of the Perrysburg formation and its equivalents in western New York and northern Pennsylvania. Zones B and C, present in the middle-lower and middle part of the Pilot and upper part of the Devils Gate and Pinyon Peak, can be correlated with zone III of the Texas Houy formation, the Grassy Creek shale and its equivalents in Illinois and Iowa, and other sections in the mid-continent and eastern United States including the Huron member of the Ohio shale of Ohio and Kentucky and the middle and upper part of the Perrysburg formation in New York and Pennsylvania.

Germanium and uranium in coalified wood bom upper Devonian black shale

Microscopic study of black, vitreous, carbonaceous material occurring in the Chattanooga shale in Tennessee and in the Cleveland member of the Ohio shale in Ohio has revealed coalified woody plant tissue. Some samples have shown sufficient detail to be identified with the genus Cauixylon. Similar material has been reported in the literature as “bituminous” or “asphaltic” stringers. Spectrographic analyses of the ash from the coalified wood have shown unusually high percentages of germanium, uranium, vanadium, and nickel. The inverse relationship between uranium and germanium in the ash and the ash content of various samples shows an association of these elements with the organic constituents of the coal. On the basis of geochemical considerations, it seems most probable that the wood or coalified wood was germanium-bearing at the time logs or woody fragmenta were floated into the basins of deposition of the Chattanooga shale and the Cleveland member of the Ohio shale. Once within the marine environment, the material probably absorbed uranium with the formation of organo-uranium compounds such as exist in coals. It is suggested that a more systematic search for germaniferous coals in the vicinity of the Chattanooga shale and the Cleveland member of the Ohio shale might be rewarding.

The Illites from Some Northern Ohio Shales

AbstractThe Middle Paleozoic shales of northern Ohio contain a well-crystallized variety of illite as their main constituent. Powder diagrams relate the illite to the two-layer monoclinic muscovite crystallization. The low asymmetry of the 10 A reflection indicates that inter-layering of non-mica or hydrated-mica units is small. The relative intensities of the basal reflections show that the illites approach the ideal muscovite composition but have about one-fourth the octahedral aluminum replaced by iron and are deficient about one-half or less the interlayer potassium. The interlayer positions are essentially anhydrous. One-dimensional Fourier syntheses made before and after thermal treatment of the illites indicate that intensity changes of the basal reflections due to thermal treatment are related to electron density changes confined to the octahedral layer. Dehydroxylization begins at moderately low temperatures and continues until an anhydride structure is formed.

Age of Arkansas Novaculite

The Arkansas novaculite crops out in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma and, with the exception of conodonts, apparently lacks fossils useful in determining its age and correlatives. The best section is at Caddo Gap, Montgomery County, Arkansas, where the formation is 940 feet thick and its three divisions (lower, middle, and upper) are cleanly exposed--except for 80 feet of the middle division. Practically all of the conodonts reported on are from serial collections made at Caddo Gap. Because these conodonts are preserved as molds, latex impressions were made of many specimens to aid in their identification. The lower division is 466 feet thick and consists chiefly of nearly white novaculite. No fossils were collected though a previous investigator reported finding a fragmentary brachiopod in southeastern Oklahoma. This fossil--identified as Leptocoelia flabellites and generally accepted as evidence for dating the lower division--was examined and is considered to be too poorly preserved to warrant identification. On lithologic grounds and stratigraphic position, the lower division is correlated with the Camden chert of Tennessee, the Penters chert of Arkansas, and the Pinetop chert of Oklahoma; these formations are classified as Lower or Middle Devonian. The middle division is 347 feet thick. Its lower 318.5 feet consist chiefly of dark gray and greenish gray shales interbedded with dark gray novaculites whereas its upper 28 feet consist of thin, light brown and greenish gray shale and novaculite beds that are separated from the underlying ones by a 0.5-foot thick, dark gray, minutely pebbled, novaculite conglomerate. The beds below the conglomerate are placed in the Upper Devonian; the conglomerate and overlying beds are assigned to the Lower Mississippian (Kinderhook). No fossils were found in the lowermost 163 feet of the middle division; this interval is placed in the Upper Devonian on lithologic grounds even though the basal part may be slightly older. Two Upper Devonian conodont faunal zones have been recognized. The lower zone s represented by a single lot obtained 184 feet below the top of the middle division. The specifically recognizable conodonts of this zone are similar to those in the Olentangy shale of Ohio. One of the species is definitely present in a faunal zone of the Sweetland Creek shale of Iowa; it may also be present in the Dunkirk shale of New York. The higher zone ranges throughout a known interval of 93.5 feet, or 46.5-140 feet below the top of the middle division; this conodont fauna probably ranges upward through another 18 feet of beds to the base of the aforementioned conglomerate. The identifiable conodonts of the zone suggest correlation with the Huron shale of northern Ohio; the lower Ohio shale of central and southern Ohio; the Antrim shale of Michigan; a part of the middle division o the New Albany shale of Indiana; a part of the Chattanooga shale of Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama; and a part of the Woodford chert of Oklahoma. Lower Mississippian (Kinderhook) conodonts are present in the topmost 28.5 feet of the middle division. The fauna gradually changes throughout this interval. The lowermost beds contain fossils that suggest correlation with the Bushberg sandstone member of the Sulphur Springs formation of Missouri, the Hannibal shale of Missouri, the Sunbury shale of Ohio, the basal Orangeville shale of northern Ohio, and the very uppermost beds of the New Albany shale of Indiana. Beds slightly higher in the section contain conodonts of lower Chouteau age whereas those located 11.5-17.5 feet below the top of the middle division contain several specim ns of Gnathodus punctatus and Polygnathus radina. These two fossils are known only from beds of Chouteau age and suggest an alignment with the Chappel limestone of Texas and the Welden limestone of Oklahoma. The upper division is 127 feet thick and consists of nearly white, granular novaculite. No fossils were collected at Caddo Gap but a small undescribed fauna was obtained near Hatton in west-central Arkansas. An upper Kinderhook or Osage age is suggested because Chouteau conodonts are present in the topmost beds of the underlying middle division whereas Meramec conodonts are present in the basal beds of the overlying Stanley shale. The upper division is present only in the southern outcrop belt of the Arkansas novaculite; it has not been recognized north or west of McCurtain County, Oklahoma.

STRATIGRAPHY OF THE BEREA SANDSTONE AND ASSOCIATED ROCKS IN NORTHEASTERN OHIO AND NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA

Research Article| November 01, 1951 STRATIGRAPHY OF THE BEREA SANDSTONE AND ASSOCIATED ROCKS IN NORTHEASTERN OHIO AND NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA WALLACE DE WITT, JR. WALLACE DE WITT, JR. BOX 272, NEW PHILADELPHIA, OHIO. Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar GSA Bulletin (1951) 62 (11): 1347–1370. https://doi.org/10.1130/0016-7606(1951)62[1347:SOTBSA]2.0.CO;2 Article history received: 21 Jun 1951 first online: 02 Mar 2017 Cite View This Citation Add to Citation Manager Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Search Site Citation WALLACE DE WITT; STRATIGRAPHY OF THE BEREA SANDSTONE AND ASSOCIATED ROCKS IN NORTHEASTERN OHIO AND NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA. GSA Bulletin 1951;; 62 (11): 1347–1370. doi: https://doi.org/10.1130/0016-7606(1951)62[1347:SOTBSA]2.0.CO;2 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Refmanager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentBy SocietyGSA Bulletin Search Advanced Search Abstract This paper summarizes stratigraphic information obtained in a field study of Upper Devonian and lower Mississippian rocks of northeastern Ohio and northwestern Pennsylvania. The upper part of the Chagrin shale has been traced from northeastern Ohio into the Riceville shale in northwestern Pennsylvania. The Cleveland member of the Ohio shale has been traced from its type locality near Cleveland eastward into the Grand River valley in western Ashtabula County, Ohio, where the black shale of the Cleveland appears to grade laterally into the upper part of the gray Chagrin shale. The Bedford shale and the Berea sandstone have been traced eastward from northern Ohio to the vicinity of Meadville in central Crawford County, Pennsylvania. The Bedford shale is underlain by the Cleveland member of the Ohio shale west of the Grand River valley and by the Cussewago sandstone in extreme northeastern Ohio and in northwestern Pennsylvania east of Meadville. The Cussewago sandstone, which forms a good key bed, is not a part of the Berea sandstone as has been suggested previously by some geologists. The Cussewago sandstone was derived from a different source and deposited from a different direction than either the Berea sandstone or the Corry sandstone. In northwestern Pennsylvania, the Bedford shale was found to be the same as White's Cussewago shale and Chadwick's Hayfield shale. In the vicinity of Meadville, Pennsylvania, the Bedford shale and the Berea sandstone grade laterally into a thin unit of siltstones and intercalated shale, here named the Shellhammer Hollow formation. Farther east, near Riceville, Pennsylvania, the Shellhammer Hollow formation grades laterally eastward into the Corry sandstone. The Corry sandstone, therefore, can not be considered an eastern siltstone facies of the Berea sandstone as has been suggested previously, although it is a near temporal equivalent of the Berea sandstone. A very coarse-grained deltaic sandstone occurs above the stratigraphic horizon of the Corry sandstone in part of southeastern Erie County, Pennsylvania. This local sandstone is here named the Hungry Run sandstone member of the Orangeville shale. A thin silt-stone, characterized by many short curved markings, is an excellent stratigraphic marker in the basal part of the Orangeville shale, above the Berea sandstone, the Shellhammer Hollow formation, and the Corry sandstone. This siltstone, here named the Bartholomew siltstone member, has been traced widely over southern Erie County, Crawford County, and northwestern Venango County, Pennsylvania. This content is PDF only. Please click on the PDF icon to access. First Page Preview Close Modal You do not have access to this content, please speak to your institutional administrator if you feel you should have access.

Middle Devonian bone beds of Ohio

The Middle Devonian limestones of central Ohio consist of two formations, the Columbus (late Ulsterian) and the Delaware (early Erian). Within these are at least four thin bone beds: the First, 10 feet below the top of the Columbus in Franklin and southern Delaware counties, the Second, at the contact of the Columbus and the Delaware from Franklin county north to Lake Erie, the Third, 26 to 30 feet above the base of the Delaware in Franklin and Delaware counties, and the Fourth, 2 feet above the Third at Delaware. The Rocky Branch bone bed occurs in southeastern Indiana at the approximate horizon of the Second. These beds vary considerably in development, being absent at some localities and a foot or slightly thicker at others. They consist of clastic accumulations of crinoidal debris, innumerable scales, plates, teeth, and bones of fishes, conodonts, ostracods, and Foraminifera, relatively few macrofossils, mixed with rounded sand grains and a small amount of clay-size constituents, more or less thoroughly cemented by calcite. Another bone bed, the East Liberty, occurs between the Columbus formation and the Upper Devonian Ohio shale in the Bellefontaine Devonian outlier in Logan County, Ohio. It is mostly sand grains cemented by dolomite, with some fish material and a few phosphatic nodules, and is considered younger than the bone beds of central Ohio—perhaps of Olentangy age. The Kiddville layer in the lower part of the Boyle limestone of eastern Kentucky is similar to the East Liberty bone bed lithologically and faunally and probably represents approximately the same horizon. All these bone beds occur on the flanks of the Cincinnati arch, and none is now known in equivalent formations away from this structure. Most of the fish material is believed to have come from the fresh-water environments of the middle Paleozoic lowland area of Cincinnatia and is found not only concentrated in the bone beds but also thinly diffused throughout the enclosing limestones. These bone beds do not represent catastrophic annihilation of indigenous marine fish communities but are rather concentrates accumulated during diastems resulting from the fluctuations with respect to wave base of the very shallow sea bordering Cincinnatia. In places they represent lag concentrates, in others rapid subaqueous accumulations of coarser material transported from areas of lag concentrates with bypassing of finer particles, and in still others aeolian deposits derived from subaerial exposures of lag concentrates.

Source Material for Petroleum and Natural Gas

One of the problems that confront the geologist is the source material for the pool accumulations of petroleum and natural gas. This paper deals with the findings, in Ohio, in limestones, dolomites, and calcareous shales, in a wide section from the Point Pleasant limestone in the Ordovician system to the Delaware limestone in the Devonian. These rocks were carefully sampled and analyzed, the results being representative of the materials throughout the section. Aside from the other components, the analyses give the content of carbon and hydrogen held in the organic paraffine compounds derived from the oily or fatty matter of the original animal life. From these determinations the total amount of natural petroleum per acre for that particular bed is calculated. The thicknes of rocks thus covered is 1,160 feet. The results show a wide distribution of such matter and a low total quantity.

Summary of Upper Devonian Stratigraphy

The Upper Devonian terrane of New York and adjoining regions consists of many thousands of feet of clastic deposits, in the east or southeast, thinning down to but a few hundred feet at the west or northwest. Beds which are coarse sandstones, or conglomerates, at the east, grade westward into shales that grow continually finer until at length they become black and extremely fissile. Beginning even in the Middle Devonian (the Hamilton) and continuing throughout the Upper Devonian, moreover, continental redbeds were laid down contemporaneously with the marine sediments, always on the landward or eastern side of the latter, but reaching ever farther and farther west as deposition progressed. It is these red-beds loosely called that are looked upon as the great repository of fish remains; but it is the absence of other fossils rather than the actual abundance of fishes that has given them this reputation, for at the other remote extreme, in the black shales of Ohio, remains of fishes vie with or exceed in abundance those of these continental strata. A. Continental deposition began in the lower Hamilton of the Hudson Valley. To the Hamilton red-beds of Greene, Albany, Ulster and Schoharie counties, New York, the name Kiskatom formation is now applied, pending the time when this mass may be more accurately subdivided. The original Catskill formation of Mather included all of the Kiskatom (about 2500 feet thick, including the Tully) and perhaps a little of overlying beds of Genesee age. But since later workers extended the name Catskill to the five thousand feet of still higher similar beds in these Catskill mountains, and since Catskill has later come to be restricted to these higher beds which are of Upper Devonian age (falsely supposed to be supra-Oneonta), it may be best to let the name Catskill continue in this later significance (covering Genesee-Naples equivalents), excluding from it the Mid-Devonian Kiskatom strata. Westwardly, the Kiskatom passes into the familiar marine beds, the Skaneateles, Ludlowville and Moscow of the Hamilton group. B. The rocks composing the Genesee group are typically dark to black shales, in western New York. All told, they include four members, namely (2) Geneseo black shale (see the correlation chart, Figure 1), (3) Genundewa limestone, (4) West River dark shale, (5) Standish flags. From Canandaigua lake eastward, these are underlain bv the (1) limestone, whose pertinence to Upper Devonian is now disproved. Westward, this limestone goes out of the section, the (2) Geneseo being then bottomed by a seam of fossiliferous pyrite wrongly called Tully and itself in turn gradually pinching out

The So-Called Branch Impressions of Callixylon newberryi (Dn) Elkins and Wieland and the Conditions of Their Preservation

Long, slender carbonized plant impressions formerly regarded as jointed stems are common in the Antrim, New Albany, and Ohio shales. Dawson referred them to Calamites inornatus and White to Pseudobornia, but recent investigations show their identity with Callixylon newberryi. The transverse markings resembling nodes are similar to cracks produced in weathered plant debris along lake shores. It is believed that these fossils simulating jointed stems in the black shales were formed from weathered fragments of stranded logs along the shores of lakes and bays in which the black shales were deposited.

Cordaitean Wood from the Pennsylvanian of Michigan and Ohio

(WITH TEN FIGURES) Among the petrified wood specimens in the Museum of Paleontology of the University of Michigan, two unstudied samples from Michigan and Ohio were recently found. The Michigan specimen was collected by a museum party from a quarry along the south bank of the Grand River, about one mile west of Grand Ledge, in I925.' In the same quarry is a vein of coal a foot or more thick, and a few feet above is a massive sandstone layer bearing Calamites and Artisia casts. Immediately below the coal is a layer of Stigmaria shale, and below this and also between the coal and the upper sandstone are shales bearing numerous impressions of foliage, stems, and seeds of common Paleozoic plants. The source of the Ohio specimen is unknown, except that the label reads Coshocton, The specimen appears to have been in the collection for many years, possibly having been obtained by CARL ROMINGER. But few American Paleozoic woods are known as compared with woods of similar age from other parts of the world. Among those described within recent years, probably the most outstanding are Calamopitys americana and Archeopitys eastmanii, from the base of the Waverley Shale of Boyle County, Kentucky (I3). HoSKINS (5) and REED (i i) have recently reported abundant petrified plant material in the Pennsylvanian coal balls of Illinois, which, when more fully investigated, are likely to make notable additions. Probably the most widespread and abundant American Paleozoic wood is Callixylon. C. newberryi has long been known from the black shales of Ohio. In I9I4, ELKINS and WIELAND (4) described C. oweni from the black shales of Indiana, and in I922 HYLANDER (6)

The Hillsboro Sandstone of Ohio

A restudy of the Hillsboro sandstone of Highland County has shown that those exposures formerly interpreted as sandstone layers interbedded in the Greenfield and the Niagaran dolomites are really masses of sandstone completely enclosed in the dolomites, not more than 25 feet below the Silurian-Devonian disconformity, which here cuts across the Greenfield and Niagaran dolomites. These masses were formed from sand washed down into cavities that existed beneath this erosion surface. The remaining exposures of the Hillsboro are of bedded sandstone resting on either the Greenfield or the Niagaran at the horizon of the disconformity. By this interpretation the Hillsboro comes in a hiatus which extends from the Greenfield dolomite of Upper Silurian (Cayugan) age to the Ohio shale of Upper Devonian age. It is in the same hiatus as the Sylvania sandstone of early Devonian age of northwestern Ohio, but this hiatus in Highland County extends farther downward and farther upward.

The Olentangy Shale in Southern Ohio

This paper contains an account of the distribution and characteristics of the blue shale at the base of the Devonian system from Greenfield, Highland County, Ohio, to the Ohio River. Evidence is presented to show that this blue shale belongs to the same formation as the Olentangy shale of central Ohio, that it is local in its occurrence in southern Ohio, and that it rests disconformably on the underlying limestones and lies conformably beneath the Ohio shale, into which it grades in some localities. The field evidence supports the interpretation of Grabau that the Olentangy shale is a basal phase of the Ohio shale and that it is Upper Devonian in age.

Correlation of the Devonian shales of Ohio and Pennsylvania

Correlation of the Devonian shales of Ohio and Pennsylvania

The Chattanoogan series with special reference to the Ohio shale problem

The Chattanoogan series with special reference to the Ohio shale problem