State of Illinois
Department of Registration and Education
STATE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY DIVISION
John C. Frye, Chief
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11. riM E
GEOLOGICAL SCIENCE FIELD TRf
Sponsored by
ILLINOIS STATE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
l^ffif NCiflliS /til/I
Lawrence and Crawford Counties
Birds, Vincennes, Sumner, and Hardinville Quadrangles
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Leader
George M. Wilson
Urbana, Illinois
April 13, 1957
GUIDE LEAFLET 57A
HOST: Lav/renceville High School
THE LAWRENCEVILLE GEOLOGICAL SCIENCE FIELD TRIP
ITINERARY
Today we will observe sediments from the recent geological past
as well as those of the "Coal Age" or Pennsylvanian. A vast
region covering more than 35,000 square miles in Illinois is
covered by rocks of Pennsylvanian age. Virtually all of these
rocks are covered by a mantle of clayey material, called glacial
drift. The Lawrenceville region has an interesting geological
history.
0.0 0.0 Start from parking lot, Lawrenceville High School. Turn south.
0.1 0.1 STOP, turn right.
0.1 0.2 CAUTION, traffic signals.
0.2 0.4 CAUTION, railroad crossing.
0.1 0.5 CAUTION, traffic signals. Intersection of State Route No. 1 and U.S. 50.
Turn right.
0.2 0.7 Embarrass River (pronounced "Ambraw").
2.0 2.7 Leaving flood plain, rising onto the clay and silt plains of the same
level as the higher terraces along the Wabash Valley. These sediments
were deposited as backwater deposits during the extensive flooding of
the Wabash during the Wisconsinan stage of glaciation.
1.1 3.8 Note the flatness of this surface - a lake-bed plain.
1.5 5.3 CAUTION, Pinks taff Road.
0.9 6.2 Bedrock hill.
1.2 7.4 Note the flatness of the lake-bed deposits on the right.
0.8 8.2 CAUTION, road to Birds on right.
2.1 10.3 CAUTION, Sugar Creek bridge. Oil wells on right and left. Slow. Turn
right on gravel road. We are now on lake-bed deposits of Wisconsinan age.
0.9 11.2 SLOW, caution, rough bridge. Railroad crossing. Bridge.
0.1 11.3 STOP NO. 1.
This section is in the Pennsylvanian system of rocks. As has already
been indicated, more than 35,000 square miles of Illinois has "Coal Age"
rocks at the surface beneath the mantle of unconsolidated drift. Eco-
nomically the Pennsylvanian rocks of Illinois are largely developed in
the coal mining regions, and at the present time there are more than
45 million tons of coal mined in Illinois each year valued at $184 mil-
lion.
In eastern Illinois the Pennsylvanian rocks are also developed for
the oil that they may contain. Much of the early oil production in Illi-
nois came from the shallow sands in Crawford, Lawrence, Clark, and Wabash
Counties .
-2-
The rocks that you will see here have no economic value in them-
selves, but are of interest because of the information that specialized
geologists can learn from the fossils found in the beds. This series
of different beds is called a cycle of sedimentation. The section here
is as follows:
Shale, medium, olive gray
Shale, medium-dark gray, with rounded
ironstone bands
Smut streak with bone coal and thin underclay
Shale, dark gray, earthy, calcareous, very
fossiliferous, with ironstone nodules
Shale, dark gray-black, weak
Shale, black, with coaly residue
Underclay, poorly laminated, soft, plastic,
with coaly inter laminations
grades down to
Silts tone, medium gray, shaly, fine, carbon-
aceous
Ft.
15
4
In.
%-l
10
3
0.5 11.8 CAUTION, slow, turn left.
0.2 12.0 STOP NO. 2.
Soil profile:
Ft.
Soil, gray loessal
Loess, yellow, plastic when wet, non-
calcareous
Loess, yellow, as above, but with an
occasional small quartz pebble
Till, definitely brown-red, gravelly
In.
7
0.2 12.2 Note oil well on left.
0.3 12.5 Note lake-bed deposits on lowland on left.
0.3 12.8 SLOW, caution, bridge; note the red gravelly clay in ditch on the right
0.5 13.3 SLOW, rough wash-board road, turn left.
0.1 13.4 Note the soil profile on the left.
Ft
Gray plastic top soil
Yellow-brown, tight, plastic sub-soil
(lake-bed deposits)
0.4 13.7 SLOW, caution, railroad crossing.
0.1 13.8 Turn right, then left.
is-
8
-3-
0.8 14.7 CAUTION, stop. Route 1, turn right.
0.6 15.3 Note the dissected character of the upland surface.
0.2 15.5 SLOW, turn right on the Flatrock road.
0.1 15.6 STOP NO. 3
The stop here is more complete since the coal is well developed.
The section here is as follows:
Ft. In.
Sandstone, stained yellow and brown, with thin
streaks of carbonaceous material. Note the
conglomerate developed at the base. 10
Shale, medium olive gray, well laminated 2
Limestone, earthy, weak, madium gray, very
fossiliferous - gastropods, brachiopods,
corals. 2-3
Shale, black, massive, pyritized, with
pyritized fossils 4
Limestone, as above, pyritic 0-4
Shale, dark gray, massive, medium grained, hard 8
Shale, black, fissile 9
Coal 1
Downstream the sandstone which underlies the coal is exposed. In
the region east of Flatrock, this coal has been stripped with horses
and scrapers to uncover the limestone and coal.
It is of interest to know that several seams of minable coal are
to be found in this immediate region. The first minable coal en-
countered is the Illinois No. 7 which lies at a depth of approximately
350 feet near Vincennes, then the Jamestown, at a depth of 380 feet,
Illinois No. 6 at 395 feet, Illinois No. 5 at 470 feet, Indiana No. 1
at 580 feet, and Indiana No. 3 at 630 feet. From the diamond drill
information available, all of the above listed coals were found to be
at least as much as 3 or 7 feet in thickness.
The minable coals occur in a sequence of rocks similar to the one
seen here. This outcrop affords an opportunity to make comparisons.
0.4 16.0 Enter the town of Flatrock.
0.3 16.3 CAUTION, stop, turn left,
0.2 16.5 SLOW, turn right, railroad crossing.
0.6 17.1 CAUTION, one lane bridge, rough.
0.6 17.7 CAUTION, slow, turn right.
0.4 18.1 SLOW, bridge, turn left.
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2012 with funding from
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
http://archive.org/details/guideleafletgeol1957wils
-4-
0.5 18.6 T-road south, continue ahead.
0.1 18.7 Note the entrenchment of roadway into the loess.
0.5 19.2 T-road south, continue ahead.
0.6 19.8 CAUTION, crossroads.
0.5 20.3 CAUTION, crossroads.
1.3 21.6 T-road south, continue ahead.
0.6 22.2 Note siltstone outcrop on the left. The upland for the past several
miles has had a thin mantle of glacial till on bedrock. The long period
of erosion since the end of Illinoian times has allowed the dissection of
the uplands, and the loess which lies upon the till conforms to the topo-
graphy.
0.7 22.9 SLOW, stop, turn right on Route 33.
1.8 24.7 We are leaving the upland which we refer to as a portion of the physio-
graphic province of the Mt. Vernon Hill country. At this point we are
crossing an abandoned sluiceway.
1.3 26.0 Note the Wabash River on the left, which is only a few hundred feet
away at this point.
0.3 26.3 Ascending the slope of a buried island hill. An island hill is a bedrock
hill surrounded and partially buried by unconsolidated sediments. The
hills are erosional remnants partially buried in an alluviated valley.
Strictly speaking, the bedrock hill in the process of being left as an
erosional remnant is a circum-denuded hill and in the process of becom-
ing covered is called a circum-alluviated hill.
1.0 27.3 Note the sand dunes on the right.
1.0 28.3 We are now on the higher terrace which developed ±n Woodfordian time.
0.4 28.7 SLOW, entering Russellville.
0.9 29.6 Abandoned gravel pit in terrace deposit on left.
2.9 32.5 SLOW, turn right (west).
0.4 32.9 Edge of terrace, drops down into an old channel or sluiceway.
0.7 33.6 SLOW, turn left.
0.2 33.8 Turn right.
1.1 34.9 SLOW, stop. Proceed ahead.
0.7 35.6 CAUTION, T-road, note gravel in roadside beneath the terrace surface.
0.2 35.8 Note the great number of prickly pear (Opuntia) on the north road bank.
0.7 36.5 CAUTION, rough bridge. Crossroad, slow ahead.
-5-
0.1 36.6 STOP NO. 4 Lawrenceville Gravel Company pit.
The section here is as follows:
Ft.
Humic gravelly soil 1
Stained gravel 5
Gravel 25
The terrace surface is a surface of aggradation which developed dur-
ing Woodfordian time, but the sluiceway just east of the gravel pit de-
veloped during late Woodfordian- to-Twocreekan time and is a cut channel.
The lower terrace level is also a cut terrace.
1.7 38.3 Turn caravan around and go east. Stop, turn right.
0.8 39.1 Note dunic hills on left.
0.8 39.9 CAUTION, crossroads. Note the abandoned gravel pits on the right. This
pit was in the higher terrace level, and the immediate ridge was capped
by sand dunes.
0.7 40.6 Low terrace level. An eroaional surface.
0.4 41.0 Note the high terrace level on the left on Robeson Hills. The Robeson
Hills are "Island Hills" or circum-alluviated hills.
2.0 43.0 CAUTION, slow, railroad tracks.
0.4 43.4 Bear left.
0.3 43.7 CAUTION, stop sign. Turn left, entering Route 50.
1.0 44.7 CAUTION, T-road left, Route 33.
Note the high terrace on the southeast side of Robeson Hills.
0.3 45.0 Crossing Wabash River.
0.2 45.2 SLOW, entering Vincennes, Indiana.
0.2 45.4 CAUTION, traffic signal.
CAUTION, CITY TRAFFIC AHEAD.
0.2 45.6 Traffic signal, turn left.
0.1 45.7 "
0.0 45.7 '• "
0.3 46.0 " "
0.3 46.3 " »
0.1 46.4 Railroad crossing.
continue ahead.
-6-
0.2
46.6
0.1
46.7
0.6
47.3
0.3
47.6
0.2
47.8
0.2
48.0
0.1
48.1
0.3
48.4
0.1
48.5
0.8
49.3
0.2
49.5
0.2
49.7
0.2
49.9
0.3
50.2
0.1
50.3
0.1.
50.4
0.1
50.5
0.1
50.6
0.2
50.8
0.1
50.9
0.3
51.2
CAUTION, CITY TRAFFIC AHEAD.
Railroad crossing.
Traffic signals.
" " » turn right.
Railroad crossing.
Stop, turn right, enter Route 50.
Slow, turn right into city park.
STOP NO. 5 LUNCH.
Stop, turn right, leaving park.
", "' , entering Route 50.
Traffic signals, continue ahead.
Railroad crossing.
Traffic signals, continue ahead, bear left,
turn right on U.S. 50,
0.2
51.4
4.1
55.5
1.5
57.0
0.8
57.8
STOP NO. 6 Turn left, entrance to Lewis and Clark Memorial. Stop for
tour of grounds,
CAUTION, enter U.S. Route 50.
Cross Wabash River. Turn right into Lincoln Memorial parking lot.
STOP NO. 7
CAUTION, Route 33.
Follow U.S. 50, crossing sluiceways and low-lying terraces (cut) of
late Woodfordian-to-Twocreekan time.
Main or upper terrace level.
Sand dunes on right and left.
0.9 58.7 Texas Company Refinery on the left. The refinery was originally built
to process the oil produced from the Lawrence, Wabash, and Crawford
County area. Production has come from shallow sand formations in the
Pennsylvanian rocks and from virtually every Mississippian formation
that has sufficient porosity to give oil. New oil continues to be found
in the Lawrence County region. Secondary recovery or waterflood tech-
niques are of real importance in the oil industry, especially in this
area, for many of the producing zones are in sandstones with rather thick
pay zones.
0.4 59.1 Crossing Embarrass River. Note the dipping beds on the right. This is
an excellent exposure for observation except in periods of high ^ater or
flooding.
0.3 59.4 SLOW, entering Lawrenceville.
0.8 60.2 CAUTION, traffic signals, continue ahead.
0.2 60.4 CAUTION, railroad crossing.
0.1 60.5 CAUTION, traffic signals, continue ahead.
0.4 60.9 Bear left at Y in U.S. 50.
0.4 61.3 Note the Texas Company refinery and storage tanks on the left.
1.0 62.3 Note the old oil well, pump, and wooden oil storage tanks on the left.
Some of the wells in this region have been in production since 1906.
Contrast these wells and storage facilities with the pump equipment and
etorage facilities on the right.
STOP NO. 8
1.7 64.0 SLOW, entering Bridgeport.
0.7 64.7 SLOW, turn right. Note the modern offices on the right.
0.9 65.6 Stop sign for U.S. 50. Turn right to go to Lawrenceville. Turn left
for Olney.
Reprinted 1961
PART II. GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF LAWRENCEVILLE AREA
BEDROCK FORMATIONS
The bedrock exposed in the Lawrenceville area, where streams have cut
through the cover of glacial drift, belongs to the Pennsylvanian or Coal Period.
Deep oil wells and tests have penetrated to still older rocks of Mississippian
and Devonian age. In other parts of Illinois deeper wells pass through addition-
al hundreds of feet of sandstone, shale, and limestone, belonging to the Silurian,
OrdoviCian, and Cambrian periods (see appended geologic column), and some reach
the Pre-Cambrian basement beneath,, The "basement" is made up of very old, hard,
crystalline rocks such as granite, gabbro, basalt, gneiss, and schist which come
to the surface in the far north around Lake Superior and in Canada. Fragments
of these rocks from the far north have been brought to the Lawrenceville area by
the glaciers of the Ice Age.
EARLY GEOLOGIC HISTORY
The rocks of the "basement," formed in Pre-Cambrian Time, were folded
to mountain ranges and then beveled by erosion to a low plain over 500,000,000
years ago. Between that time and the beginning of the Coal Period, an interval
of some 250,000,000 years, the region was covered much of the time by shallow
seas that covered a large part of the continent. At intervals, the seas with-
drew and the region became a low coastal plain.
PENNSYLVANIAN HISTORY
With the beginning of Pennsylvanian time, more than 250,000,000 years
ago, mountains arose in the general area of the present Appalachians. In the
interior of the country the land lay virtually at or below sea level. Changes
of a few feet in sea level brought considerable changes in life over the vast
interior of the continent. A rise in the sea level brought marine life which
left their shells in the many limestones, two of which we will see today.
Plants grew luxuriantly in these swampy areas, and it is with good
reason that the rocks of Pennsylvanian age are called "Coal Age" rocks. There
are more than 50 cycles of sedimentation in Illinois, any one of which could have
developed a bed of minable coal. In fact there are 13 recognized beds of minable
coal in Illinois. From plant fossils and coal ball concretions we learn the
nature of the plants that grew so long ago.
Aside from the limestone and coal of the Pennsylvanian time most of the
rocks are shale, siltstone, sandstone, and clay. As has been previously indicat-
ed, there were cycles of sedimentation- -many repetitions of similar sequences of
rocks deposited. You will find a copy of an ideal cyclothem included in the
itinerary — compare the rocks found at Stops 1 and 2 with the ideal.
THE LOST INTERVAL
Following Pennsylvanian Time, the land rose to a moderate elevation
above the sea and was never again covered by marine waters. Under these condi-
tions, erosion slowly cut down the land and removed a part of the Pennsylvanian
deposits. The material was carried away by the streams to be deposited far away.
Thus we must depend on the rock record of other areas to tell us of the life and
times of the post-Pennsylvanian - pre-Pleistocene interval.
-9-
ICE AGE HISTORY
She Pleistocene epoch began about 1,000,000 years ago when glaciers
began moving down across the United States from the far north. There was not
just one glacial stage, but four, each separated by a long interval of from
100,000 to 300,000 years during which mild climate prevailed, vegetation flour-
ished, and the animals that had retreated before the advancing ice, returned.
The Nebraskan, or first glacial advance, probably did not reach the Lawrence-
ville area. The second, or Kansan, is believed to have reached the vicinity of
Lawrenceville, but evidence is largely concealed under later glacial drift. The
Illinoian glaciation, from its center of accumulation east of Hudson Bay, moved
across nearly all of Illinois to the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, covering all
of this area. The last or Wisconsinan ice sheet, which covered most of the north-
east quarter of the state, did not reach Lawrenceville.
The terrace development in the Wabash Valley came during the lower
Woodfordian substage during which time the terminal moraine of the Wisconsinan
glacier was developed. The cutting of the lower terrace level coincided with
the Lake Maumee feature of the late Woodfordian. The development of the sluice-
ways is a feature of the Twocreekan erosion and has continued to cut into the
valley lower terraces during flood times.
The loess mantle developed during all of Wisconsinan time, covering the
Sangamon soil which developed upon the Illinoian till.
It is estimated that less than 6,000 years have elapsed since the Wis-
consinan glacier melted away from the upper end of Lake Michigan. Are we still
living in the Ice Age? The ice may return again in one or two or three hundred
thousand years, but most of us prefer to worry about more immediate dangers.
RECENT CEOLOGIC HISTORY
As the Wisconsinan ice slowly wasted away, the cold, dry climate of
this region became warmer and more humid. Vegetation, which had been scarce,
advanced northward, the forests following the valleys and the prairies occupying
the uplands. Even where man has cleared or tilled the land, analysis of the
soil shows us what areas the old forests and prairies occupied.
The increasingly humid climate has caused the streams to cut down into
the fill which accumulated in valleys during Wisconsinan time. This process is
continuing at present aided by increased run-off due to deforestatton and culti-
vation.
(after M. M.
Time Table of Pleistocene Glaciation
Leighton and H. B. Willman, 1950, J. C. Frye and H. B. Willman, 1960)
Staqe
Substaqe
Nature of Deposits
Special features
Recent
5 000 vt*i
Soil, youthful profile
of weathering, lake and
river deposits, dunes,
peat
Valderan
Outwash
Glaciation in northern
Illinois
i. j. , uvvj yx or— —
Twocreekan
ip «=>00 vr«5_,
Peat, alluvium
Ice withdrawal, erosion
c
CO
c
•H
cn
c
o
lAloodfordian
oo nnn vrs
Drift, loess, dunes
lake deposits
Glaciation, building of
many moraines as far
south as Shelbyville, ex-
tensive valley trains,
outwash plains, and lakes
o
CO
3S
Farmdalian
09. 000 vr<;
Soil, silt and
peat
Ice withdrawal, weather-
ing, and erosion
Altonian
50,000 to
Drift, loess
Glaciation in northern
Illinois, valley trains
along major rivers,
Winnebago drift
Sangamonian
(3rd interglacial)
/OjUUU yrs.
Soil, mature profile
of weathering, al-
luvium, peat
Illinoian
(3rd Glacial)
Buffalohartan
Jacksonvillian
Paysonian
(terminal)
Lovelandian
(Pro-Illinoian)
Drift
Drift
Drift
Loess (in advance of
glaciation)
Yarmouthian
(2nd interglacial)
Soil, mature profile
of weathering, al-
luvium, peat
Kansan
(2nd glacial)
Drift
Loess
Aftonian
(1st interglacial)
Soil, mature profile
of weathering, al-
luvium, peat
Nebraskan
(1st glacial)
Drift
TILL PLAINS SECTION,
GREAT LAKE
SECTION
CENTRAL
LOWLAND
PROVINCE
CENTRAL
LOWLAND
PROVINCE
INTERIOR
LOW
PLATEAUS
PROVINCE
ILLINOIS STATS 610LOGICAL SU»Vtr
COASTAL PLAIN
PROVINCE
PHYSIOGRAPHIC DIVISIONS OF ILLINOIS
(Reprinted from Illinois State Geological Survey Report of
Investigations 129, "Physiographic Divisions of Illinois, "
by M. M. Leighton, George E. Ekblaw, and Leland Horberg)
(47669-15M-U-61)
10
8
7:
Shale, gray, sandy at top; contains marine fossils and ironstone
concretions especially in lower part.
Limestone ; contains marine fossils.
Shale, black, hard, laminated ; contains large spheroidal concre-
tions ("Niggerheads") and marine fossils.
Limestone ; contains marine fossils.
Shale, gray; pyritic nodules and ironstone concretions common at
base; plant fossils locally common at base; marine fossils rare.
Coal; locally contains clay or shale partings.
Underclajr, mostly medium to light gray except dark gray at top ;
upper part noncalcareous, lower part calcareous.
Limestone, argillaceous; occurs in nodules or discontinuous beds;
usually nonfossiliferous.
Shale, gray, sandy.
Sandstone, fine-grained, micaceous, and siltstone, argillaceous;
variable from massive to thin-bedded ; usually with an uneven
lower surface.
AN IDEALLY COMPLETE CYCLOTHEM
(Reprinted from Pig. 42, Bulletin No. 66, Geology and Mineral Resources of the Marseilles,
Ottawa, and Streator Quadrangles, by H. B. Willman and J. Norman Payne)
(47669-15M-11-61) ■*#***
TERRACE DEVELOPMENT IN WABASH VALLEY NEAR LAWRENCEVILLE
)
)
I
GEOLOGICAL COLUMN * LAWRENCEVILLE AREA
EFAS
<4-» (0
O r-4
PERIODS
Quaternary
0)
60
<
£
Tertiary
EPOCHS
_L
REMARKS
Pleistocene
j Exposed in Lawrenceville area:
; Recent post-glacial stage
Illinoian glacial drift
Wisconsin terraces and
I loess mantle
Cretaceous
CO
O iH
•H
60 a
Jurassic
' Trias sic
Pleiocene
Miocene
Oligocene
Eocene
Paleocene
Not present in Lawrenceville
area.
-r
,Not present in Lawrenceville
i area.
Not present in Illinois.
Not present in Illinois.
Permian
w
C
to
tfl
■u
•H
C
£>
<0
•H
t-H
J= CM
Cu
i
^
U-l
t0
O W
Q) T3
too C
<
to
McLeansboro
Pennsylvanian
Carbondale
Mississippian
Tradewater
Not present in Illinois.
Sandstone, limestone, shale,
coal.
Sandstone, limestone, shale
coal in deep wells.
Chester (Upper
Mississippian)
Sandstones, limestones, and
shales in deep wells;
several oil sands.
Iowa (Lower
Mississippian)
i Limestone, shale, and sandstone
in deep wells. Several oil
sands .
•4-1 01
O 0J
0) W
60 i-4
< fa
Devonian
10
<u
4J
VW to
o u
£>
0) <u
60 4J
< H
u
>
o
I t-l
Silurian
Ordovician
Cambrian
Black shale and limestones
in deep wells.
Some data available.
Some data available.
No data available.
Proterozoic
Archeozoic
\
I
/
Referred to as 'Pre -Cambrian" time. No data available,
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