Lindsey and Richa work their way up the Pennsylvanian section with their Jacob's staffs.
JACKSON, OHIO — Usually the Sedimentology & Stratigraphy class from Wooster meets no one at this Carboniferous outcrop on US 35 in Jackson County. This morning, though, we arrived to find geology students from Wright State University (under Professor David Dominic) hard at work on the section, and the clubhouse for the Apple City Motorcycle Club had a busy (and noisy) crowd as well. We waded right in and started measuring and describing the rocks.
The recent rains had their predictable effect on the shale units, producing a thick mud in some places, but we did well enough staying on the sandstones and conglomerates when we could. I noted that the outcrop is much more overgrown than when I first visited with a Sed/Strat class in 2000. (The better exposures made for better photography of the rock units, as you will see.) Here is another set of images from the 2009 field trip to this site.
This is one of the best places in the state to see the unconformity between the Mississippian and Pennsylvanian subsystems. It is a sharp disconformity above the Logan Formation siltstones and below pebble-rich sandstones of the Sharon Conglomerate equivalent. We drew measured stratigraphic columns through this interval and then met as a group on the top of the outcrop to assess the ancient depositional environments.
We all returned home safely with muddy boots and new ideas about the local stratigraphy.
Joe and Will confer on an outcrop of black, carbon-rich shale.
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