Clear Creek Chert

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Lithostratigraphy: Hunton Limestone Megagroup >>Clear Creek Chert
Chronostratigraphy: Paleozoic Erathem >>Devonian System >>Lower Devonian Series
Allostratigraphy: Tippecanoe Sequence

Primary source

Willman, H. B., Elwood Atherton, T. C. Buschbach, Charles Collinson, John C. Frye, M. E. Hopkins, Jerry A. Lineback, and Jack A. Simon, 1975, Handbook of Illinois Stratigraphy: Illinois State Geological Survey Bulletin 95, 261 p.

Contributing author(s)

Charles Collinson and Elwood Atherton

Name

Original description

The Clear Creek Chert (Worthen, 1866, p. 126-129; Savage, 1920, p. 174-175).

Derivation

Named for Clear Creek in Union County.

Other names

History/background

Type section

Type location

Although the Clear Creek Chert is exposed for about 5 miles near Clear Creek (T11-12S, R2W), no specific type section has been designated.

Type author(s)

Type status

Reference section

Reference location

Reference author(s)

Reference status

Stratigraphic relationships

The Clear Creek Chert is the uppermost Lower Devonian formation. As originally defined by Worthen (1866), the Clear Creek may have included the Backbone Limestone and possibly the Grassy Knob Chert, but Savage (1920) restricted the name to the chert formation above the Backbone.

Extent and thickness

The Clear Creek Chert is exposed along the Mississippi Valley from the south end of the Backbone in Jackson County, south to the vicinity of Tamms, Alexander County. It is well exposed in a quarry on the west bluff of Cache Valley northwest of Tamms (NE NW 36, 14s-2W). The thickness of the Clear Creek is difficult to determine, but it is at least 300 feet thick in the outcrop area. Bald Knob, the highest point in southern Illinois, rises 600 feet above Clear Creek and appears to be all Clear Creek Chert, but the thickness is complicated by structure. The formation thickens eastward from the outcrop area to about 600 feet in the southern part of the basin.

Lithology

The Clear Creek is dominantly chert; much of it is white, or generally lighter in color than the chert in the lower formations (Weller, 1940). It contains some beds of gray, very fine-grained, siliceous limestone, which in places are separated from the chert beds by stylolitic partings. Such partings are also common in the chert. The proportion of limestone is generally small in most outcrops, but it is larger near the top of the formation and increases in subsurface north and east from the outcrop area. Solution of the limestone beds and fracturing of the chert beds has produced modifications of the original deposit that are variously described as novaculite, ganister, and tripoli (Lamar, 1953). The novaculite and ganister have been used for gravel and for making silica brick. The tripoli, which consists of finely divided particles of silica in vein-like bodies, is used in abrasives.

Core(s)

Photograph(s)

Contacts

Well log characteristics

Fossils

The Clear Creek is much more fossiliferous than the Grassy Knob, and some chert beds are largely casts of fossils, particularly of the brachiopod Eodevonaria melonicus.

Age and correlation

Environments of deposition

Economic importance

Remarks

References

LAMAR, J. E., 1953, Siliceous materials of extreme southern Illinois: Illinois State Geological Survey Report of Investigations 166, 39 p.
SAVAGE, T. E., 1920, Devonian formations of Illinois: American Journal of Science, v. 49, p. 169-182.
WELLER, J. M., 1940, Geology and oil possibilities of extreme southern Illinois: Illinois State Geological Survey Report of Investigations 71, 71 p.
WORTHEN, A. H., 1866, Geology: Geological Survey of Illinois, v. 1, 504 p.

ISGS Codes

Stratigraphic Code Geo Unit Designation
6180
Dcc