Orchard Creek Shale Member

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Lithostratigraphy: Maquoketa Shale Group >>Scales Shale >>Orchard Creek Shale Member
Chronostratigraphy: Paleozoic Erathem >>Ordovician System >>Cincinnatian Series >>Maysvillian Stage
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)

H. B. Willman and T. C. Buschbach

Name

Original description

The Orchard Creek Shale Member of the Scales Shale (Savage, 1909, p. 515).

Derivation

Named for a small exposure along Orchard Creek, 2 miles south of Thebes, Alexander County. This section is now covered.

Other names

History/background

Type section

Type location

The Orchard Creek is exposed in the Mississippi River bluffs a mile north of Thebes (SE 5, 15S-3W), where it is 27 feet thick, overlies the Thebes Sandstone Member, and is overlain by the Girardeau Limestone.

Type author(s)

Type status

Reference section

Reference location

Reference author(s)

Reference status

Stratigraphic relationships

Extent and thickness

The Orchard Creek Shale Member is exposed locally in and near the Mississippi bluffs in Alexander County from Gale southward almost to Fayville. It is 10-30 feet thick in the outcrop area.

Lithology

The Orchard Creek Member is largely blue-gray shale, but in the thickest exposures the upper part is interbedded with fine-grained limestone. The Orchard Creek is probably a lateral equivalent of part of the Elgin Shale Member, but its precise position is uncertain, and it could be equivalent even to the Brainard Shale. It is differentiated only where it overlies the Thebes Sandstone Member.

Core(s)

Photograph(s)

Contacts

Well log characteristics

Fossils

The Orchard Creek contains a large fauna (Savage, 1917). It was long assigned to the Silurian System, but the presence of Climacograptus putillus indicates Cincinnatian age (Pryor and Ross, 1962).

Age and correlation

Environments of deposition

Economic importance

Remarks

References

PRYOR, W. A., and C. A. Ross, 1962, Geology of the Illinois parts of the Cairo, La Center, and Thebes Quadrangles: Illinois State Geological Survey Circular 332, 39 p.
SAVAGE, T. E., 1909, Ordovician and Silurian formations in Alexander County, Illinois: American Journal of Science, v. 28, p. 509-519.
SAVAGE, T. E., 1917, Thebes sandstone and Orchard Creek shale and their faunas in Illinois: Illinois Academy of Science Transactions, v. 10, p. 261-275.

ISGS Codes

Stratigraphic Code Geo Unit Designation
7490
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