Anvil Rock Sandstone Member

Lithostratigraphy: Kewanee Group >>Carbondale Formation >>Anvil Rock Sandstone Member
Chronostratigraphy: Paleozoic Erathem >>Pennsylvanian Subsystem >>Desmoinesian Series
Allostratigraphy: Absaroka 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)

M. E. Hopkins and J. A. Simon

Name

Original description

The Anvil Rock Sandstone Member of the Carbondale Formation (Owen, 1856, p. 45).

Derivation

Named for an anvil-shaped float block along a bluff 1.5 miles north of Dekoven Station, Union County, Kentucky.

Other names

History/background

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Stratigraphic relationships

Extent and thickness

The name "Anvil Rock" was applied by Hopkins (1958) and Potter and Simon (1961) to a major channel sandstone, which replaces the Herrin Coal along a sinuous band extending through Montgomery, Bond, Clinton, Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin Counties (fig. P-13) in Illinois.

Fig. P-13 -- Thickness of the Herrin (No. 6) Coal Member (based on map by K. E. Clegg).

The sandstone underlies the Bankston Fork Limestone and overlies the gray shale above the Conant Limestone throughout southern Illinois, where it occurs as a channel sandstone as much as 80 feet thick. East of the Du Quoin Monocline the Anvil Rock occurs as a channel sandstone or, more commonly, as a sheet sandstone up to 20 feet thick (Hopkins, 1958; Potter and Simon, 1961).

Lithology

The Anvil Rock Sandstone is now considered to be in part contemporaneous with the Herrin Coal and the immediately overlying gray silty shale. In the sheet facies it is normally a fine-grained, relatively impure, quartz sandstone incorporating considerable argillaceous material, but in the channel facies it is medium grained and less argillaceous. In the deeper channels the sandstone cuts through several underlying stratigraphic units, including the Herrin (No. 6) Coal. Some channels are only a few hundred feet across, but the major ones are up to 2 miles wide. In the sheet facies the dominant sedimentary structure is ripple bedding. In the channel facies, planar and trough cross-bedding are common.

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References

HOPKINS, M. E., 1958, Geology and petrology of the Anvil Rock Sandstone of southern Illinois: Illinois State Geological Survey Circular 256, 49 p.
OWEN, D. D., 1856, Report of the geological survey in Kentucky made during the years 1854 and 1855: Kentucky Geological Survey Bulletin, v. I, Series 1, 416 p.
POTTER, P. E., and J. A. SIMON, 1961, Anvil Rock Sandstone and channel cutouts of Herrin (No. 6) Coal in west-central Illinois: Illinois State Geological Survey Circular 314, 12 p.

ISGS Codes

Stratigraphic Code	Geo Unit Designation
2550	--