Rocher Member
Lithostratigraphy: Mammoth Cave Limestone Megagroup >>Salem Limestone >>Rocher Member
Chronostratigraphy: Paleozoic Erathem >>Mississippian Subsystem >>Valmeyeran Series
Allostratigraphy: Kaskaskia 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)
Elwood Atherton, Charles Collinson, and Jerry A. Lineback
Name
Original description
The Rocher Member of the Salem Limestone (Baxter, 1960a, p. 27-29).
Derivation
Named for Prairie du Rocher, Randolph County.
Other names
History/background
Type section
Type location
The type section of the Rocher Member is in the Mississippi River bluffs above a large spring 1 mile northwest of the town of Prairie du Rocher, where the member is 69.3 feet thick.
Type author(s)
Type status
Reference section
Reference location
Reference author(s)
Reference status
Stratigraphic relationships
The Rocher Member is the uppermost member of the Salem Limestone.
Extent and thickness
The Rocher thins northward to 10-15 feet at Valmeyer, Monroe County.
Lithology
The Rocher is mined for high-calcium limestone just north of the type section. The limestone varies from slightly oolitic to oolite. It occurs in thick, cliff-forming beds, broken by an occasional thin bed.
Core(s)
Photograph(s)
Contacts
Well log characteristics
Fossils
It is composed largely of marine fossils, predominantly Foraminifera, but it also includes crinoid and bryozoan fragments, brachiopods, corals, and echinoids. Endothyrids and calcareous spheres with calcite centers, questionable fossils classified as Calcisphaera, are abundant (Baxter, 1960b). The microfauna is similar to that of the Chalfin and the lower part of the St. Louis.
Age and correlation
Environments of deposition
Economic importance
Remarks
References
BAXTER, J. W., 1960a, Salem Limestone in southwestern Illinois: Illinois State Geological Survey Circular 284, 32p.
BAXTER, J. W., 1960b, Calcisphaera from the Salem (Mississippian) Limestone in southwestern Illinois: Journal of Paleontology, v. 34, p. 1153-1157; Illinois State Geological Survey Reprint 1961-B.
ISGS Codes
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