This data set includes the raw rare earth element data for all fluorite and calcite samples analyzed by Josh Bergbower for work on his thesis project titled "Trace and Rare Earth Element Chemistry of Fluorite from the Illinois-Kentucky Fluorspar District and its Implications for the Origins of Mineralizing Fluids".
The present work is a stratigraphic, reservoir, and environmental analysis of the Itarare Group (Permo-Carboniferous) using the well data of the Parana Basin which covers about 1,000,000 Km$\sp{2}$ in Brazil alone. More than three thousand kilometers of cross sections were analysed, over 100 wells were studied, nearly 400 meters of cores were described, and 95 thin sections were analysed.
The Miamitown shale has been considered an enigmatic unit in the upper part of an Edenian-Maysvillian sequence. A new look at Cincinnatian sequences reveals that this unit is actually an integral part of a complex sequence architecture. Three fourth-order sequences at the base of the Upper Ordovician in the Cincinnati area are formally named in stratigraphic order: (1) the Brent Sequence, comprising the Edenian Kope Formation; (2) the Riedlin Sequence comprising the Maysvillian Fairview, Miamitown and Bellevue formations; and (3) the Stonelick Sequence comprising the Maysvillian Corryville and Mt Auburn formations. A detailed study of the Riedlin Sequence in outcrops, cores and well logs between Cincinnati, Ohio, Ft Wayne, Indiana, and Indianapolis, Indiana, (13,000 km$\sp2$), reveals stacking patterns within the Riedlin Sequence that are comparable to those of a type-2 sequence. This interpretation contrasts with previous interpretations wherein Cincinnatian third- and fourth-order cycles are dominated by highstand systems tracts with thin or absent lowstand and transgressive deposits, or where these cycles are interpreted as parasequences or parasequence sets rather than sequences. The Miamitown Shale provides a testing ground for a new integrated cyclic, lithologic, and quantitative faunal method of correlating meter-scale fifth-order cycles. This has been accomplished within the 12 m interval surrounding the Miamitown Shale in the upper part of the Riedlin Sequence. First, using lithologic criteria alone, six shale-to-limestone cycles bounded by flooding surfaces were delineated and correlated between seven 12 m outcrop sections within a 30 km radius. Unusual fossil occurrences constrained correlations of cycles 3 & 4, and the presence of a dalmanellid, Heterorthina fairmountensis, showed that the flooding surface above cycle 3 lay 10 cm below the lithologic contact. Quantitatively-defined faunal clusters constrained correlations between all cycles, and revealed a major transition at the top of cycle 2, again below the lithologic contact. Finally, depth gradient fluctuations interpreted from ordination of faunal data suggest that the major transition at the top of cycle 2 is a transgressive surface, and that the middle part of cycle 3 includes the interval of maximum depth.
The Richmond Group (Late Ordovician) in the tristate region of southwestern Ohio, north-central Kentucky, and southeastern Indiana consists of a succession of clastic and carbonate sediments deposited on a prograding intracratonic ramp and distal clastic fan. Six regional depositional facies have been delineated during a detailed examination of cores, outcrops, and geophysical logs across a 325 by 350 km study area. The facies, informally designated Facies A through F, are assigned to depositional environments consisting of: a shale-dominated shale distal intracratonic ramp; mixed carbonate and shale proximal intracratonic ramp; shallow subtidal to supratidal intracratonic ramp, and shallow-water, distal clastic wedge; based on their sedimentologic and paleontologic characteristics. Regional cross sections of these facies indicate that the distal clastic wedge prograded from the east and that the intracratonic ramp prograded from the south. In addition, isopach maps indicate that the depocenter of the basin was located southeastern Indiana and southwestern Ohio.
A sedimentological study of the Morrowan/Atokan age Corbin Sandstone Member (Lee Formation) of the central Appalachian Basin and the Mansfield Formation of the Illinois Basin was undertaken.
Rare occurences of coeval late Wisconsin glacigenic diamictons and ice-proximal sediments with a diverse faunal assemblage provided an opportunity to test the viability of the glacigenic sediments as proxy paleoclimate indicators.
The Middle Proterozoic Jacobsville Sandstone, located on the upper peninsula, Michigan, is the youngest rift- related sedimentary unit in the 1.1 Ga Midcontinent rift. Although outcrops of the Jacobsville Sandstone along the Lake Superior shoreline and in river gorges are well studied, these outcrops represent stratigraphically only the upper 300-400 feet of the estimated 9,000 feet thick Jacobsville Sandstone. I used drill cores and newly-studied outcrop samples; 1) to characterize stratigraphically continuous sections; 2) to compare the Jacobsville Sandstone in subsurface with the Jacobsville Sandstone in outcrop; 3) to identify lateral and vertical variations in texture and petrographic composition within the Jacobsville Sandstone; and 4) to determine petrographic provenance of the Jacobsville Sandstone.
Metamorphism in the Ollo de Sapo Antiform, part of the Variscan Orogen in NW Spain, was controlled by local, complex interactions of deformation, granitoid intrusions, and regional low pressure metamorphic (LPM) gradient. Detailed analysis of mineral parageneses, in conjunction with geothermobarometry and one-dimensional thermal modeling, have been used to constrain pressure-temperature-deformation (P-T-D) paths for rocks in the antiform.
It is recognized that the ecology of planktonic foraminiferal assemblages provides information about the chemical and physical properties of the water in which they live. Their areal and vertical distributions in the water column and in deep-sea sediments may be used to derive oceanographic and climatic models of Recent and past oceans.
A stratigraphic and paleontological analysis of 303 samples of Paleocene sediments of the eastern Gulf Coastal Plain of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia provided the basis for a geochronologic, quantitative paleoecologic, and paleoceanographic model.
In east-central Utah, tide-, wind-, and wave-currents deposited the Middle Jurassic (Callovian) Curtis and Summerville Formations and the Moab Member of the Entrada Sandstone along the southern and eastern coastal plain of an interior seaway. Four facies of the Curtis were deposited during maximum transgression and incipient regression. Interbedded, heterogeneous litharenite and sublitharenite microsequences in the sandstone-mudstone facies record the initial transgression and development of sedimentation on a nearshore shelf. Sand and mud were intermittently transported by tidal- and wave-currents at near wavebase depths. The composite sandstone facies contains amalgamated, crossbedded and parallel-bedded subarkosic microsequences which were deposited during late transgression, stillstand and incipient regression in a tidal channel, sand-shoal, berm system. Sand, silt and mud were transported in the form of ripples, sand waves and dunes in tidal channels controlled by spring and neap tidal current. At shallower intertidal depths, interchannel sand shoals and berms were constructed by plane- and cross-laminated strata. Contemporary crosslaminated and locally crossbedded sublitharenites in the rippled silty facies and the redbed facies were deposited by spring-tide and wind- or storm-enhanced tidal currents in higher intertidal and supratidal zones respectively.
A 3rd order theory of folding of viscous multilayers indicates that forms of folds are controlled by the behavior of layer contacts or interbeds, the relative stiffnesses of the multilayer and confining media, and the scale of the folding. A 2nd order analysis shows that asymmetry of folds is determined largely by the behavior of layer contacts and the sense of layer-parallel shear during folding.
Raw data files for Norris thesis "The Mystery Interval: hydrologic changes and circulation pattern changes?" additional information about each data file in "read.me" file.
Alkylammonium ion exchange, x-ray powder diffraction (XRD), x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF), and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) have been used to study the chemistry and the physical properties of illite/smectite (I/S) clays from Paleozoic K-bentonites. The data have been used to evaluate current models of I/S interstratification and the mechanism of formation of illite during bentonite diagenesis.
Petrographic study of the Deicke and Millbrig K-benonite beds (altered volcanic ash) of Rocklandian age has revealed that they can be distinguished by their non-clay mineralogy. The Deicke phenocryst assemblage is primarily labradorite, Fe-Ti oxides, apatite, and zircon, while the Millbrig assemblage is primarily andesine, quartz, biotite, apatite, and zircon. The Deicke is altered dacitic ash, while the Millbrig is altered rhyodacitic ash.
The petrographic and compositional characteristics of detrital magnetite and ilmenite separated from 31 modern sand samples derived from 8 known igneous and metamorphic parent rocks indicates that magnetite is a useful provenance indicator. In contrast, detrital ilmenite shows no trends with variations in parent rock and its use in provenance research is suspect.
The Brassfield Formation is a very thin, highly condensed carbonate unit that encompasses most of the Llandovery (8.5 MMYR) and covers much of the eastern midcontinent. Fifty-six Brassfield outcrops exposed around the flanks of the Cincinnati arch comprise three members, four facies tracts, and seven lithofacies. The three types of condensation recognized in the Brassfield (dynamic bypass, punctuated deposition, and sediment starvation) are related to sea level fluctuations, manifested as a hierarchy of sequence orders, that ultimately controlled the spatial and temporal distribution of facies.
A unified study of outcrop and subsurface Silurian rocks from the Brassfield Formation through the C unit in adjacent portions of Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia enhances our understanding of regional stratigraphy, paleogeography, and sea level variations.
The nature of taphonomic overprint affecting the fossil records of the regular echinoid Families Cidaridae, Diadematidae, Toxopneustidae and Echinometridae is investigated using a synthesis of actualistic and literature-derived data. The actualistic portion of this study focuses on the following extant members of the four families: Eucidaris tribuloides, Diadema antillarum, Tripneustes ventricosus and Echinometra lucunter. Population censuses of these animals in tropical reef and near-reef environments demonstrate that the distribution of macro- and microscopic skeletal material does not reflect the distribution of the living fauna. Field experiments with freshly-killed carcasses of Eucidaris, Diadema and Echinometra indicate that loss of all organic tissue occurs within six days after death, reducing these echinoids to essentially bleached carcasses.
The hydrology of a thin colluvium hillside at the Delhi Pike landslide complex, approximately 15 km west of downtown Cincinnati, is controlled by infiltration and evapotranspiration. Pore water pressures approach $-$10 m H$\sb2$O during summer and autumn, but rise to $-$1 m H$\sb2$O or higher after several days of steady winter rains. This state of near saturation is maintained until large trees leaf out and pore pressures fall dramatically in late spring.
Little is known about the hydraulic fracturing of soil, although the technique holds potential for several environmental engineering applications. The dissertation research consists of laboratory experiments, where hydraulic fractures were created by injecting dyed glycerin into colluvium contained in a triaxial pressure cell, and a field test, where hydraulic fractures were created by injecting guar gum gel at shallow depths in glacial drift. The laboratory tests showed that hydraulic fractures are readily created in clayey-silt colluvium. Furthermore, hydraulic fractures created in soil with positive pore pressure were filled with two fluids: one injected to create the fracture, and pore fluid that infiltrates into the fracture tip. The length of the infiltrated tip increases with increasing fracture length.
The principal objective of this study was to develop a battery of methodologies for the analysis of texture, grain packing and pore geometry in sands and sandstones. The methodologies developed include: (1) the 'roller micrometer', a machine which sizes grains by their smallest dimension, S; (2) plots of the joint I:S size and S/I form distributions (I is the intermediate grain dimension determined by sieving); (3) a sorting comparator for the visual estimation of sorting in thin sections; (4) 'packing efficiency', the ratio of minimum compactional to depositional porosity; (5) 'floating index', the proportion of grains lacking intergranular contacts; (6) correction of measurement errors in standard thin section packing analyses; (7) transformation, via digitization, of plain sections of samples into matrices of binary (rock vs pore) numbers; and (8) computer processing of the rock-pore matrices using the Fortran IV program PORESTAT which measures numerous parameters including porosity, specific pore surface area, pore size distribution, pore tortuosity, pore orientation, and periodic repetitions in the pore pattern.
The Allegheny Mountains of east-central West Virginia were imperfectly peneplained in pre-Schooley time. There is no evidence that any external base level has affected this region since uplift of the pre-Schooley surface, i.e., no peneplains controlled by a base level outside the area have developed since pre-Schooley time. The region has been lowered by differential mass-wasting ever since this uplift.
The Dalton quadrangle (Ga. - Tenn.), located in northwest Georgia within the Ridge and Valley province, is a fifteen-minute quadrangle with topographic base by the U.S. Geological Survey. Because of the excellence of the base map and the location of the quadrangle in an area of lower Paleozoic rocks, it was selected as a beginning point for a re-investigation of the geology of northwest Georgia.
Mapping of the Wayaro quadrangle (680 sq kms; scale 1:50,000) revealed that the Bela Ophiolites were thrust upon a sedimentary melange (Kanar Melange) which was deposited in the Paleocene on the Sembar Formation of Cretaceous age.
The Coalinga, California region contains massive amounts of diapirically emplaced deposits of serpentinite. The largest deposit, the New Idria Formation, forms the core of the Joaquin Ridge Anticline and outcrops over an elliptically-shaped 48-square mile area in a mountainous area 17 miles northwest of Coalinga and 15 miles west of the California Aqueduct constructed along the western margin of the San Joaquin Valley. The serpentinite deposit is in faulted diapiric contact with Cretaceous-aged sandstones and shales and became emergent approximately 17 to 20 million years ago in the Miocene era. Eroded asbestos-bearing sediment from this ultramafic deposit has been incorporated in late-Miocene and younger sedimentary formations in the central San Joaquin Valley region.
"The Molango manganese deposit is the only known large Mn deposit in North America. Mineralization involves Mn-carbonate exclusively in a finely laminated bed about 10 meters thick with a strike length $>$50 kilometers. The ore bed is the basal unit of the Chipoco facies (Taman Fm., Kimmeridgian) and underlain by laminated black shales of the Santiago formation (Oxfordian)."
Various geochemical parameters including type and abundance of organic matter (TOC), sulfide-sulfur quantities, fluctuations in bottom-water anoxicity (DOP), metal content differences, and sulfur isotope variations have been assessed in order to characterize Midcontinent Pennsylvanian black shales. Based on these geochemical parameters, the deposits can be grouped into three types: Mecca-type, Heebner-type, and Shanghai-type.
This dissertation is a contribution toward low pressure geochemistry and petrology of alkaline rocks. In order to analyze the phase equilibria in multiply saturated potassic alkaline systems, experiments were performed at one atmosphere pressure and under the $\rm f\sb{O2}\sim QFM$ buffer. Range of temperature covered in this study is 1060-1250$\sp\circ$C. In addition, temperature and composition dependency of low pressure mineral-melt equilibria involving olivine, pyroxenes, plagioclase, nepheline, and leucite were modeled using empirical equations.
In this dissertation I present a tectonic, geochemical, and thermal history for the Witwatersrand basin, located on the Archean Kaapvaal craton, South Africa. The foreland basin tectonic setting of the Central Rand Group controls both the chemical and the thermal evolution of the basin, and unifies the basin evolution model presented here.
Slaty cleavage exposed in the fine-grained metasediments of western Ocoee Gorge, Tennessee is characterized by zones enriched in cleavage-parrallel white mica (P domains), alternating with zones enriched in quartz and feldspar and in which phyllosilicates are bedding-parallel (Q domains). This domainal fabric appears to develop by growth of new mica from mica components carried in a moving fluid. Solid state recrystallization of clays and mica may also have contributed to the development of the fabric, but little, if any, mechanical rotation or passive concentration of mica grains occurred. Both P domain morphology and mineralogical differences between P and Q domain phyllosilicate populations suggest that nucleation and growth of P domains may involve the expulsion of fluids, during diagenesis and low-grade metamorphism.
The depositional style, biostratigraphy and burial history of the Late Early Pliocene, Moruga Group were studied in outcrop and the subsurface, along the south coast of Trinidad to determine its depositional environments, sediment sources, geologic age, and diagenetic history.
Stratigraphic, sedimentologic and petrographic studies of the Lower and Upper Cretaceous in northwest Sonora show that deposition of the Bisbee Group occurred at the northern margin of a back-arc marine basin, and of the El Chanate Group and El Charro volcanic complex in a closed continental foreland basin. This study also finds that the Proterozoic-Paleozoic formations in northwest Sonora (Caborca terrane) were not part of the Cretaceous landscape, thus raising doubts about the existence of the Mojave-Sonora megashear.
