Henryville Bed

Age:

Mississippian

Type designation:

Type section: Campbell (1946, p. 851) designated the type section of the Henryville Bed as an exposure of dark shale on Caney Fork Creek in lot 252, Clark's Grant in Clark County, Indiana, 1.5 miles (2.4 km) southwest of the town of Henryville (Burger, 1970).

Principal reference section: Probably because of a discrepancy in the original description of the location of the type section, Lineback (1970, p. 67) redefined the type section as the stream bank on Lodge Creek (a tributary of Caney Fork) just east of the road, center of the southwest line of lot 253, Clark's Grant, Clark County (Henryville quadrangle).

History of usage:

The Henryville Bed was originally named as a formation by Campbell (1946). Lineback (1968, p. 1,300) designated the Henryville as a bed of the Clegg Creek Member of the New Albany Shale in southeastern Indiana (Hasenmueller, 1986).

Hasenmueller and Bassett (1981) retained the designation of the Henryville as a bed of the Clegg Creek Member of the New Albany Shale in southeastern Indiana (Hasenmueller, 1986). However, they (1981, p. 22) also designated the Henryville as a bed in the Ellsworth Member of the New Albany Shale in central and southwestern Indiana (Hasenmueller, 1986).

Description:

The Henryville consists of brownish-black to black fissile shale rich in organic matter and trace elements (Lechler and others, 1979) (Hasenmueller, 1986, 1993). It contains a few plant remains and a fauna of conodont and phosphatic brachiopods. The Henryville ranges from 0.4 to 1.7 ft (0.1 to 0.6 m) in thickness in the southeastern Indiana outcrop area. In the subsurface the Henryville is generally less than 5 ft (1.5 m) thick (Hasenmueller and Bassett, 1981) (Hasenmueller, 1986).

In a cored section of the upper part of the New Albany Shale in Dubois County the Henryville Bed directly overlies phosphate nodules of the Falling Run Bed and a brownish-black shale sequence (Hasenmueller, 1986). Where the Henryville overlies brownish-black shale sequences in the subsurface, it generally cannot be differentiated on geophysical logs (Hasenmueller, 1986). But in some areas of central and southwestern Indiana, where it overlies the greenish-gray shale of the Ellsworth Member, the Henryville can be recognized from geophysical logs and also in cores (Hasenmueller, 1986). Where the Henryville Bed directly overlies a brownish-black shale sequence, it is included in the Clegg Creek Member; where it overlies a relatively thick greenish-gray shale sequence in central or southwestern Indiana, it is considered as part of the Ellsworth Member (Hasenmueller and Bassett, 1981).

Distribution: In Indiana the Henryville Bed is present in the southeastern Indiana outcrop area; it extends as far north as Hendricks County and also into Posey County in southwestern Indiana (Hasenmueller, 1986, 1993).

According to Reinbold (1978) and Cluff, Reinbold, and Lineback (1981), the Henryville is present in southeastern Illinois and is entitled there by that name (Hasenmueller, 1986). The bed has not been reported from the subsurface in western Kentucky; however, it has been recognized in outcrop in Bullitt County in west-central Kentucky (Lineback, 1970; Conkin and Conkin, 1975; Hasenmueller, 1993; Hasenmueller and others, 1994).

Boundaries:

In southeastern Indiana the Henryville Bed is overlain by the Jacobs Chapel Bed and underlain by the Falling Run Bed or by the Underwood Bed where the latter is present (Hasenmueller, 1986).

Correlations:

The Henryville Bed contains a conodont fauna that is similar to the fauna in the middle part of the Hannibal Shale of Missouri and Illinois (Lineback, 1970) (Hasenmueller, 1986). The unit is correlated with part of the Sunbury Shale of Michigan, Ohio, and northeastern Indiana and with part of the Maury Formation of Tennessee (Lineback, 1970) (Hasenmueller, 1986).

References:

Burger, A. M., 1970, Henryville Bed, in Shaver, R. H., Burger, A. M., Gates, G. R., Gray, H. H., Hutchison, H. C., Keller, S. J., Patton, J. B., Rexroad, C. B., Smith, N. M., Wayne, W. J., and Wier, C. E., Compendium of rock-unit stratigraphy in Indiana: Indiana Geological Survey Bulletin 43, p. 71-72.

Campbell, Guy, 1946, New Albany Shale: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 57, p. 829-908.

Cluff, R. M., Reinbold, M. L., and Lineback, J. A., 1981, The New Albany Shale Group of Illinois: Illinois State Geological Survey Circular 518, 83 p.

Conkin, J. E., and Conkin, B. M., 1975, The Devonian-Mississippian and Kinderhookian-Osagean boundaries in the east-central United States are paracontinuities: Louisville, Kentucky, University of Louisville Studies in Paleontology and Stratigraphy 4, 54 p.

Hansen, W. R., 1991, Suggestions to authors of the reports of the United States Geological Survey (7^th ed.): Washington, D.C., U.S. Geological Survey, 289 p.

Hasenmueller, N. R., 1986, Henryville Bed, in Shaver, R. H., Ault, C. H., Burger, A. M., Carr, D. D., Droste, J. B., Eggert, D. L., Gray, H. H., Harper, Denver, Hasenmueller, N. R., Hasenmueller, W. A., Horowitz, A. S., Hutchison, H. C., Keith, B. D., Keller, S. J., Patton, J. B., Rexroad, C. B., and Wier, C. E., Compendium of Paleozoic rock-unit stratigraphy in Indiana–a revision: Indiana Geological Survey Bulletin 59, p. 59-60.

Hasenmueller, N. R., 1993, New Albany Shale (Devonian and Mississippian) of the Illinois Basin, in Roen, J. B., and Kepferle, R. C., eds., Petroleum geology of the Devonian and Mississippian black shale of eastern North America: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1909, Chapter C, p. C1-C19.

Hasenmueller, N. R., and Bassett, J. L., 1981, Stratigraphy, in Hasenmueller, N. R., and Woodard, G. S., eds., Studies of the New Albany Shale (Devonian and Mississippian) and equivalent strata in Indiana: Indiana Geological Survey, p. 5-32.

Hasenmueller, N. R., Boberg, W. S., Lumm, C. B., Frankie, W. T., Hamilton-Smith, T., and Comer, J. B., 1994, Stratigraphy, in Hasenmueller, N. R., and Comer, J. B., eds., Gas potential of the New Albany Shale (Devonian and Mississippian) in the Illinois Basin: Indiana Geological Survey, Illinois Basin Consortium Illinois Basin Studies 2, p. 13-22.

Lechler, P. J., Hasenmueller, N. R., Bassett, J. L., and Leininger, R. K., 1979, Distribution and geochemical characterization of the Hannibal Member of the New Albany Shale in Indiana, in Third Eastern Gas Shales Symposium Proceedings: Morgantown, W. Va., U.S. Department of Energy METC\SP-79\6, p. 511-525.

Lineback, J. A., 1968, Subdivisions and depositional environments of New Albany Shale (Devonian-Mississippian) in Indiana: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 52, p. 1,291-1,303.

Lineback, J. A., 1970, Stratigraphy of the New Albany Shale in Indiana: Indiana Geological Survey Bulletin 44, 73 p.

Reinbold, M. L., 1978, Stratigraphic relationships of the New Albany Shale Group (Devonian-Mississippian) in Illinois: Morgantown, W. Va., U.S. Department of Energy, Second Eastern Gas Shales Symposium Preprint, v. 1, p. 443-454.

Shaver, R. H., coordinator, 1984, Midwestern basin and arches region–correlation of stratigraphic units in North America (COSUNA): American Association of Petroleum Geologists Correlation Chart Series.