Middle Devonian Bone Beds of Ohio
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
BULLETIN OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA MIDDLE DEVONIAN BONE BEDS OF OHIO BY JOHN W. WELLS CONTENTS Page Abstract.................................................................................................................................................................... 274 Introduction............................................................................................................................................................ 274 Acknowledgements................................................................................................................................................ 274 Middle Devonian limestones of central Ohio and their bone beds........................................................... 275 General statement........................................................................................................................................ 275 Second bone bed........................................................................................................................................... 278 First, Third, and Fourth bone beds........................................................................................................ 278 East Liberty bone bed................................................................................................................................ 280 Physical features of bone beds............................................................................................................... 281 Middle Devonian bone beds of Indiana and Kentucky Rocky Branch bone bed, southeastern Indiana.................................................................................. 282 Kiddville bone bed, east-central Kentucky.......................................................................................... 282 Faunas of the bone beds..................................................................................................................................... 283 General statement........................................................................................................................................ 284 Fish “fauna” of the bone beds................................................................................................................. 284 Environment of the fishes......................................................................................................................... 285 Origin of the bone beds....................................................................................................................................... 289 Previous explanations................................................................................................................................. 289 Other bone beds............................................................................................................................................ 290 Ohio bone beds.............................................................................................................................................. 293 Summary.................................................................................................................................................................. 297 Ohio bone bed localities....................................................................................................................................... 299 References cited..................................................................................................................................................... 299 ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Page 1. Generalized meridional section in Franklin and Delaware counties, central Ohio............... 276 2. Outcrop of Middle Devonian limestone formations in central Ohio......................................... 277 3. Bone bed localities in Franklin and Delaware counties............................................................... 277 4. Marble Cliff quarries group................................................................................................................... 279 5. Bone bed fish remains............................................................................................................................. 286 6. Cincinnatia during the early Middle Devonian.............................................................................. 288 7. Middle Devonian paleogeography of Cincinnatia and adjacent regions.................................. 289 8. Third bone bed at Deep Run, Delaware County........................................................................... 294 9. Third bone bed at McCoy Road, Franklin County...................................................................... 294 10. Conditions of accumulation of Third bone bed............................................................................... 295 11. Second bone bed at North end of Hobo quarry, Franklin County.......................................... 295 12. Relations of Columbus formation, Second bone bed, and Delaware formation in Marble Cliff Quarries group, Franklin County................................................................................................ 296 13. Second bone bed at Marble Cliff Station.......................................................................................... 296 14. Modes of bone-bed origin....................................................................................................................... 298 Plate Facing page 1. Bone bed lithology................................................................................................................................... 302 273 Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-pdf/55/3/273/3440694/BUL55_3-0273.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 274 J. W. WELLS— MIDDLE DEVONIAN BONE BEDS OF OHIO ABSTRACT The Middle Devonian limestones of central Ohio consist of two formations, the Columbus (late Ulsterian) and the Delaware (early Erian). Within these are at least four thin bone beds: the First, 10 feet below the top of the Columbus in Franklin and southern Delaware counties, the Second, at the contact of the Columbus and the Delaware from Franklin county north to Lake Erie, the Third, 26 to 30 feet above the base of the Delaware in Franklin and Delaware counties, and the Fourth, 2 feet above the Third at Delaware. The Rocky Branch bone bed occurs in southeastern Indiana at the approximate horizon of the Second. These beds vary considerably in development, being absent at some localities and a foot or slightly thicker at others. They consist of clastic accumula tions of crinoidal debris, innumerable scales, plates, teeth, and bones of fishes, conodonts, ostracods, and Foraminifera, relatively few macrofossils, mixed with rounded sand grains and a small amount of clay-size constituents, more or less thoroughly cemented by calcite. Another bone bed, the East Liberty, occurs between the Columbus formation and the Upper Devonian Ohio shale in the Belle- fontaine Devonian outlier in Logan County, Ohio. It is mostly sand grains cemented by dolomite, with some fish material and a few phosphatic nodules, and is considered younger than the bone beds of central Ohio—perhaps of Olentangy age. The Kiddville layer in the lower part of the Boyle limestone of eastern Kentucky is similar to the East Liberty bone bed lithologically and faunally and probably represents approximately the same horizon. All these bone beds occur on the flanks of the Cincinnati arch, and none is now known in equiva lent formations away from this structure. Most of the fish material is believed to have come from the fresh-water environments of the middle Paleozoic lowland area of Cincinnatia and is found not only concentrated in the bone beds but also thinly diffused throughout the enclosing limestones. These bone beds do not represent catastrophic annihilation of indigenous marine fish communities but are rather concentrates accumulated during diastems resulting from the fluctuations with re spect to wave base of the very shallow sea bordering Cincinnatia. In places they represent lag con centrates, in others rapid subaqueous accumulations of coarser material transported from areas of lag concentrates with bypassing of finer particles, and in still others aeolian deposits derived from subaerial exposures of lag concentrates. INTRODUCTION “There have been elaborate treatises written on those ornate fiooring-tiles of the classi cal and middle ages. But did any of them ever tell a story half so instructive or so strange as that told by the incalculably more ancient. .. tiles of the Paleozoic... .?” —Hugh Miller: Rambles of a geologist. Several years ago the writer began a study of the microscopic fish remains of the well-known bone bed at the top of the Middle Devonian Columbus formation in central Ohio. An exceedingly interesting fauna rich in new genera and species was found, and from this paleontologic study arose the paleoecological problem of the environments of the fishes. Closely related is the problem in sedimentation involved in determining the mode or modes of origin and accumulation of the bone-bed mate rials. Previously proffered explanations of the origin of the bone beds have inter preted them either erroneously or incompletely. In the present paper an attempt is made to explain more adequately the origin of these bone beds, not with the thought of definitely settling the problem, for certain aspects have not been investigated, but more with the hope of provoking further