gGTOlotfc5!KSur\«v^Uhlvar«ltv^ MISSISSIPPI STATE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY WILLIAM CLIFFORD MORSE, Ph.D. Director BULLETIN 78 MARSHALL COUNTY GEOLOGY By FRANKLIN EARL VESTAL, M.S. UNIVERSITY, MISSISSIPPI 1954 MISSISSIPPI GEOLOGICAL SURVEY COMMISSION His Excellency Hugh Lawson White Governor Hon. Jackson McWhirter Tubb State Superintendent of Education Hon. John Davis Williams Chancellor, University of Mississippi Hon. Ben F. Hilbun -.President, Mississippi State College Hon. William David McCain Director, Dept. of Archives and History STAFF William Clifford Morse, Ph.D _ Director and State Geologist Franklin Earl Vestal, M.S Geologist Tracy Wallace Lusk, M.S. Assistant State Geologist Fred Cullen Smith, B.A. Assistant Geologist Katherine F. Warren, M.A. Librarian Louise Womack Hughes, B.S.— Secretary Margaret M. Jones, M.S. Secretary LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL Office of the Mississippi Geological Survey University, Mississippi, March 15, 1954 To His Excellency, Governor Hugh L. White, Chairman, and Members of the Geological Commission Gentlemen: Geology of Marshall County Sand, sand, sand everywhere, and not one grain to know. Sand, sand, sand everywhere, and not one bed to place. Trite, yes; but so true, so applicable, so completely summarizing. "Stratigraphic relationships in northern Mississippi have passed, and probably will continue to pass, complete understanding." So says the author, climaxing seventy years of geologic studies of the "sand problem" by various workers. And yet the author "believes that he has identified the major strati- graphic units which crop out in Marshall County, and has found a suf ficient number of points on their contacts to enable him to delimit the units geographically and stratigraphically, at least in a general way." And so at last the foundations are laid for the conclusions he so cautiously presents in the report. It has been a tough assignment — an assignment so challenging that the State Geologist craved it for his own, but other matters consumed his time. Perhaps the discovered "points on their contacts" will enable the "surface oil geologist" to determine favorable oil structures deep beneath the sands. At least they point up the region where geophysical crews should begin their more expensive exploration. Naturally the State Geologist hopes his forecasts of 20 years ago, that deeply sand-buried structures would probably yield oil, will prove correct. In fact they have been found to contain gas and distillate, but the "tight-sand reservoirs" have, for the most part, yielded up the hydro carbons too slowly to be economically profitable. Yet Carter Oil Com pany technologists with the "know-how" have fractured the reservoirs in northeastern Mississippi to the extent of making them productive. The report, Geology of Marshall County by Franklin Earl Vestal, to be printed as Bulletin 78. Very sincerely yours, William Clifford Morse Director and State Geologist CONTENTS Page Introduction —— 7 Climate - — 11 Physiography 14 Provinces, topography, relief — — 14 Drainage ~ 16 Stratigraphy _ _ 17 General „ „ _ 17 Naheola formation __ 22 Fearn Springs formation 26 Ackerman formation 34 Meridian formation 53 Tallahatta formation _ 67 Winona and Zilpha formations 90 Kosciusko formation 91 Citronelle formation „ _ 110 Loess formation _ 114 Recent formation 117 Structure; oil and gas prospecting and possibilities._ _ 119 Geologic history „ 137 Economic geology 141 Soils _ 141 Water _ _ 146 Ceramic clay _ 151 Iron ore _ 164 Gravel, sand, sandstone, and other rocks _ 175 Acknowledgments _ „ 180 References _. 181 Index 188 ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURES Page 1. Location of Marshall County 7 2. Eastward dipping Naheola strata ... a mile south of Corners- ville 22 3. Profile of the upper surface of the Naheola formation 24 4. Ackerman-Meridian contact zone ... a mile north of Bethlehem 40 5. Ackerman beds, south wall of the valley of Potts Creek ... 2 miles north by east of Bethlehem 40 6. Ackerman-Meridian contact ... 4 miles southeast of Waterford 43 7. Uppermost Ackerman ... Highway 78 cut ... 3 miles north west of Potts Camp 49 8. Ackerman-Meridian contact ... in the west wall of the valley of Tippah River 3 miles west of Bethlehem 50 9. Sand pit ... Highway 30, Union County ... sandstone at the top .... ...... 56 10. Meridian sand pit ... 2 miles south by west of Potts Camp 58 11. Big ravine in the Meridian sand ... 1.5 miles east of Highway 7 at Malone.. 59 12. Meridian sand pit ... at Chewalla Farms 61 13. Meridian-Tallahatta contact ... at the north end of Lake Mimosa 62 14. Meridian sand pit . 0.3 mile north of the entrance to Mimosa Lake 63 15. Meridian-Tallahatta contact ... 2 miles southeast of Higdon... 64 16. Meridian and Tallahatta beds ... 0.5 mile east of Chewalla Farms 64 17. Tallahatta beds and Tallahatta-Kosciusko contact ... west of Highway 7, and 4 miles south of Holly Springs 70 18. Tallahatta-Kosciusko contact ... 0.2 mile southeast of Higdon church —- - 71 19. Tallahatta beds ... Highway 4 cut 6 miles northeast of Holly Springs 73 20. Tallahatta beds ... 1.5 miles north by east of Atway 74 21. Tallahatta-Kosciusko contact ... 0.5 mile south by east of Laws Hill 77 22. Tallahatta-Kosciusko contact ... 0.5 mile south of Bell Grove church - 79 23. Tallahatta thin beds ... 4 miles south of Red Banks 81 24. Kosciusko sand and sandstone ... 5 miles west by north from Highway 7 in Holly Springs 83 25. Tallahatta-Kosciusko contact ... 0.8 mile east of Red Banks ..... 84 26. Sharp contact ... a few yards north of the outcrop shown by Figure 25 _ _ 85 27. Tallahatta-Citronelle contact ... 0.5 mile east of Byhalia 86 28. Tallahatta-Kosciusko contact ... 2.5 miles north of Victoria 87 29. Kosciusko sandstone ... 1.3 miles northwest of Holly Springs 93 30. Tallahatta and Kosciusko sand ... 0.7 mile west of Laws Hill 94 31. Ravine in Kosciusko sand ... 1.6 miles east from Galena 97 32. Kosciusko sand ... 1.5 miles south from Marianna 99 33. Sand-filled canal of Cuffawa Creek ... 1.5 miles west from Marianna _ _ 100 34. Block of sandstone on top of a pillar ... a mile south by west of Red Banks — 101 35. Tallahatta-Kosciusko contact ... 2 miles northeast from Holly Springs „ „ 106 36. Eroded Tallahatta and Kosciusko terrane ... 2 miles southeast of Higdon m 109 37. Kosciusko-Citronelle contact ... 2 miles southwest of Watson 112 38. Citronelle gravel ... 2 miles northeast from Byhalia 113 39. Holly Springs Brick and Tile Company plant 160 40. Concretion of iron ore ... 0.3 mile west of Bethlehem 167 41. Superintendent's home and office ... Spring Lake State Park 179 42. Masses of silty iron oxide ore ... a mile east by south of Chewalla Farms 179 PLATE 1. Marshall County geologic map „ Back MARSHALL COUNTY GEOLOGY FRANKLIN EARL VESTAL, M.S. INTRODUCTION Marshall County, an area of 689 square miles,1 is the western most, except for DeSoto, of the six Mississippi counties which border Tennessee (Figure 1). It is bounded on the east by Benton and Union Counties, on the south by Lafayette, and on the west by Tate and DeSoto. Roughly, the county lies within a quadri- Figure 1.—Location of Marshall County. lateral formed by the parallels of 34°30' and 35° north latitude, and the meridians of 89° 15' and 89°45' west longitude.2 Its maxi mum east-west straight-line length is 27 miles, and its greatest north-south extent is 34 miles. All boundary lines are straight with the exception of the eastern half of the southern boundary- line, which is the Tallahatchie River. The boundary-line on the east is offset in two places, so that in the southeastern corner of the county it is 6 miles east of its position in the northeastern corner. The western boundary-line also is offset in such a way 8 MISSISSIPPI STATE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY that its southernmost 9-mile segment is 3 miles farther east than the 21-mile segment of the remainder (Plate 1). The locations of the boundary-lines, giving the county such an irregular shape, resulted from changes during its history. According to Rowland," Marshall County, named for Chief Justice John Marshall, was established February 9, 1836, and formerly included territory which has since been apportioned among Benton, Tate, and other counties. Originally it comprised about 23 townships, 828 square miles. "In 1870 it gave up part of its territory on the east to Benton County, and in 1873 it gave up another portion of its area to assist in the formation of Tate County, and received in lieu of the portion surrendered to Tate, all that portion of DeSoto County lying within Townships 1 and 2, Range 5 West. Subsequent slight modifications of its bound aries have resulted in reducing its area to 689 square miles." The population of Marshall County on April 1, 1950, was 25,106, fewer by 416 than the 1940 population of 25,522. In con trast to the 1.6 percent loss of population for the county as a whole, the population of Holly Springs, the county seat, increased from 2,750 in 1940 to 3,276 in 1950 — a gain of 526 people, or more than 19 percent, in the decade.4 Except for the people of Holly Springs, the population of Marshall County is entirely rural, by the definitions of "urban" and "rural" adopted by the U. S. De partment of Commerce Bureau of the Census for the 1950 census, according to which population is classed as urban only where it lives in groups of 2,500 or more/' The rural population is fairly evenly distributed over the county. Holly Springs is the largest town, Byhalia is second in pop ulation, and Potts Camp third." Other towns and villages of the county are: Mount Pleasant, Slayden, Hudsonville, Victoria, Red Banks, Waterford, Chulahoma, Cornersville, Warsaw, and Wat son.