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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 55 (1971)

Issue: 2. (February)

First Page: 344

Last Page: 345

Title: Knifley Sandstone: Early Mississippian Infralittoral Sandstone Body: ABSTRACT

Author(s): S. V. Hrabar, R. C. Kepferle, C. T. Klekamp, W. A. Pryor, P. E. Potter

Article Type: Meeting abstract

Abstract:

Stratigraphic and petrologic relationships indicate that the Knifley Sandstone was the product of littoral to infralittoral processes, which deposited sands at the shoaling inner margins of a shallow, Early Mississippian sea.

The Knifley Sandstone is an elongate body, 30 mi long, 5 mi wide and up to 200 ft thick, within the Ft. Payne (=Borden) Formation (Lower Mississippian) of south-central Kentucky. This sandstone body trends northwest-southeast, parallel with the regional depositional strike. It is offlapped to the southwest by 2 elongate limestone bodies of similar dimension and orientation.

The thick widespread Ft. Payne (=Borden) Formation consists of bioturbated, siliceous dolosiltites. The Knifley Sandstone is a coarsening-upward sequence of fine- to medium-grained, glauconitic, dolomitic, subgraywackes, which grade downward into the underlying Ft. Payne (=Borden) dolosiltites. Extensive bioturbation

End_Page 344------------------------------

has destroyed most primary bedding features except the southwest-dipping master bedding. Dielectric anisotropy data indicate long-grain axis orientations toward the southwest, perpendicular to the length of the sandstone body and regional depositional strike. The 2 parallel limestone bodies consist almost entirely of coarse, well-sorted bryozoan-crinoidal biosparites. These limestones contain a minor percentage of terrigenous quartz; silicification of skeletal fossil debris is common. Directional properties in the 2 limestone bodies indicate a southwesterly transport direction.

The coarsening-upward sequence of highly bioturbated sandstone with an increase in carbonate downdip indicates a littoral to infralittoral barrier separating a gently shallowing sea on the southwest from its shoreline on the northeast.

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