Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T05:29:52.042Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Black shales

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2016

William Kohlberger
William Kohlberger*
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, P.O. Box 6666, New Haven, Connecticut 06511
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In earlier and simpler times in North American geology, there was an extraordinarily large amount of unexplored ground per available geologist to study it. State and territorial geological surveys, which undertook the first comprehensive mapping programs in the nineteenth century, were at first able to make only the grossest descriptions of outcrops in order to complete their assignments to map an area. In these pioneer surveys, black shales stood out as very easily identifiable strata; characteristically colored, fine grained, with distinctive lamination, and well known to lack fossils found so commonly in adjacent strata. “Black shale, undivided” is a very familiar legend in older outcrop descriptions; the lack of comparability of black shales to other strata effectively prevented their division, for both conceptual and technical reasons. This is one of the many paradoxes we can recognize in relation to black shales; they are as difficult to interpret as they are easy to recognize.

Type
Current Happenings
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , Winter 1983 , pp. 9 - 11
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Literature Cited

Barlow, H., ed. 1979. Proceedings: Third Eastern Gas Shales Symposium. U.S. Dept. of Energy, Morgantown Energy Technology Center. METC/SP-79/6. 548 pp. (Available from National Technical Information Service, U.S. Department of Commerce, Springfield, VA. 22161).Google Scholar
Dunbar, C. O. and Rodgers, J. 1957. Principles of Stratigraphy. 356 pp. John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; New York.Google Scholar
Heckel, P. H. 1977. Origin of phosphatic black shale facies in Pennsylvanian cyclothems of mid-continent North America. Am. Assoc. Petrol. Geol. Bull. 61:1045–1068.Google Scholar
Hoover, K. V. 1960. Devonian-Mississippian shale sequence in Ohio. Ohio Dept. Nat. Res. Div. Geol. Surv. Info. Circ. 27:1–154.Google Scholar
House, M. R. 1978. Devonian ammonoids from the Appalachians and their bearing on international zonation and correlation. Spec. Pap. Paleontol. 21:1–70.Google Scholar
Morgantown Energy Technology Center. 1979. Second Eastern Gas Shales Symposium: Preprints. U.S. Dept. of Energy. METC/SP-78/6(v. 1). 454 pp. (See Barlow, 1979 entry for availability).Google Scholar
Schott, G. L., Overbey, W. K. Jr., Hunt, A. E., and Komar, C. A., eds. 1978. Proceedings First Eastern Gas Shales Symposium. Morgantown Energy Research Center, Morgantown, WV. MERC/SP-77/5. 783 pp.Google Scholar
Tija, H. D. 1966. Arafura Sea. In: Fairbridge, R. H., ed. The Encyclopedia of Oceanography. 1:44–47. Reinhold; New York.Google Scholar
Ulrich, E. O. 1911. Revision of the Paleozoic systems. Geol. Soc. Am. Bull. 22:281–680.Google Scholar
Ulrich, E. O. 1912. The Chattanooga series with special reference to the Ohio shale problem. Am. J. Sci. (4) 34:157–183.Google Scholar