Alum Bluff Group

The Alum Bluff Group is a geologic group in the states of Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. It preserves fossils dating back to the Neogene period.

Alum Bluff Group
Stratigraphic range: Neogene
TypeGroup
Location
Region Georgia (U.S. state),  Florida,  Alabama
Country United States

Age

Period: Paleogene to Neogene
Epoch: Late Oligocene to Early Miocene
Faunal stage: Chattian through Hemphillian ~23.03–5.33 mya, calculates to a period of 17.7 million years

Location

The Alum Bluff Group replaces the Hawthorn Group west of the Apalachicola River with occurrences in Bay, Calhoun, Holmes, Jackson, Liberty, Okaloosa, Walton, and Washington counties. It is younger than the Torreya Formation to the east based on superpositioning.

The Alum Bluff Group outcrops beneath a thin overburden in the western panhandle from river valleys in Okloosa County eastward to western Jackson County.

Lithology

The group is composed of clays, sands and shell beds. These vary from fossil bearing sandy clays to sands, clays, and carbonate beds absent of fossil content with glauconite and phosphate mica which is common. The coloration is from cream to olive gray with mottled reddish brown in the weathered sections. The sands are soft and very fine to coarse with sporadic gravel while carbonate lenses are quite hard. Permeability of the sediments are generally low and are part of the intermediate confining unit/aquifer system.[1][2]

Subdivision

The Alum Bluff Group are defined by the stratigraphic position and mollusks contained within. The group includes:

The Alum Bluff Group has a residuum on Miocene sediments and undifferentiated sediment of the Miocene. This consists of reddish brown, variably sandy clay with inclusions of variably fossiliferous, silicified limestone. The residuum includes Lower to Upper Miocene and younger weathered sediments.[3]

Fossils

See also

References
  1. United States Geological Survey: Lithostratigraphic Units
  2. Matson, George Charles, The phosphate deposits of Florida, Bulletin - United States Geological Survey, 1915
  3. United States Geological Survey: Alum Bluff Group
  4. Kline, H., Herbert, G., Harries, P., Oches, E., CHES, E., and Portell, R., Trophic Structure OF Shell Beds from the Early Miocene Chipola Formations of Florida
  • Various Contributors to the Paleobiology Database. "Fossilworks: Gateway to the Paleobiology Database". Archived from the original on 2014-07-31. Retrieved 22 June 2014.
  • Finch, J., Geological essay on the Tertiary formation in America: American Journal of Science, v. 7, p. 31–43, 1823.

Further reading
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