• Specimen Number

  12

• Description

  Fractured block of massive, uniform, cream-colored limestone with irregular brown inclusions. Appears grainy in close-up as a clast-supported carbonate sand composed mostly of shell fragments, most of which are elongated. A grainstone.  Many detrital fossil fragments possibly with some minor silicate sand. Resembles the famous nearby Salem Limestone in texture and composition. Nowhere it visibly oolitic.

• Classification

  Sedimentary. Limestone. Grainstone.

• Location & Occurrence

  Unknown.  Shallow seas with currents to form carbonate sandstone.  A search for the similar  "Salem Limestone" results in: "cross-bedded calcarenite.... Individual grains are mostly microfossils ..."

• Geological Age

  Mississippian (?)

• Geoheritage

  This is the pavilion's stand-in for the Salem Limestone, which was intensively quarried and shipped via railroad to produce much of the architectural dimension stone in the United States.

• Links

  USGS Compilation: Search for Indiana in upper right.  Link to Indiana Geological & Water Survey.  Similar to Salem Limestone.

• Other

Click here for an explanation of categories and illustrations