Madison Group
Madison Limestone Stratigraphic range: Mississippian |
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Thrusted segment of the Madison Limestone, Sun River canyon, Montana
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Type | Geological formation |
Underlies | Big Snowy Group |
Overlies | Bakken Formation (Three Forks Group) |
Thickness | up to 2,100 feet (640 m)[1] |
Lithology | |
Primary | Limestone |
Other | Shale |
Location | |
Region | South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Colorado, Arizona, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Utah |
Country | ![]() ![]() |
Type section | |
Named for | Madison Range |
Named by | A.C. Peale, 1893[2] |
The Madison Limestone is a thick sequence of mostly carbonate rocks of Mississippian age in the Rocky Mountain and Great Plains areas of western United States. The rocks serve as an important aquifer as well as an oil reservoir in places. The Madison and its equivalent strata extend from the Black Hills of western South Dakota to western Montana and eastern Idaho, and from the Canadian border to western Colorado and the Grand Canyon of Arizona.
Age and nomenclature
The Madison is formally known as the Madison Group. In Montana, where its thickness reaches 1,700 feet (520 m), the group is subdivided into the Mission Canyon Formation and Lodgepole Formation. Equivalents of the Madison are named the Pahasapa Limestone in the Black Hills, Leadville Limestone (Colorado), Guernsey Limestone (Wyoming), and Redwall Limestone in the Grand Canyon. The upper part of the Madison Group, the Charles Formation in the subsurface of North Dakota and northern Montana, is not strictly an equivalent of the Madison Limestone as usually defined.[3]
Most of the Madison Limestones were deposited during Early to Middle Mississippian time (Tournaisian to Visean stages), about 359 to 326 million years ago. Older North American usage lists the Madison as being laid down during the Kinderhookian, Osagian, and Meramecian stages.
Neither a type locality nor derivation of the name was designated when the term "Madison Limestone" was first used by Peale (1893),[4] but since the original work focused on the area of Three Forks, Montana, it is likely that the name relates to outcrops along the Madison River, Montana. A reference section has been designated on the north side of Gibson Reservoir in SE/4 sec. 36, T. 22 N., R. 10 W., Patricks Basin quad, Teton Co., Montana.[5]
Lithology
Limestones and dolomites dominate the Madison. Because the rock is highly soluble, it often develops caves and karst topography. Lewis and Clark Caverns, Montana, is an example of a cave developed in the Madison. The rocks were deposited in a generally shallow marine setting, indicated by the richly fossiliferous rocks of the Madison. In the Williston Basin, water was shallow enough for oolite shoals to develop; they later became reservoirs for oil.[6] The gray cliffs along the Missouri River in the Gates of the Mountains, Montana are formed by Madison Limestone.[7]
Subdivisions
- Montana-Wyoming-Manitoba
The following formations are recognized in Montana, Wyoming and Manitoba, from top to base:
Sub-unit | Age | Lithology | Max. Thickness |
Reference |
---|---|---|---|---|
Charles Formation | Mississippian | dolomitic limestone | 244 m (800 ft) | [8] |
Mission Canyon Formation | Osagian | white bioclastic limestone, oolitic calcarenite, occasionally dolomitized; anhydrite in the Williston Basin | 183 m (600 ft) | [9] |
Lodgepole Formation | Kinderhookian | lime mudstones, shale, chert, contains bitumen | 245 m (800 ft) | [10] |
- Saskatchewan
The following subdivisions (of formation rank) are recognized in Saskatchewan, from top to base:
Sub-unit | Age | Lithology | Max. Thickness |
Reference |
---|---|---|---|---|
Poplar Beds | Meramecian | limestone, argillaceous dolomite, evaporite | 152 m (500 ft) | [11] |
Ratcliffe Beds | Osagian | dense dolomites, mudstone with three anhydrite beds | 80 m (260 ft) | [12] |
Midale Beds | Osagian | oolitic to pisolitic and skeletal grainstone to packstone with vuggy porosity, dolomite, porous wackestone | 45 m (150 ft) | [13] |
Foirbisher Evaporite | Osagian | supratidal anhydrite | 9 m (30 ft) | [13] |
Kisbey Sandstone | Osagian | porous silty dolomite and calcareous sandstone | 10 m (30 ft) | [14] |
Alida Beds | Osagian | oolitic to pisolitic grainstone and packstone, silty and dolomitic limestone, crinoidal limestones | 63 m (210 ft) | [15] |
Tilston Beds | Kinderhookian | oolitic, pisolitic and crinoidal grainstone and packstone; cherty or dolomitic crystalline limestone, silty limestone, anhydrite | 80 m (260 ft) | [16] |
Souris Valley Beds | Kinderhookian | argillaceous limestone, calcareous shale, chert | 176 m (580 ft) | [17] |
See also
References
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- ↑ Peale, A.C., 1893. The Paleozoic section in the vicinity of Three Forks, Montana. United States Geological Survey, Bull. 110, p.9-56.
- ↑ Mississippian System, by Lawrence C. Craig, in Geologic Atlas of the Rocky Mountain Region, Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists, Denver, CO, 1972: p. 100-110
- ↑ Peale, A.C., 1893, The Paleozoic section in the vicinity of Three Forks, Montana, with petrographic notes by G.P. Merrill: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin, 110, 56 p.
- ↑ Mudge, M.R., Sando, W.J. and Dutro, J.T., Jr., 1962, Mississippian rocks of the Sun River Canyon area, Sawtooth Range, Montana: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 46, no. 11, p. 2003-2018
- ↑ Mississippian Madison group stratigraphy and sedimentation in Wyoming and southern Montana, by John Michael Andrichuk, AAPG Bulletin; November 1955; v. 39; no. 11; p. 2170-2210
- ↑ River Log and Road Log: Thrust Faulting near Gates of the Mountains, Lombard, Lewis & Clark Canyon, Montana Geological Society 1994 Guidebook, James L. Cannon, Gary G. Thompson, and John R. Warne, editors
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- Geologic groups of the United States
- Geologic formations of Saskatchewan
- Mississippian geologic formations
- Mississippian United States
- Carboniferous Arizona
- Carboniferous Colorado
- Carboniferous Idaho
- Carboniferous Montana
- Carboniferous North Dakota
- Carboniferous geology of South Dakota
- Carboniferous Saskatchewan
- Carboniferous geology of Utah
- Carboniferous geology of Wyoming
- Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin
- Geologic groups of Idaho
- Geologic groups of Colorado
- Geologic groups of Arizona
- Geologic groups of Montana
- Geologic groups of North Dakota
- Geologic groups of South Dakota
- Geologic groups of Utah
- Geologic groups of Wyoming
- Stratigraphy of Saskatchewan
- Carboniferous stratigraphic units of North America