"CRAB ORCHARD CHERT": A GEOLOGICAL MISNOMERby

James L. MurphyGrove City, Ohio

Abstract.- "Crab Orchard Chert" con-sists of silicified fossil Ordovician stromato-poroid bodies locally utilized duringprehistoric times in central Kentucky. Theoccurrences are actually in the OrdovicianReba limestone rather than the SilurianCrab Orchard Formation. Distinguishingvarious stromatoporoidal "cherts" basedupon stromatoporoid taxonomy is feasiblein some cases but is inhibited by the reluc-tance of paleontologists to study materialin which silicification has destroyed muchof the structure and which requires thin-section preparation. The distribution of sili-cified stromatporoids has also beenneglected by most field geologists andignored by archaeologists.

Introduction.-"Crab Orchard Chert" wasoriginally described as a "provisional type"by DeRegnaucourt and Georgiady (1988)from the Silurian Crab Orchard Formationof Garrard Co., Kentucky. It is furtherdescribed in Deregnaucourt (2001) butmistakenly identified as Devonian in age.Because of the pronounced wavy, zig-zag,or "crimped" pattern it often displays, thismaterial is very distinctive. Although "CrabOrchard chert" is limited to the area ofPaint Lick and Lancaster, in GarrardCounty, Kentucky, very similar materialsoccur in Ordovician and Devonian rocks ofTennessee,Ohio, and New York, and maybeexpected elsewhere.

The present study was initially under-taken because flint or chert has nowhereelse been reported from Crab Orchardstrata. A visit to the type locality on theWalker-Noe Farm near Paint Lick (Fig. 1)revealed that "Crab Orchard Chert" actu-ally consists of float fragments of silicifiedfossil stromatoporoid colonies weatheredfrom the Reba Member of the UpperOrdovician Ashlock Formation (Fig. 2). Atthe Walker-Noe farm, silicified stromato-poroid bodies occur mainly between ele-vations of 990-1010' A.M.S.L. along asmall tributary of Walker Run and, alongwith utilized material, in cultivated fieldsimmediately to the south, where the mot-tled, banded gray material is mixed withabundant brightly-colored flint derivedfrom outcrops of Boyle Dolomite occur-ring about 80 feet higher. The interveningbedrock is of poorly exposed dolomiticshales of the upper Ordovician DrakesFormation and the Silurian Crab OrchardFormation, neither of which contains anyflint or chert.

Stromatoporoids.- Stromatoporoids areextinct, sponge-like invertebrate organismswith non-spiculate, calcareous basal skele-tons of laminar, domical, bulbous,

branching to columnar form; internallycomposed of regular, continuous networkof growth parallel and normal to growthskeletal elements, either interconnectedlaminae, or cyst plates, and pillars. Theyare limited to Ordovician through Devonianmarine strata. "Stroms" are often poorlypreserved due to replacement of the orig-inal high-magnesium calcite and aragoniteby low-magnesium calcite and even silica.(Stearn et al. 1999).

Identification even at the generic levelusually requires microscopic study of thinsections. Figure 3, taken from Gallowayand St. Jean (1961), illustrates vertical andtangential cross sections of the two mostcommon genera found in the middleOrdovician of central Kentucky, Labechia(1A, 1B) and Stromatoceplum (2A, 2B).Unfortunately, because silicification oftendestroys the finer structures of stromato-poroids, silicified examples have notreceived any study by paleontologists; forthat matter, stratigraphers and generalgeologists often pay little attention to theoccurrence of stromatoporoids unless theyare abundant enough to form large, reef-like masses. Conversation with Kentuckygeologists has not revealed any recollec-tion of seeing silicified stromatoporoids inthe field, and stromatoporoid specialistshave been reluctant to study the availablematerial, although much of it does preservestromatoporoid microstructure.

Silicified Stromatoporoids in Ken-tucky. - The Reba limestone member ofthe upper Ashlock Formation ranges from10 to 25 feet thick. It has been foundfrom near Stanford to near Winchesterand was previously referred to as theArnheim Formation of Ohio, a strati-graphic term no longer used (Weir,Greene, and Simmons 1965).

Silicified stromatoporoids have beenlocated in situ in the Reba Member as farwest as Lancaster, Garrard Co. Theyhave also been found in a new roadcut atPoint Leavall, ca. 5 km northwest of theWalker-Noe outcrop. The Reba Memberintergrades eastward into beds of the BullFork Formation and southward into theCumberland Formation, and silicifiedstromatoporoids have not been found inoutcrops of those rocks, although thinstringers of chert have been noted in theCumberland Formation near Burkesville,Kentucky, and unsilicified stromato-poroids occur in the Sunset Member ofthe Bull Fork Formation.

Silicified stromatoporoids have alsobeen found near Danville, Boyle Co., inthe Middle Ordovician TanglewoodMember of the Lexington Formation

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where the largest known silicified Ken-tucky examples occur. These have beententatively identified as Stromatocerium,although unsilicified stromatoporoidbodies abundant in the Strodes Creek,Stamping Ground, and Tanglewoodmembers of the Lexington Limestone,where they are sometimes very conspic-uous (Fig. 4), have generally beenreferred to as Labechia. The geographicextent of silicified material is currentlyvery poorly known, but since it clearlyoccurs in more than one stratigraphicunit, this material should probably bereferred to as "Kentucky stromatoporoidchert" or "Ordovician stromatoporoidchert" unless there is a clear reason tobelieve the material came from a partic-ular stratigraphic unit. The term "CrabOrchard Chert" is a geological misnomer,is definitely misleading, and should notbe used.

Confusion with Tyrone and OtherKentucky Banded Cherts.- It appearsthat the stromatoporoid chert of centralKentucky has been confused with bandedchert from the older Ordovician TyroneLimestone and with banded Mississippiancherts of the Meade Co. area. Thinbedded and nodular banded chert iscommon in the Ordovician Tyrone lime-stone, often associated with siliceouspyrolitic bentonite ash beds, and local col-lectors frequently refer to banded chertartifacts found in the area along the Ken-tucky River north of Garrard County as"Tyrone chert," even if it exhibits fossilizedstromatoporoid structure. The Tyrone hasbeen examined at the type locality in andnear the quarry at Tyrone, AndersonCounty, about five miles west of Ver-sailles, and in the High Bridge sectionnear Boonesborough. At Tyrone, nodularand thin-bedded banded chert is abun-dant but generally too fractured to havebeen widely utilized for artifact material. Itis possible that suitable material mayoccur elsewhere in the Tyrone and havebeen carried downstream along the Ken-tucky River, but this remains to be estab-lished. Finely banded nodular chert isalso common in Mississippian limestonesin Meade County, across the Ohio Riverfrom the better known "Harrison County"or Wyandot chert of Indiana. Lackingfossil evidence, these Ordovician andMississippian cherts can easily be con-fused with one another, but all of themlack the zig-zag pattern created by stro-matoporoid mamelons as well as the finercellular structure of stromatoporoidbodies. Artifacts manufactured from Gar-rard Co. silicified stroinatoporoids are

very distinctive and cannot be easily con-fused with material from Tyrone or MeadeCo. strata (Figs. 5, 6).

Silicified Stromatoporoids in Ten-nessee.- To complicate matters further,silicified stromatoporoids are also abun-dant in central Tennessee, particularlyalong the Cumberland and Duck Rivers,where the material was utilized in prehis-toric times as well as the present. Bassler(1932) and Wilson (1948) provide data onnumerous occurrences of silicified stro-matoporoids in middle and upper Ordovi-cian rocks of central Kentucky, and thismaterial is familiar to Tennessee archae-ologists as "sponge chert." Amick (1987),following Faulkner and McCollough(1973) and McCollough and Faulkner(1976) provides a good description of itsoccurrence in the Ordovician Bigby-Cannon limestone of central Duck RiverBasin but like his predecessors failed torealize the organic nature of its origin,referring to it simply as "gray-banded" or"brown-banded" chert. Faulkner andMcCullough's Shelton Quarry site(40BD80), a half-mile below the Nor-mandy Reservoir dam, has been visitedand very dark but typical stromato-poroidal chert collected (Fig. 7).

Silicified Stromatoporoids in New Yorkand Ohio.- Silicified stromatoporoids andbedded black chert have been describedfrom dolomite in the Martisco Reef Com-plex of Cobleskill age near Marcellus Falls,New York (Ciurca 2003). Stromatoporoidsare common in Ordovician, Silurian andDevonian rocks of Ohio but silicified exam-ples have not been reported. AlthoughOrdovician and Silurian examples are rela-tively small, massive stromatoporoids(Anostylostroma) up to 20 cm. in diameterare common in the Devonian limestones ofcentral and northwestern Ohio and mightbe available in glacial drift (Keller 1963).

One end scraper of this material has beennoted in a collection from the CrawfordCounty area. The finely spaced, broad,even laminae are quite distinctive and suchmaterial cannot be confused with KentuckyOrdovician stromatoporoids.

Conclusions.- The term "Crab Orchardchert" is based upon a stratigraphicmisidentification and should not be used.Lithic material derived from silicified stro-matoporoids in the Reba limestone ofGarrard Co., Kentucky is macroscopicallyindistinguishable from similar materialalong the Cumberland River in north cen-tral Tennessee. Further field work is nec-essary to determine the extent of silicifiedstromatoporoid occurrences in Kentuckyand Tennessee, while detailed paleonto-logical study is necessary to determinewhether distinct species characterize thedifferent stratigraphic occurrences.

Acknowledgements.- Tony DeReg-naucourt kindly provided locality informa-tion and contacts in the central Kentuckyarea. Randall Carrier, Lancaster, Ken-tucky, who probably has the largest col-lection of Garrard County stromatoporoidartifacts extant, accompanied me in thefield on several occasions and very kindlyallowed me to photograph his collection.

References

Amick, Daniel S.1987 lithic Raw Material Variability in the

Central Duck River Basin: Reflections ofMiddle and Late Archaic OrganizationalStrategies. Tennessee Valley AuthorityPublications in Anthropology 5 0; Uni-versity of Tennessee, Dept. of Anthro-pology, Report of Investigations 46.Knoxville.

Ciurca, Samuel J., Jr.2003 Cobleskill Formation Research in Cen-

tral New York Auburn Eastward To TheRock Cut Gorge Near Syracuse, NewYork. Abstract Presented before the

Rochester Academy of Science FallPaper Session at Rochester Institute ofTechnology, Rochester, New York,November 15, 2003.

DeRegnaucourt, Tony2001 Crab Orchard Chert. Central States

Archaeological Journal 48(3): 1141-15.DeRegnaucourt, Tony, and Jeff Georgiady1998 Prehistoric Chert Types of the Midwest.

Upper Miami Valley ArchaeologicalResearch Museum, Occasional Mono-graphs in Archaeology 7. Arcanum,Ohio.

Faulkner, Charles H., andMajor C.R. McCollough

1973 Introductory Report of the NormandyReservoir Salvage Project" Environ-mental Setting, Typology, and Survey.Normandy Archaeological ProjectVolume 1. University of Tennessee,Dept. of Anthropology, Report of Inves-tigations 11. Knoxville.

Galloway, J. J., and J. St. Jean1961 Ordovician Stromatoporoidea of North

America. Bulletins of American Paleon-tology 43: 1-102.

Keller, Paul H.1963 Middle Devonian Stromatoporoids of

Northwestern Ohio. Unpubl. M.A.thesis, Bowling Green State University.

McCollough, Major C.R., andCharles H. Faulkner

1976 Third Report of the Normandy Reser-voir Salvage Project. NormandyArchaeological Project: Volume 3.University of Tennessee, Dept. ofAnthropology, Report of Investigations16. Knoxville.

Steam, Colin w., Barry D. Webby,Heldur Nestor, and Carl W. Stock

1999 Revised Classification and Terminologyof Palaeozoic Stromatoporoids. ActaPalaeontological Polonica 44(1): 1-70.

Weir, Gordon w., Robert C. Greene, andGeorge C. Simmons

1965 Calloway Creek Limestone and Ashlockand Drakes Formations (Upper Ordovi-cian) in South-Central Kentucky. Geo-logical Survey Bulletin 12240.U.S.G.P.O., Washington, D.C.

Figure 1. (Murphy) Portion of Paint Lick,Kentucky, 7'h' U. S. G. S. Quadrangle showinglocation of stromatporoid occurrence (S) onWalker-Noe farm.

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Figure 2. (Murphy) Natural cross-section ofsilicified stromatoporoid from Walker-Noe farmnear Paint Lick, Garrard Co., Kentucky.

Figure 3. (Murphy)Microscopic vertical andtangential cross sectionsof Labechia (1 a-b) andStromatocerium (2a-b)illustrating structure(From Galloway and St.Jean 1961).

Figure 4. (Murphy) Large unsilicified Labechia stromato-poroid bodies in the Lexington limestone exposed in road-cut near Lexington, Kentucky.

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Fig. 5. (Murphy) Bifaces of Kentucky silicified stromatoporoid material from Garrard Co., Kentucky. Randall Carrier Collection.

Fig. 6. (Murphy) Additional bifaces ofKentucky silicified stromatoporoidmaterial from Garrard Co., Kentucky.Randall Carrier Collection.

Fig. 7. (Murphy) Fragments of Faulkner andMcCollough's "gray-banded chert" from theShelton Quarry Site. Silicified stromatoporoidsfrom the Bigby-Cannon Limestone along DuckCreek below the Normandy Reservoir Dam,Bedford Co., Tennessee.

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