The Fort Payne Formation, or Fort Payne Chert, is a

geologic formation A geological formation, or simply formation, is a body of rock having a consistent set of physical characteristics ( lithology) that distinguishes it from adjacent bodies of rock, and which occupies a particular position in the layers of rock exp ...

found in the southeastern region of the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

.USGS.gov: Fort Payne Formation
/ref> It is a Mississippian Period

chert Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a prec ...

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

, that overlies the

Chattanooga Shale The Chattanooga Shale is a geological formation in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee. It preserves conodont fossils dating to the Devonian period. It occurs mostly as a subsurface geologic f ...

(or locally the

Maury Formation Maury may refer to: Places United States * Maury Mountains, Oregon * Maury County, Tennessee * Maury River, Virginia, a tributary of the James River * Maury Island, a small island near Seattle, Washington France * Maury, Pyrénées-Orientales, a ...

), and underlies the

St. Louis Limestone The St. Louis Limestone is a large geologic formation covering a wide area of the midwest of the United States. It is named after an exposure at St. Louis, Missouri. It consists of sedimentary limestone with scattered chert beds, including the ...

(lower

Tuscumbia Limestone Tuscumbia is the name of these places and things in the United States of America: *Tuscumbia, Alabama * Tuscumbia, Missouri *Tuscumbia River The Tuscumbia River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dat ...

in Alabama). To the north, it grades into the

siltstone Siltstone, also known as aleurolite, is a clastic sedimentary rock that is composed mostly of silt. It is a form of mudrock with a low clay mineral content, which can be distinguished from shale by its lack of fissility. Although its permeabil ...

Borden Formation The Mississippian Borden Group (sometimes Borden Formation) is a mapped bedrock unit in Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, West Virginia,Matchen, D.L., and Kammer, T.W., 1994, Sequence stratigraphy of the Lower Mississippian Price and Borden Form ...

. It preserves

fossils A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

dating back to the

Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a Geologic time scale, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era that spans 60 million years, from the end of the Devonian Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the ...

period Period may refer to: Common uses * Period (punctuation) * Era, a length or span of time *Menstruation, commonly referred to as a "period" Arts, entertainment, and media * Period (music), a concept in musical composition * Periodic sentence (o ...

Eugene Allen Smith Eugene Allen Smith (October 27, 1841 – September 7, 1927) was an American geologist. After serving in the American Civil War, he became the Alabama state geologist in 1873 and president of the Geological Society of America in 1913. Biography He ...

named the Fort Payne Formation for outcrops at

Fort Payne, Alabama Fort Payne is a city in and county seat of DeKalb County, in northeastern Alabama, United States. It is near Lookout Mountain. At the 2020 census, the population was 14,877. This city developed around a fort of the same name, built in the 183 ...

References

Geologic formations of Alabama Mississippian United States Carboniferous Alabama Carboniferous Kentucky Carboniferous Tennessee Viséan Limestone formations of the United States Chert formations Carboniferous southern paleotemperate deposits Carboniferous southern paleotropical deposits Geologic formations of Kentucky Geologic formations of Tennessee {{US-geologic-formation-stub

See also

References