Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 10

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006

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Northward, through the State, stone of more or less value is found in the bottom courses of the Cuyahoga, but in Trumbull county, near Warren, the horizon acquires extreme importance as the source of the finest natural flagging that is found in our markets.

It would have been well if the thirty or forty feet containing these courses had been cut off from the Cuyahoga shale, in which case the division thus formed would have been appropriately named the Buena Vista stone.

lle. The Logan Group.

(The Olive Shales of Read. The Logan Sandstone of Andrews. The Waverly Conglomerate of Andrews.)

The divisions of the Waverly series in Northern Ohio happened to be made at a point where the section is abnormal and in- complete. By atrophy or by overlap, the upper member of the series is wanting in the Cuyahoga valley, or is at least very inade- quately represented there. The missing mem- ber is, in volume, second only to the Cuyahoga shale, among the divisions of the Waverly.

THE GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY OF OHIO.

It is much richer in the fossils of the Subcar- boniferous than any of the other members. In composition it is varied and striking, one of its elements being a massive conglomerate not less than 200 feet in its largest sections, which extends in unbroken outcrop through at least a dozen counties of Ohio. No good reason can be found for dividing the Waverly series at all if a member like this is to be left without a name, or is to be merged with an unlike and incongruous division from which it is as sharply differentiated as any one stratum of Ohio is from any other.

The real, though not the formal, separation of this group from the underlying shale is due to the late Prof. E. B. Andrews, and constitutes one of his most important con- tributions to our knowledge of Ohio geology. He was the first to show that the great con- glomerate of Hocking, Fairfield, and Licking counties is Subcarboniferous in age, and he further called attention to a highly fossilifer- ous, fine-grained sandstone overlying the con- glomerate, to which he gave the name of Logan sandstone, from its occurrence at Logan, Hocking county. Up to this time this conglomerate had been universally counted as the Coal Measure conglomerate. Read made known the existence of a heavy body of shale, which he called Olive shales, over- lying the conglomerate, and replacing the Logan sandstone in Knox, Holmes, and Richland counties.

As both conglomerate and sandstone have their typical outcrops at Logan, no better name can be found for the formation which must include conglomerate, sandstone, and shale, than that here adopted, viz., Logan group.

The maximum thickness of the Logan group is not less than 400 feet. Its average thickness is perhaps 200 feet.

A typical or representative section of this group is scarcely possible, but the most char- acteristic and persistent part of the series is the conglomerate that is found at the bottom. At all events, coarse rock, if not always tech- nically conglomerate, is generally found here. Pebbles do not make a conspicuous part of the rock when it takes a conglomeritic phase in all cases. The most characteristic feature of the pebbles is their small and uniform size. The larger pebbles are generally flat.

Its best developments are in Hocking, Fair- field, Ross, Vinton, Licking, Knox, and Wayne counties, which constitute the north- western arc of the sea-boundary of Ohio in Subcarboniferous time. South of Ross county it loses most of its pebbles, and south of the Ohio it becomes the knobstone of Kentucky. In Northeastern Ohio the Logan group is also destitute of pebbles, and perhaps the con- glomerate element proper does not appear here at all.

Diverse as these elements are, they are blended and interlocked in the Logan group, leaving it in stratigraphy and fossils a well- defined and easily followed series throughout all parts of the territory in which it is due, except in possibly a small area in Northern

Ohio, as already noted, and even here there is no difficulty in recognizing the presence of this series. The several elements are, how- ever, of smaller volume than elsewhere.

Under cover, throughout Southeastern Ohio, the series is in the highest degree per- sistent and regular ; much more uniform, in- deed, than in its outcrops. It consists of 200 feet or more of prevailingly coarse rock, almost everywhere pebbly in spots, but inter- rupted with sheets of shale, yellowish and reddish colors being the characteristic ones. It has considerable interest in connection with gas, oil, and salt-water in Ohio, being the reservoir of the brines of the Hocking and Muskingum valleys, and furnishing in the latter large supplies of gas in the early days of salt manufacture in the State.

12. THE SUBCARBONIFEROUS LIMESTONE.

This element is of comparatively small ac- connt as a surface formation in Ohio, but it gathers strength to the southeastward of its outcrops, and is shown in many well records as a stratum fifty or more feet in thickness. It was recognized as a member of our geo- logical column by the geologists of the first survey, but Andrews was the first to assign it to its proper place and to show its true equivalence. He named it the Maxville limestone, from a locality in southwestern Perry county.

. The limestone, in its best development, is a fairly pure, very fine-grained, sparingly fossiliferous rock. It breaks with a con- choidal fracture. In fineness and homogeneity of grain it approaches lithographie stone, and has been tested in the small way for this special use. It is seldom even and regular in its bedding. Its color is light-drab or brown, and often it is a beautiful building stone, though somewhat expensive to work. The fire-clay found at this horizon in Southern Ohio is one of the most valuable deposits of this sort in our entire scale. The limestone is found in outerop in Scioto, Jackson, Hock- ing, Perry, and Muskingum counties. It is reported in the well records of Steubenville, Brilliant, Macksburg, and at several other points in the Ohio valley.

13-17. THE CONGLOMERATE AND THE COAL MEASURES.

These two divisions can be properly consid- ered under one head, inasmuch as they have common sources of value. Their aggregate thickness is not less than 1,500 feet, and they cover more than 10,000 miles of the surface of Ohio. The beds of coal, iron ore, fire- clay, limestone, and cement rock that they contain render insignificant the contributions made by all other formations to the mineral wealth of the State. In the combined sec- tion of the conglomerate and lower coal measures, which contains from 500 to 800 feet of strata, the following named coal seams are found :

Upper Freeport Lower Freeport.

THE GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY OF OHIO.

Upper (Middle) Kittanning,

Lower Kittanning, Upper Clarion, Lower Clarion, Upper Mercer, Lower Mercer, Quakertown, Sharon. .

A few sporadic scams are omitted from the list.

All of these seams belong to the bituminons division. Thus far they are chiefly worked in level-tree mines and very little coal is taken from seams less than three feet in thickness. The average thickness in the important fields is five feet and the maximum (a small area of a single district) is thirteen feet. All of the seams enumerated are worked, but they have very unequal values. The Middle Kittanning seam is by far the first. It is known as the Nelsonville coal, the Hocking Valley coal, the Sheridan coal, the Coshocton coal, the Osnaburg coal, etc. The Upper Freeport seam ranks next in value. It is mined at Salineville, Dell Roy, Cambridge and in the Sunday Creek and Monday Creek valleys on a large scale.

In proportion to its area the Sharon coal is the most valuable of the entire series. It is the standard for comparison of all the open- burning coals of the Allegheny coal-field. Both this seam and the Middle Kittanning seam are used in the raw state for the manu- facture of iron, a fact which sufficiently attests their purity and general excellence.

In the remaining divisions of the coal measures there are ten or more seams that are sometimes of workable thickness, but with one notable exception they are less steady and reliable than those of the lower measures. The exception is the Pittsburg coal, which is, all things considered, the most important seam of the entire coal-field to which it belongs. It is especially valued for the manufacture of gas and the production of steam, Its northern outcrop passes through nine counties with an approximate length of 175 miles, the sinuosities not being counted. The area commonly assigned to it in Ohio exceeds 3,000 square miles, hnt the seam has been proved for only a small part of the area claimed. Ohio is deficient in coking coals of the highest quality. Its best coals are open-burning.

Ohio ranks second in the production of bituminous coal in the United States at the present time, being inferior to Pennsylvania alone in this respect. The output for 1887 is given by the State mine inspector as 10,301, 708 tons of 2,000 pounds.

The coal measures of Ohio are important sources of iron ore and fire-clay as well as of coal, as is true of coal measures generally.

Iron ore is mined in the Ohio coal-fields at a dozen or more horizons, but there are three or four that monopolize most of the interest and importance. The ferriferous limestone ore of the Hanging Rock district is a thin but valuable seam. The iron manufactured

from it has unusual strength and excellence and is applied to the highest uses, such as the manufacture of car-wheels and machine- castings. The ore seam does not average more than twelve inches in thickness. The thickest beds of ore in the State are the blackband deposits of Tuscarawas, Stark and Carroll counties. A maximum of twenty feet is here attained. Blackband of good quality and in large amounts is also found in a number of other counties. The block ores of the Mercer horizon rank next in value among the sources of iron in the State. The total amount mined annually exceeds 500,000 tons,

In iron and steel manufacture and working Ohio ranks second only to Pennsylvania, the value of the annual production being counted $35,000,000.

The clays of the coal measures are the basis of a large and rapidly growing manu- facture of fire-brick, stoneware, earthenware, sewer pipes, fire-proofing, paving blocks and paving brick. In all these manufactures Ohio stands far in advance of any other State.

The salt manufacture of the State has been large, but is now a depressed and decaying industry. The annual yield is now less than 500,000 barrels. In connection with its salt production Ohio furnishes a notable percent- age of all the bromine made in the world. The figures have been as high as 50 per cent. The brine of the Tuscarawas valley is richer in bromine than any other known in the world. It yields about three-fourths of a pound of bromine to every barrel of salt.

In the total value of its quarry products Ohio ranks easily first among the States of the Union. The census of 1880 credits the State with an annual value of more than $2,500,000 in this division. The output of Ohio quarries is rapidly increasing. Its sand- stones, especially the products of the great stratum already described as the Berea Grit, hold the first place among the building stones of this class in the country at large. In durability, strength, attractive colors and in general adaptation to architectural effects they leave little to be desired. Red sand- stones, both dark and light, that are suscepti- ble of excellent use in the ornamental way, are also abundant in the Subcarboniferous deposits of our scale. The grindstone grits of the State, taken from the several horizons already named, furnish by far the largest contribution to this important use that is made by any single State.

The petroleum and gas that our rocks con- tain and upon which such extreme value is coming to be placed will be discussed at better advantage on a subsequent page.

18. THE GLACIAL DRIFT.

Over the various bedded rocks of at least two-thirds of Ohio are spread in varying thickness the deposits of the drift, the most characteristic and important of which is the bowlder clay. This frequently contains in its lower portions large accumulations of

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THE GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY OF OHIO.

vegetable matter, the remains of coniferous forests that occupied the country before the advent of the drift, or at some interglacial stage of its duration. Peat bogs are some- times found buried in like manner in or under the bowlder clay. The deposits of latest age in this great series consist of stratified clays, sands and gravels. The maximum thickness of drift beds that has thus far been found in the State is 530 feet. This meas- urement was obtained from Saint Paris, Champaign county. Depths of 300 and 400 feet are no longer unusual. The average thickness of these accumulations in North- western Ohio exceeds 100 feet. They exer- cise a controlling influence upon the relief, drainage, soils and water supply of the regions which they occupy. They have filled the valleys of earlier drainage systems and in many cases have obliterated all traces of their existence, thus restoring to large por- tions of the State the uniformly level sur- face which prevailed in them when they were first elevated above the waters of the ocean

The bowlder clay or till is filled with bowlders of northern origin, derived from the highlands of Canada and intervening dis- tricts. Some of them contain 2,000 cubic feet above ground. They can in many cases be referred to particular localities and some- times to particular ledges from a score of miles to 400 miles distant.

The stratified drift contains vast accumula- tions of sand, gravel and clay, all of great economic value. Brick clays of good quality are everywhere accessible. These stratified beds constitute a natural filter for surface water to a great extent. The rainfall de- scends slowly through them until the im- pervious bowlder clay is reached. The depth of the surface of this last named deposit, in large areas of the State, determines the depth of the ordinary wells of these areas. Sometimes, however, a water supply is de- rived from seams of sand and gravel within the bowlder clay or immediately below it. Such a supply is to quite an extent protected from surface im purities.

The terminal moraine that marks the boundary of the glacial deposits is fairly dis- tinct throughout the State. Soils and vegeta- tion unite to emphasize it, as well as special accumulations. It passes through the coun- ties of Columbiana, Stark, Wayne, Rich- land, Holmes, Licking, Fairfield, Ross, Highland, Adams and Brown, crossing the Ohio river into Kentucky from the latter county but returning to the north side of the river again in Southeastern Indiana. As a result of this temporary obstruction of this great water way it has been pointed out that the waters of the Ohio must have been dammed back so as to form a large lake, in- cluding the valley proper and its tributaries as far at least as Pittsburg. The barrier appears to have given way in such a manner as to reduce once and again the level of the intercepted waters abruptly. Such a mode of retreat, at least, would explain the succes-

sive terraces that border the main streams at the present time.

II. GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE.

The geological scale of the State has now been briefly treated. An equally brief account must be added of its structure. By this term is meant the present arrangement or disposition of the strata as effected by all the movements of the earth's crust in which they have had a part, and by which they may have been bent into arches or troughs or left in terrace-like monoclines.

The geological structure of Ohio is as simple as that of almost any other 40,000 square miles of the earth's surface. All of its strata except a small portion of the coal measures were deposited in the waters of an ancient arm of the sea, of which the present Gulf of Mexico is the dwarfed and diminished remnant and representative. Its most fossil- iferous limestones, as the Corniferous, for ex- ample, stand for clear waters of tropical warmth. Its conglomerates and sandstones required strong currents for their transporta- tion from distant shores. Its shales must have been deposited in seas of at least moder- ate depth, large areas of which, as well as all of the shores, were covered with sargasso-like masses of sea-weed.

These strata seem to have been deposited on a fairly regular and level floor, and they have never been subjected to very great dis- turbance ; that is, they have nowhere been raised into mountains nor depressed into deep valleys, but still they have been warped and distorted to some extent in the course of their long history.

The Cincinnati Anticlinal.

As soon as the geology of the Mississippi valley began to be studied, it became appa- rent that there had been in early time an ex- tensive uplift of the older rocks in the central parts of Tennessee and Kentucky and in Southwestern Ohio, which had exerted a profound influence on all the subsequent growth of the regions traversed by and adjacent thereto. This uplift has received several designations, but the name given to it by Newberry, viz., the Cincinnati anticlinal, will here be adopted, inasmuch as this geolo- gist has furnished by far the most careful and connected account that has yet been given of it.

It is to be recognized, however, that this structural feature has in it little or nothing of the character of an anticlinal or arch, as these terms are commonly understood. There is no roof-shaped arrangement of the strata whatever, but they are spread out in a nearly level tract, 100 miles or more in breadth. The slopes within the tract are very light, and are quite uniform in direction, and the boundaries of the tract are well defined, as a rule.

The Trenton limestone, as has · already been shown, makes the floor of Western Ohio. By means of the deep drilling that is now in progress throughout this part of

THE GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY OF OHIO.

the State we have obtained soundings to this limestone floor so extensive that we are already able to restore approximately its topography.

This underground disposition of the Tren- ton limestone becomes very significant in connection with the Cincinnati uplift. In fact, it is the Cincinnati uplift; and the study of the facts pertaining to it will be found to throw more light on this earliest and most important structural feature of the State than can be obtained from any and from all other sources. The results are altogether unexpected.

It appears that in Lower Silurian time a low fold, extending in a general northeast direction, entered Ohio from the southward and continued its advance across the State during immense periods of time. It has heretofore been believed that the fold as it extended across the State held its original northeasterly direction, but it now becomes evident that in its earlier stages in Ohio it advanced to the northwest instead, extending into Northern Central Indiana, so far as its main body was concerned. From this point an off-shoot of smaller area was directed into Ohio, the boundaries of which are found to be very irregular, and in connection with which some surprising facts in Ohio geology have come to light. With these same facts extraordinary economic interest has been found to be associated.

The easterly or sontheasterly dip of the rocks that begins at the margin of the tract, now described as the Cincinnati axis, con- tinues through the subsequent history of the State, and constitutes the most important physical feature of its geology. All of the Subcarboniferous and Coal Measure strata, in particular, are affected by it. The southerly element of it gradually increases as we pass to Northeastern Ohio, and it is probable that the dip becomes due south at some points in this portion of the State. Beyond the limits of Ohio, in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, the corresponding strata descend sharply . toward the westward. These facts considered together mark out the limits of the arm of the sea in which, and around which, the northern extension of the Appalachian coal- field was built up, the Cincinnati axis form- ing its western boundary. These uniform and continuous southeasterly dips can be ex- plained by the steady growth of the land to the westward, after the fashion already de- scribed. The dip is at right angles to the constantly advancing border of the sea. It seldom exceeds thirty feet to the mile, or but little more than half of one degree, in the large way, but it is alternately sharpened and reduced, so that for short distances a much greater fall, or much less, may be found.

The facts of our present topography seem to point to an original equality of elevation of those portions of the State that were snc- cessively brought under this uplifting force. The western outliers of all of the formations are, at the present time at least, at approxi- mately the same elevation above the sea.

The statements already made as to the ex. ceeding regularity of the geological structure of Ohio need no qualification, but this regu- larity of the State, as a whole, is not incon- sistent with the existence of a few minor folds and arches, distributed especially through the eastern half of our territory.

In the southeastern quarter are a few anti- clinal arches, all of which, however, are very gentle and low, and none of which can be traced for many miles in the direction in which they extend. They involve all of the strata that belong in the district in which they are found. A modification of the arch resulting in a terrace-like arrangement of the strata is one of the most important phases of the structure in this portion of the State. Among the arches, all of which are very feeble, the Fredericktown and Cadiz arches, ' which are probably one and the same, may be named, and also the Cambridge anticline. The Macksburg oil field affords an excellent example of the terrace structure.

To sum up the statements now made, we know but comparatively few arches in Ohio. and these few are moderate in slope and small in height. Fuller knowledge of our geology will doubtless give us a larger number of these low folds, but there is little proba- bility that any sharp and well-defined anti- clinals have altogether escaped notice. Those that remain to be discovered will agree with those already known, in breaking up the monotony of our series by the suspension or occasional reversal of the prevailing dip and in requiring close and accurate measurements for their detection.

By untrained observers, the water-sheds of our drainage channels are often mistaken for anticlinals. If anticlinals traverse the series where these identifications are made, they may well serve to divide the drainage systems from each other, but such "divides" do not by any means require these structural acci- dents as the conditions on which they depend. Anticlinals must be demonstrated, not in- ferred.

There are but few districts known in Ohio in which disturbances are to be found that fairly deserve the name of faults. In the northeast corner of Adams county, and in adjacent territory, there are a number of square miles throughout which the strata are really dislocated. The Berea grit is found in contact with the Niagara shale in some in- stances. The throw of such faults must be at least 400 feet. Faults of this character in Ohio geology are as unusual and unexpected as trap dykes in Northern Kentucky, the lat- ter of which have been recently reported by Crandall.

III. PETROLEUM AND NATURAL GAS.

These subjects, and especially the latter, have recently acquired such widespread in- terest and importance in the country that a separate section will here be given to their consideration.

The introduction of natural gas on the

THE GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY OF OHIO.

large scale is of comparatively recent date. It was begun in Pittsburg and in the region around it a dozen years since, but it is only within the last six years that it has made a deep impression upon the country at large.

The cheapness of the new fuel, the economy resulting from several different factors in its use, the improvement of product in a number of lines of manufacture, all combine to give a decided advantage to the centres that have been fortunate enough to secure it, and to make competition seem almost hopeless to the towns that are without it.

In consequence, an earnest and eager search for natural gas has been begun throughout entire States, and vast amounts of money have been used in carrying forward these explora tions. Next to Western Pennsylvania North- western Ohio has scored the most signal suc- cess and, following the experience of Ohio, Eastern Indiana has also found one of the most valuable fields of the country.

The production of petroleum and gas in Ohio will be briefly described in this section, but, preceding this description, a few state- ments will be made as to the theories of origin and accumulation of these substances which seem best supported.

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Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 10

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio Number of Pages: 1006

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006