Devonian-Mississippian black shales

Ettensohn, F. R. and Barron, L. S., Depositional Model for the Devonian-Mississippian Black Shale Sequence of North America A Tectonic-Climatic Approach, in Blackburn, W. H., Compiler, "Black Shale Studies in Kentucky," Final Report, Univ. of Kentucky Research Group (Department of Geology and Kentucky Geological Survey), Lexington, 1980. 

Ettensohn, F. R. and Barron, L. S., "Depositional Model for the Devonian-Mississippian Black Shales of North America A... 

Figure 3. General stratigraphic column for the Devonian-Mississippian black shales in eastern Kentucky. ...

The black shales were deposited during Late Devonian and Early Mississippian time in a large epeiric (inland) sea that covered much of middle and eastern United States east of the Mississippi River. The area includes the broad, shallow Interior Platform on the west that grades eastward into the Appalachian Basin. The depth to the base of the Devonian-Mississippian black shales ranges from surface exposures on the Interior Platform to more than 2700 m along the depositional axis of the Appalachian Basin (De Witt et al., 1993). The Late Devonian sea was relatively shallow with minimal current and wave action, much like the environment in which the Alum Shale... 

Roen J. B. (1984) Geologic framework and hydrocarbon evaluation of Devonian and Mississippian black shales in the Appalachian Basin. AAPG Eastern Seetion meeting. Am. Assoc. Petrol. Geol. Bull. 68, 1927. 

Roen J. B. and Kepferle R. C. (1993) Petroleum geology of the Devonian and Mississippian black shale of eastern North America. US Geol. Surv. Bull. B1909, A1-A8. 

Van Beuren, V. V., "The Sunbury Shale of the Central Appalachian Basin — A Depositional Model for Black Basinal Shales (Abstract Only), in Prior, W., et al.f Eds., Energy Resources of Devonian-Mississippian Shales of Eastern Kentucky, Annual Field Conference April 9-11, 1981, Kentucky Geological Survey, Lexington, 1981. 

In each of the three areas described above, the black-shale sequence differs in overall aspect from each of the other areas when viewed in outcrops. This difference has led to three sets of stratigraphic nomenclature having been applied to the black Devonian-Mississippian shales. The general distribution of the usages of stratigraphic nomenclature are shown in Figure 2. 

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