9-7 Developing a new series of 1:24,000-scale geologic maps of Cretaceous and Paleogene strata along a rapidly developing highway corridor in northern Mississippi, USA

Session: Advances in Geologic Mapping, Databases, and Dissemination: Student Posters

Presenting Author:

Authors:

Abstract:

Investment in the economic development along the north-south State Highway 15 corridor in North Mississippi (MS), near the southern border with Tennessee, has funded a large highway expansion project; this has created the opportunity for an update to the resolution of publicly available geological data in the region. 

The only currently available geologic map for this region is the 1:500,000 scale state geologic map published by Bicker and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) Office of Geology in 1969. The highway 15 corridor area of interest borders with a series of 7.5’ geologic maps published more recently by MDEQ, on its easternmost border. The highway 15 corridor area consists of a group of geologic quadrangles immediately east through Union and Tippah counties, MS. Accordingly, this project is to produce two 7.5’ quadrangles for the Northwest Pontotoc, and New Albany West quadrangles. The humid subtropical climate of north Mississippi and highly erosive, dissect, sedimentary strata, and thickly vegetated ground, make this area challenging to map. In areas such as this, large construction projects like those currently underway, are a boon to geological field work. Initial fieldwork has included visitation to multiple temporary exposures created during the highway construction efforts. Specifically, to map the Cretaceous Ripley Formation, Cretaceous Owl Creek Formation, Paleocene Clayton Formation, and Paleocene Porters Creek Formation. Strata represent a sedimentary fill of the Mississippi Embayment (MSE) and, following the regional trend, they strike approximately north-south with a shallow, westward dip. 

Outside highway 15 construction sites, aerial imagery has been used to identify exposures and areas of interest to further investigate through field work. Additionally, traditional methods of mapping will include, on-foot field mapping, augering, and drilling to ground truth geologic units. Methods such as XRD, SEM, and hand sample analysis will be used to confirm units based on sampling. Each geologic map will be constructed with the corresponding US Geological Survey 7.5′ topographic map as its base.

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