Columbus Limestone

Columbus Limestone
Stratigraphic range: Devonian
Etched section of hand sample of Columbus Limestone from Kelleys Island
Type	Sedimentary
Unit of	Onondaga Group
Sub-units	Bellepoint, Marblehead, Tioga Ash Bed, Venice, Delhi, Klondike, East Liberty
Underlies	Bass Islands Formation, Delaware Formation, and Ohio Shale
Overlies	Lucas Formation
Thickness	0 to 105 feet[1]
Lithology
Primary	Limestone
Other	Sandstone
Location
Region	Cincinnati Arch of North America
Extent	Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ontario
Type section
Named for	Columbus, Ohio
Named by	Mathur, 1859

Side view of a stromatoporoid in the Columbus Limestone at Kelleys Island.

The Columbus Limestone is a mapped bedrock unit consisting primarily of fossiliferous limestone. It occurs in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia in the United States, and in Ontario, Canada.

Description

Depositional environment

The depositional environment was most likely shallow marine.

Stratigraphy

The Columbus conformably overlies the Lucas Dolomite in northeastern Ohio, and unconformably overlies other dolomite elsewhere. It unconformably underlies the Ohio Shale in northwestern Ohio and the Delaware Limestone in eastern Ohio.^[2]

Its members include: Bellepoint, Marblehead, Tioga Ash Bed, Venice, Delhi, Klondike, and East Liberty.

Notable Exposures

• The type section is located in Columbus, Ohio.
• The glacial grooves on Kelleys Island are cut into the Columbus Limestone. It is also quarried there.
• An exposure in Ontario is located at Ingersoll, Ontario.^[3]

Fossils

The Columbus Limestone contains brachiopods, trilobites, bryozoans, mollusks, corals, stromatoporoids and echinoderms (including crinoids).

Due to their mid-continent depositional environment, the fossils are almost free of deformation caused by tectonic activity common in the Appalachian Mountains.

Corals

Tabulata

Taxon	Species	Notes
Syringopora	S. tabulata	[4]
Favosites	F. hemispherica minuta
Emmonsia	E. polymorpha
Thamnoptychia	T. alternans
Pleurodictyum	Indeterminate
Coenites	C. dublinensis

Rugosa

Taxon	Species	Notes
Prismatophyllum	P. rugosum	[4]
Hexagonaria	H. anna
Eridophyllum	E. seriale
Synaptophyllum	S. simcoense
Amplexus	A. yandelli
Zaphrenthis	Z. perovalis
Heterophrentis	H. nitida
Cystiphylloides	C. americanum
Odontophyllum	O. convergens
Siphonophrentis	S. gigantea
Hadrophyllum	H. dorbignyi	[5][6]

Cephalopods

Taxon	Species	Notes
Werneroceras	W. staufferi	Goniatite[7]
Tornoceras	T. eberlei
Goldringia	G. cyclops	[5][8]

Other Invertebrates

Taxon	Species	Notes
Spirifer	S. macrothyris	Brachiopod[5]
Brevispirifer	B. gregarius
Laevidentalhum	L. martinei	Gastropod[5]
Nucleocrinus	N. verneulli	Crinoid[5]

Fish

Taxon	Species	Notes
Drepanaspidae	Indeterminate	From the East Liberty Member ("East Liberty bone bed")[6]
Cephalaspidae
Gyracanthus?
Plectrodus
Acanthodii
Machaeracanthus	M. major
"Acanthoides"	A. dublinensis
Coccosteus	C. spatulatus
Ptyctodus
Rhynchodus
Palaeomylus
Cladoselachidae
Phoebodus
Onychodus	O. sigmoides

Age

Relative age dating of the Columbus Limestone places it in the Early to Middle Devonian period.

Economic Uses

The Columbus has been mined for aggregate. Its Calcium carbonate content is 90% or higher.^[9]

References

1. Columbus Limestone, Mineral Resources On-Line Spatial Data, United States Geological Survey https://mrdata.usgs.gov/geology/state/sgmc-unit.php?unit=OHDc%3B0
2. Ohio Division of Geological Survey, 1990 (rev. 2000, 2004), Generalized Column of Bedrock Units in Ohio; Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Geological Survey, 1p. http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Portals/10/pdf/stratcol.pdf Archived 2010-02-03 at the Wayback Machine
3. Ehlers, G. M., and Stumm, E. C., 1951, Middle Devonian Columbus limestone near Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada, AAPG Bulletin; v. 35; no. 8; p. 1879-1888. August.
4. Feldman, R.M.; Hackathorn (1996). Fossils of Ohio. Ohio Division of Geological Survey Bulletin 70. pp. 577 [1].
5. "Biostratigraphic Analysis of Columbus Limestone". 2012-03-03. Archived from the original on 2012-03-03. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
6. Wells, J.W., 1944, Middle Devonian bone beds of Ohio: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 55, no. 3, p. 273-302.
7. Sweet, W. C., and Miller, A. K., 1956, Goniatites from the Middle Devonian Columbus Limestone of Ohio, Journal of Paleontology, vol. 30, No. 4, p 811-817. July.
8. Flower, Rousseau H. (1945). "Classification of Devonian Nautiloids". The American Midland Naturalist. 33 (3): 675–724. doi:10.2307/2421185. ISSN 0003-0031. JSTOR 2421185.
9. GeoFacts No. 25, Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Geological Survey "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-06-06. Retrieved 2010-01-31.

See also

• List of types of limestone