White to very light-greenish-gray thin-bedded to massive siliceous claystone; interbedded with thin layers of fossiliferous clay, sandy clay, and glauconitic sand and sandstone. White to light-greenish-gray fine to coarse sand and fine gravel occur at the base of the formation in southwest Alabama (Meridian Sand Member).
White to moderate-reddish-orange locally mottled sandy clay and residual clay with scattered layers of gravelly medium to coarse sand, fossiliferous chert and limestone boulders and limonitic sand masses. Derived from solution and collapse of limestone in the Jackson Group and Oligocene Series and the slumping of Pliocene and Miocene sediments.
Light-gray to light-olive-gray laminated and thin-bedded carbonaceous silt and clay interbedded with fine sand; thin lignite beds occur locally. Lower part of the formation includes beds of fossiliferous, glauconitic fine quartz sand containing speroidal sandstone concretions, gravel and clay pebbles.
Greenish-gray calcareous, glauconitic, fossiliferous clayey sand; marl; carbonaceous sand; carbonaceous silty clay; and coarse glauconitic, fossiliferous, quartz sand.
Varicolored fine to coarse quartz sand containing clay lenses and gravel in places. Gravel composed of quartz and chert pebbles and assorted metmorphic and igneous rock fragments in streams near the Piedmont. In areas of the Valley and Ridge province gravel composed of angular to subrounded chert, quartz, and quartzite pebbles. Coastal deposits include fine to medium quartz sand with shell fragments and accessory heavy minerals along Gulf beaches and fine to medium quartz sand, silt, clay, peat, mud and ooze in the Mississippi Sound, Little Lagoon, bays, lakes, streams, and estuaries.
Members of the Nanafalia Formation follow in descending order. Grampian Hills Member - medium-gray massive clay, claystone, sandy fossiliferous clay, and fossiliferous fine sand. "Ostrea thirsae beds" - glauconitic, abundantly fossiliferous, quartzose fine to medium sand. Gravel Creek Sand Member - pale-yellowish-orange to moderate-reddish-brown micaceous cross-bedded fine to very coarse sand containing gravel and clay pebbles in some exposures. Gravel Creek Member is absent locally and near the base may contain thin beds of lignite. Updip deposits in northern Henry County and southern Barbour County include beds of alternating medium-gray and white clay, carbonaceous clay, white and grayish-yellow fine to coarse sand and lenses of bauxite and bauxitic clay. Sand beds commonly are cross-bedded, gravelly, and contain numerous clay pebbles. The sequence of beds is often obscured by weathering and the collapse of beds into sinkholes in the underlying Clayton Formation.
White to yellowsih-gray argillaceous limestone occurs in the upper part (McBryde Limestone Member): the lower part is medium-gray fossiliferous calcareous silt, glauconitic sand and thin beds of sandy limestone and calcareous sandstone (Pine Barren Member). At the base of the formation in southeast AL is a gravelly medium to coarse sand containing clay pebbles. The formation thins west of Wilcox County and westward from Thomaston in eastern Marengo County is mapped with the Porters Creek Formation. The formation is generally deeply weathered and fresh exposures are rare. In western areas exposures consist of weathered white to yellowish-gray argillaceous, fossiliferous sandy limestone, ferruginous sand, and fossiliferous sandstone. In eastern areas exposures consist of residual accumulations of chert boulders, moderate-reddish-orange sand, and clay containing masses and thin layers of iron minerals (limonite-goethite).
Varicolored lenticular beds of poorly sorted sand, ferruginous sand, silt, clay, and gravelly sand. Sand consists primarily of very fine to very coarse poorly sorted quartz grains; gravel composed of quartz, quartzite, and chert pebbles.
Upper part consists of cross-bedded fine to coarse sand and white, dark-gray and pale-red-purple mottled clay containing lignite, sand, and kaolin; lower part consists of dark-gray laminated to thin-bedded silty clay and abundantly micaceous, carbonaceous, fossiliferous very fine to fine sand. The Providence Sand extends eastward from southeastern Lowndes County into Georgia.