Fort Payne Formation - Bedded chert; calcareous and dolomitic silicastone; minor limestone and shale; scattered lenses of crinoidal limestone. Thin green shale (Maury) at base. Average thickness about 250 feet (475 in Wells Creek area); and Chattanooga Shale - Black carbonaceous shale, fissile. Thickness 0 to 70 feet; average about 20 feet. (Mapped as MDc on East-Central and East sheets)
St. Louis Limestone - Fine-grained, brownish-gray limestone, dolomitic and cherty. Thickness 100 to 280 feet; and Warsaw Limestone - Coarse-grained, gray, crossbedded limestone; somewhat shaly in the northeast. Thickness 40 to 150 feet.
Ordovician [units] including Richmond Group (which includes Mannie Shale - Olive-gray shale. Thickness 0 to 20 feet; Fernvale Limestone - Massive, coarsely crystalline, gray limestone with varicolored grains. Thickness 0 to 50 feet; Sequatchie Formation - Olive-gray and greenish-gray shale, mudstone, and argillaceous limestone; dolomitic, laminated, and sandy. Thickness 0 to 100 feet; and Arnheim Formation Nodular, shaly, gray limestone. Thickness 0 to 20 feet; the Maysville Group (which includes Leipers Formation - Nodular, shaly limestone; fine- to coarse-grained limestone; and phosphatic calcarenite locally. Thickness 0 to 150 feet); the Eden Group (which includes the Inman Formation - Thin-bedded to laminated, fine-grained, gray limestone with shale partings. Thickness 0 to 50 feet); and the Nashville Group (which includes Catheys Formation - Nodular, shaly limestone; fine- to coarse-grained limestone; phosphatic calcarenite; and light-gray cryptograined limestone. Thickness 50 to 175 feet.)
Silurian Formations - Characteristically light olive-gray to greenish-gray, with variable reddish-brown color in some areas. Individual formations are generally uniform in thickness, except where truncated by pre- Chattanooga erosion. Most formations are slightly thicker (than indicated) in Wells Creek Basin. Includes Decatur Limestone- Thick-bedded, medium- to coarse-grained limestone, gray with reddish-brown grains. Thickness 0 to 70 feet; Brownsport Group (which includes Lobelville Formation - Shale with thin beds of limestone. Thickness 0 to 30 feet; Bob Limestone - Thick-bedded, medium-grained limestone, locally oolitic. Thickness 0 to 25 feet; and Beech River Formation - Shale with thin beds of limestone. Thickness 0 to 60 feet); Wayne Group (which includes Dixon Formation - Green and reddish-brown argillaceous limestone, shale, and mudstone. Thickness 0 to 40 feet; Lego Limestone - Even-bedded, olive-gray limestone with scattered reddish-brown grains. Thickness 0 to 30 feet; Waldron Shale - Greenish-gray fossiliferous shale. Thickness 0 to 5 feet; Laurel Limestone - Even-bedded, olive-gray limestone with scattered reddish-brown grains. Thickness 0 to 30 feet; Osgood Formation - Greenish- and reddish-gray shale and argillaceous limestone. Thickness 0 to 15 feet); and Brassfield Limestone - Thin-bedded cherty limestone, locally glauconitic. Thickness 0 to 50 feet; generally about 20 feet.
Poorly sorted, light-gray chert gravel in a matrix of silt and sand; locally interbedded with sand and clay lenses. Thickness 0 to 150 feet.
Iron-stained gravel, sand, silt, and clay; variable in thickness but generally less than 60 feet thick.