Devonian System

Type locality and use of name: The Dutch Creek Sandstone was named by Savage (1920, p. 175) for exposures along Dutch Creek in central Union County, southern Illinois. Meents and Swann (1965) summarized the Dutch Creek occurrence and characteristics in southern Illinois, designated a reference section, and included the unit as a basal member of the Grand Tower Limestone. Becker (1974, p. 38) and later Droste and Shaver (1975a, p. 402-403) adopted the name Dutch Creek Sandstone Member for the basal unit of the Jeffersonville Limestone in the subsurface of southwestern Indiana.

Description: The Dutch Creek is commonly a light- to dark-brown hard dolomitic limestone that has thin sandy streaks and discrete sand grains surrounded by a carbonate matrix and that grades downward into a foot or so of light-gray coarse-grained, tightly cemented sandstone at its base. The sand grains are well rounded and frosted.

The Dutch Creek overlies both the New Harmony Group (Lower Devonian conformably) and the Wabash Formation (Upper Silurian unconformable) in its area of southwesternmost Indiana distribution in the parts or whole of 12 counties (Becker, 1974, fig. 9). It averages less than 10 feet (3 m) in thickness, and its distribution in that area is spotty.

Correlation: The Dutch Creek coextends under the one name into Illinois and western Kentucky (with formation rank in the latter state). In Indiana and Illinois it correlates with (is in facies relation with) a lower part of the Geneva Dolomite Member (Jeffersonville and Grand Tower Limestones). The Dutch Creek is usually assigned an early Middle Devonian age, but part or all of it is probably late Early Devonian in age. (See Boucot and Johnson, 1968, and Shaver and others, 1985.)