Mississippian System

Type section: The Henryville Bed was originally named as a formation by Campbell (1946), and an exposure of dark shale on Caney Fork Creek in lot 252, Clark's Grant in Clark County, Ind., was designated as the type section. Probably because of a discrepancy in the original description of the location of the type section, the type section was later redesignated as the stream bank on Lodge Creek (a tributary of Caney Fork) just east of the road, center of the southwest line of lot 253, Clark's Grant, Clark County (Lineback, 1970).

Description: The Henryville is recognized as a bed in the Clegg Creek Member of the New Albany Shale in southeastern Indiana (Lineback, 1970) and as a bed in the Ellsworth Member of the New Albany Shale in central and southwestern Indiana (Hasenmueller and Bassett, 1981). It consists of brownish-black to black fissile shale rich in organic matter and trace elements (Lecher and others, 1979). In southeastern Indiana it is overlain by the Jacobs Chapel Bed and underlain by the Falling Run Bed or by the Underwood Bed where the latter is present. It contains a few plant remains and a fauna of conodont and phosphatic brachiopods. The Henryville ranges from 0.4 to 1.7 feet (0.1 to 0.6 m) in thickness in the southeastern Indiana outcrop area. In the subsurface the Henryville is generally less than 5 feet (1.5 m) thick (Hasenmueller and Bassett, 1981) and extends as far north as Hendricks County and also rite Posey County in southwestern Indiana.

In a cored section of the upper part of the New Albany Shale in Dubois County the Henryville Bed directly overlies phosphate nodules of the Falling Run Bed and a brownish-black shale sequence. Where the Henryville overlies brownish-black shale sequences in the subsurface, it generally cannot be differentiated on geophysical logs. But in some areas of central and southwestern Indiana, where it overlies the greenish-gray shale of the Ellsworth Member, the Henryville can be recognized from geophysical logs and also in cores. Where the Henryville Bed directly overlies a brownish-black shale sequence, it is included in the Clegg Creek Member where it overlies a relatively thick greenish-gray shale sequence in central or southwestern Indiana, it is considered as part of the Ellsworth Member.

Correlation: According to Reinbold (1978) and Cluff and others (1981), the Henryville is present in southeastern Illinois and is entitled there by that name. The Henryville Bed contains a conodont fauna that is similar to the fauna in the middle part of the Hannibal Shale of Missouri and Illinois (Lineback, 1970). The unit is correlated with part of the Sunbury Shale of Michigan, Ohio, and northeastern Indiana and with part of the Maury Formation of Tennessee (Lineback, 1970). (See also "Clegg Creek Member, Correlation.")