Pennsylvanian System
Type section and use of name: The name Shady Lane was first applied by Hutchison (1960, p. 12) to the coal exposed in the stream valley in the SE¼ sec. 23, T. 13 N., R. 6 W., near Shady Lane on U.S. 40, Clay County, Ind. The Shady Lane lies 20 to 40 feet (6 to 12 m) below the top of the Mansfield Formation and some 10 feet (3 m) above what is probably the equivalent of the Ferdinand Bed of the Lead Creek Limestone Member. The Shady Lane was assigned member rank by Powell (1968).
Description: Shady Lane coal is shiny and pyritiferous, ranges from 0.5 to 3.0 feet (0.2 to 0.9 m) in thickness, breaks into small regular cubes when mined, and is iridescent on fractured surfaces. Its iridescence has led to the trade name Peacock Coal. The roof is generally tan to yellow sandstone that is ferruginous and carbonaceous, but in places it is gray shale that is soft, carbonaceous, and slightly sandy. The floor of the coal is shale, dirty ferruginous sandstone, or gray to light-gray underclay that is shaly, somewhat plastic, and carbonaceous.
Correlation: The Shady Lane Coal Member can be traced from its type locality only with difficulty, because much of the distribution is in lenses and discontinuous beds. A coalbed at about its stratigraphic position, however, is present in much of the northern part of the coalfield. This position is thought to correlate with the Manley Coal Member of the Abbott Formation in Illinois (Hopkins and Simon, 1975, p. 182). The Shady Lane coal is one of several coalbeds identified in different places as Coal I (Ashley, 1909, p. 60-61).