Pennsylvanian System

Type locality and use of name: The name St. Meinrad Coal was given by Franklin and Wanless (1944, p. 87-88) to the coal mined near St. Meinrad, Spencer County, Ind., but no specific type section or other exposure was stated. This coal lies stratigraphically 160 to 180 feet (49 to 55 m) below the top of the Mansfield Formation. The lithostratigraphic rank assigned to the St. Meinrad has been considered variably to be formation (Franklin and Wanless, 1944), bed (in the Mansfield Formation; Hutchison, 1971a), and member (in the Mansfield Formation; Hutchison, 1971b). The latter rank and assignment are used here.

Description: The St. Meinrad Coal Member consists of moderately bright and clean coal that is semiblocky and that ranges from less than 0.1 foot (0.03 m) to more than 5.0 feet (1.5 m) in thickness and averages about 4.0 feet (1.2 m) where mined. The roof of the coal is commonly shale and less commonly sandy shale, sandstone, dark-gray fissile carbonaceous shale, or tan to gray massive medium-grained sandstone. The floor is gray sandy carbonaceous underclay or shale. The coal contains an inorganic parting throughout much of its extent in Perry County (Hutchison, 1971b), and in places the upper few inches of the seam is a bone coal.

Correlation: According to Franklin and Wanless (1944), the St. Meinrad corresponds to coals that have been called the Upper Cannelton and Upper Troy Coals along the Ohio River bluff in Perry County and to the coal mined along Anderson River in Spencer and Perry Counties south of St. Meinrad referred to as Coal II by Ashley (1899, p. 1301). The mapping of the St. Meinrad by Hutchison (1959) in Spencer County shows that the coal is cut out by sandstone both north and south of a small area in the northeastern part of the county. In Perry County, however, the St. Meinrad coal was traced (Hutchison, 1971b) to the Ohio River and there found to be a probable correlative of the Lower Cannelton Coal of Franklin.

The St. Meinrad has been correlated with the No. 1b Coal (Bell Coal Bed) of western Kentucky (Peppers and Popp, 1979, p. 67 and 69, fig. 3; Williams, Williamson, and Beard, 1982, p. 10-11, fig. 8) and with both the Bell Coal Bed (Peppers and Popp, 1979, p. 67 and 69, fig. 3) and the Reynoldsburg Coal Member (Williams, Williamson, and Beard, 1982, p. 10-11, fig. 8) of Illinois.