“Millions of years ago, Indiana looked something like this,” Dr. Todd Thompson told the audience, who had come to Bloomington from around the state to attend a convention. “That’s a photo of the Bahamas,” he said, and everyone laughed.

They clearly thought he was kidding, but he wasn’t. About 340 million years ago, the land now known as Indiana was, in fact, 15 degrees south of the equator and covered by a warm, shallow sea. The sand, made of calcite, was ground-up fossil debris – a “death assemblage,” Thompson called it, prompting more chuckles.

But that’s what limestone is: marine fossils ground into sand-sized grains and compressed into stone over millions of years. You might just see a smooth slab of stone, but geologists see the microscopic creatures and geologic processes that created Indiana’s world-famous limestone beds.

Thompson, state geologist and director of the Indiana Geological and Water Survey (IGWS), gives this sort of presentation fairly often, as do Education and Outreach Coordinator Polly Sturgeon and Indiana Limestone Institute Executive Director Todd Schnatzmeyer. More of them tend to happen in or around June, which is celebrated as Limestone Month in Monroe and Lawrence counties.

On Saturday, June 17, the IGWS will bring together limestone experts and enthusiasts from all over the Limestone belt to celebrate Limestone Fest on the IU Bloomington campus. From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., families and visitors of all ages are encouraged to visit booths and learn about the region’s limestone heritage, what karst is and how caves form, and where to find great hiking and biking attractions thanks to this area’s geology. Kids can play games and make fossil-themed crafts, and will love visiting the IGWS’s Learning Lab to pull open drawers of rocks, minerals, and fossils. Artisan Experience will offer limestone carving for $25 per piece, and several other arts-, nature- and history-themed organizations will offer activities and information.

Limestone Fest is headquartered in the Northwest Quad on Cottage Grove Avenue; free parking will be available in the Forrest Avenue garage.

The purpose of this event, now in its second year, is to draw greater awareness to the regional impact of this unique natural resource which visitors or newcomers might not notice.

“Limestone connects so many aspects of people’s lives,” Sturgeon told the group at the Monroe County Convention Center last month. “Of course, we have the geology, and it’s very fascinating to think of Indiana as it was 340 million years ago. But we also have a genealogical and historical connection. So many people in this region have family members who either did work or still work in quarries in the limestone industry. I live in a limestone house right across from a quarry, so my own personal history is being built within a limestone foundation."

Limestone also affects the area’s recreational opportunities. “Of course, we have all these caves that were eroded down into the limestone. The hills of this beautiful countryside here are all because of that limestone bedrock,” Sturgeon said. “And it also affects just who we are as a people, because we live inside this built environment made out of Indiana limestone.”

Up to 75 percent of the limestone buildings in North America originated in the Indiana stone belt. That history and heritage grew from the foundational scientific work of geologists.

“I really can’t think of any other natural material from such a limited area that has such widespread use,” Sturgeon said.

IGWS Director Dr. Todd Thompson and Indiana Limestone Institute Executive Director Todd Schnatzmeyer were quoted in a story in the June issue of Smithsonian Magazine titled, “Why Indiana limestone is one of America’s most prized building materials.” In addition to the stone’s geologic history, the story also traces its boom time back to the post-urban-fire period of the 1890s, when cities such as Chicago and Boston rebuilt formerly wooden buildings with fireproof Indiana limestone.

For the 30th year in a row, the IGWS will receive funding from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to work on STATEMAP, a nationwide program which supports the creation of geologic maps that address critical earth-science problems or resource management. The IGWS’s most recent grant award, for fiscal year 2023, totaled $347,190 in federal funds, plus IU matching funds, for total project cost of $694,381.

New projects, proposed to start as early as July 1, will include:

• MAP and DATABASE: Preliminary Bedrock Geology of the Southern Half of the Bloomington 1:100k Quadrangle;

• GIS/GEOSPATIAL DATA: A statewide GIS/geospatial file of geologic heritage locations in Indiana;

• REPORT: An inventory of IGWS publications in the National Geologic Map Database that contain derogatory terms identified by the USGS and the U.S. Department of the Interior;

• REPORT: An updated fact sheet of Indiana STATEMAP products; and

• CHART and PEER-REVIEWED PAPER: An updated stratigraphic chart, stratigraphic nomenclature, and peer-reviewed report and cross sections that will resolve correlation issues in Pennsylvanian-age stratigraphy among Indiana, Illinois, and western Kentucky.

IGWS staff are wrapping up projects started under the STATEMAP ’21 award and are continuing to work on projects funded under STATEMAP ‘22. Four new publications (in the IGWS’s Indiana Journal of Earth Sciences) are expected this year:

• MAP and DATABASE: Quaternary Geology of the Washington-Jasper Area; (1:100k scale);

• MAP, PAMPHLET, and DATABASE: Bedrock Geology of the Bedford 30- x 60-minute Quadrangle (1:100k scale);

• DATABASE: GeMS Level 3 for the Indiana portion of the Vincennes quadrangle (1:100k scale); and

• DATABASE: GeMS Level 3 for the Indianapolis quadrangle (1:100k scale) – conversion from an older format.

To see where STATEMAP projects are currently underway across the country, visit this interactive map and click the "STATEMAP" button.

If you’re a longtime Survey enthusiast, you probably know that the electronically delivered E-Geo News is not the first iteration of a Survey newsletter. What you might not know is that Survey newsletters, in the paper form, date back at least 60 years. A new institutional history collection on IGWS Digital Collections gives readers a glimpse into the work and social lives of Survey employees between 1962 and 1985.

IGWS Digitization Imaging Specialist Kristen Wilkins has been enjoying learning about Survey life through this historical source. She wrote the following:

“In our earliest years, Annual Reports are our only record of what the Survey was doing. Later, while partnered with the IU Geology Department, Survey activities were somewhat covered by department newsletters beginning in the 1950s. It wasn’t until the early 1960s the Survey took to authoring their own letter. It was not continuously published, and eventually evolved into a different kind of publication more appropriate for public release. Before that evolution, we have a few dozen documents that present a buffet of tidbits that hint at what employee life was like in those years.

Read more...

• The IGWS is accepting applications for a full-time geological research specialist (IU job ID: 306363) with broad interests in geological mapping; energy, mineral, and water resources; and hazards. View the job description and apply at https://igws.indiana.edu/jobs.

• Penny L. Padgett has come full circle, returning to the Survey where she first worked while an undergraduate geology student (and John B. Patton Award recipient). Padgett is a research geologist on the IGWS energy team. After growing up in Newberry, Indiana (Greene County), she earned two bachelor’s degrees from Indiana University, in political science (B.A.) and geological sciences (B.S.), and a master’s degree from the University of Kentucky on her way to a career in the mining industry. (She’s visited nearly every mine and quarry in Indiana.) She took up consulting work in the Evansville area for a few years, and later as U.S. Aggregates mining resource manager, transitioned to teaching geology, oceanography, GIS, and weather and climate at Vincennes University. She is pleased to return to applied research and has been working on rare earth elements and critical minerals projects. She’ll also team up with her former boss from Black Beauty Coal Company, IGWS Volunteer Affiliate Phil Ames, on STATEMAP.

• Madeline Griem started work May 15 as the IGWS collections assistant. She earned a master’s degree in museum studies from IUPUI last month, and holds a bachelor’s degree in history (minors in anthropology and geography) from Emporia State University in Emporia, Kansas, her home state. Her past internships include the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site and the Indianapolis Zoo, and she is still a volunteer interpreter at times at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum. While all aspects of museum work interest her, her passion is collections, as they’re “the vehicle for the stories that are told in museums.” She’ll be helping to move the IGWS’s vast physical record collections out of temporary storage and reorganize and rehouse them in the new Records Center to make them more publicly accessible, so that they can help to tell the story of Indiana geology.

• IGWS Digital Archivist Will Knauth will attend the Best Practices Exchange conference in mid-June in Athens, Georgia.

• The IGWS Learning Lab was chosen to host a “get to know your campus” tour organized by the IU Bloomington Staff Council on May 24. About 30 people from various IU departments explored the IGWS collections in the lab, which will mark its one-year anniversary on June 3.

• Education and Outreach Coordinator Polly Sturgeon was quoted in a story in May in Monroe County’s Limestone Post magazine, “Trees do more than add ‘charm’ to IU campus.” She spoke about little-known fossilized tree trunks at IU Bloomington, including these outside the IGWS/Geology Building. In her previous job with another IU unit, Dana Bissey, IGWS GIS and cartographic analyst, worked on the tree study mentioned in the Limestone Post story.

• IGWS Research Scientist Dr. Maria Mastalerz is a co-author on two recently published papers: “Petrophysical property variations in over-mature Marcellus Shale: Implications for gas storage and producibility” and “Organic petrography of the Ordovician Red River kukersite tight oil and gas play, Williston basin, North Dakota, U.S.A.,” both in AAPG Bulletin, and “Using optical-electron correlative microscopy for shales of contrasting thermal maturity,” posted on the International Journal of Coal Geology website.

• Mastalerz gave an invited presentation at a conference in May at Wroclaw University in Poland organized as a tribute to Prof. Stan Halas, a Polish physicist. The event also celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Isotope Geology and Geoecology Laboratory at Wroclaw University. Her presentation title was: "Rare earth elements (REE): Can sedimentary rocks provide a solution to the global REE crisis?"

• At its spring member meeting in April, Todd Schnatzmeyer and the Indiana Limestone Institute bestowed the newly conceived Cornerstone Award on Patsy Fell-Barker of B.G. Hoadley Quarries. The award recognizes “Industry commitment, service, and outstanding dedication.”

• Schnatzmeyer will deliver a seminar at 5:30 p.m. June 14 at the Ellettsville Branch Library in coordination with the Indiana Limestone Symposium, which is taking place June 3-24.

• IGWS Research Scientist Don Tripp presented at the Digital Mapping Techniques conference in Anchorage, Alaska, in May. His talk was titled, “Geological mapping combining traditional with digital techniques.”

• New billboard panels focusing on IGWS Collections are hanging in the Indiana Statehouse through the end of July (see below).

The Indiana Geological and Water Survey, a longstanding institute of Indiana University, conducts research; surveys the state; collects and preserves geologic specimens and data; and disseminates information to contribute to the mitigation of geologic hazards and the wise stewardship of the energy, mineral, and water resources of Indiana.

• To join the monthly E-Geo News mailing list, please click here.

• To ask a question of IGWS staff or suggest an E-Geo News topic, email scliffo@iu.edu.