Abstract The best-exposed natural bedrock outcrops in Michigan's southern peninsula are Upper Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) sandstone ledges underlain by silts, clays, and coals in classic midcontinent ‘cyclothem’ stratigraphy, exposed along the Grand River in the city of Grand Ledge. Native Americans used the underclay in pottery; later commercial mining was the basis for clay-products factories. In the 1800s, the ledges provided a picturesque setting for a resort economy. Among the beneficiaries of repurposed quarries (now parks) are generations of Michigan geoscience students. A trip to Grand Ledge is often the first geology field experience for many students and plays an important role in the professional development of practising geoscientists and geoscience educators in Michigan. After an announcement of plans to expand the city's water treatment plant, adjacent to the cyclothem exposure, geologists from academia, government, and industry united to support preservation of the outcrops. City officials, previously unaware of the geoheritage value of the rocks exposed in their parks, are willing to work with geoscientists to preserve the site. This experience underscored the importance of documenting the geoheritage of the Grand Ledge area and establishing relationships with those who have oversight of these ‘greatest outcrops’ to ensure their preservation for future generations.

Abstract The Ledges of the Grand River, T.4N., R.4W., Eaton County, Michigan; Eagle, Michigan, 7½-minute Quadrangle. The Ledges are located in the city of Grand Ledge, Michigan, 11 mi(18 km) west of Lansing, Michigan, on Michigan 43 (Fig. 1). The Ledges occupy both the northeast and southwest banks of the Grand River. Access to the southwest Ledges is by East Jefferson Street to Fitzgerald Park. Access is also possible either by canoe or the River Path Trail that begins at River and Harrisonstreets in Grand Ledge.

ABSTRACT This field trip is an excursion to exposures of Pennsylvanian bedrock at Grand Ledge, Michigan, as a backdrop for interdisciplinary examination of the sedimentologic, stratigraphic, and hydrologic research conducted on these important bedrock aquifer units. The areal extent of Pennsylvanian rocks in the central Lower Peninsula of Michigan is ~28,490 km 2 . Pleistocene glacial deposits overlie these units throughout the state, but the drift is thin and locally absent along the Grand River Valley, in and around Grand Ledge, Michigan. The geology of the Pennsylvanian deposits is known almost entirely from subsurface research, although sparse outcrops occur near Parma and Jackson in Jackson County and at Grand Ledge in Eaton County. These outcrops, especially the ones at Grand Ledge, constitute the only exposures of coal-bearing strata in Michigan where visitors can see massive sandstone, shale, coal, and associated strata, and fine-grained, chaotic, riverbank-slump facies. The sections of the field trip will attempt to relate Grand Ledge area deposits to the Pennsylvanian section at the state and regional scale. First, general geologic and stratigraphic relations will be described on the basis of knowledge from the nearby cities of Lansing and Mason, where diamond drill cores and geophysical logs from extensively studied groundwater contamination sites are available. Lithologic and geophysical logs from these sites will be reviewed under the pavilion. Next, lithologic type sections of the Pennsylvanian material in outcrop will be observed and discussed. An example of core from a nearby industrial site will be studied under the pavilion during lunch, and a final trip to outcrop will be made to discuss stratigraphic relationships in an effort to bring into perspective the complexities of Pennsylvanian strata in the Michigan Basin.

Abstract This guidebook volume is a compilation of field excursions offered at the 47th annual meeting of the North-Central Section of the Geological Society of America, held in Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 2013. These field trips examine a wide range of geological time intervals and topics, from Silurian salt, to Cretaceous cosmic impact, to newly interpreted Mississippian–Pennsylvanian Michigan stratigraphy, to Quaternary glacial landscape formation, sand dune development, and present-day coastal bluff stability/erosion issues. Trips geographically range throughout southern Michigan and northern Indiana from Detroit, Michigan, in the east to the Kentland Quarry in Indiana to the west. Early depositional events within the Michigan Basin are examined deep underground in the Detroit Salt Mine (trip leaders: W.B. Harrison III and E.Z. Manos [onsite leader]). This salt mine has been in operation for more than 100 years, and extends for miles beneath the city of Detroit. Kentland Quarry, located in northwest Indiana, is the site of a Cretaceous-aged meteorite impact (trip leader: J.C. Weber). This site allows for surface examination of a similar style impact event that occurred in now buried Ordovician-age (Trenton) rocks located in Cass County, (southwest) Michigan. Mississippian-aged fluvial deposits have been traditionally classified as the youngest bedrock exposed in Michigan. These rocks crop out in the center of the Michigan Basin near Grand Ledge, Michigan (trip leaders: N.B.H. Venable, D.A. Barnes, D.B. Westjohn, and P.J. Voice). Younger, more recently identified, Pennsylvanian rocks will be the subject of a related core workshop at the Michigan Geological Repository for Research and Education (MGRRE) in Kalamazoo (workshop leaders: S. Towne, W.B. Harrison, and D.B. Westjohn). The regional, surficial geology of southwest Michigan is highlighted by three field trips. The first trip details the glacial landforms and sedimentary features formed by the differing dynamics of the Michigan and Saginaw lobes of the Laurentide Ice Sheet (trip leaders: A.E. Kehew, A.L. Kozlowski, B.C. Bird, and J.M. Esch). The two other trips follow along the Lake Michigan eastern shoreline and examine development of sand dune complexes (trip leader: E. Hansen) and present-day, coastal bluff stability and erosion issues (trip leaders: R.B. Chase and J.P. Selegean).

ABSTRACT Pennsylvanian red beds are the youngest known rocks in the Michigan Basin. Two new formation-level units, the Pewamo Formation and the Haybridge strata, have recently been described. The Pewamo Formation, composed of Pennsylvanian red sandstones and minor laminated mudstones, is known from outcrops, abandoned quarries, and one core in Ionia County. The Haybridge unit is located in the shallow subsurface and in coal mine tailing piles in Shiawassee County. It consists of red sandstone, red mudstone, coal, and gray mudstone, all hosting Pennsylvanian macroscopic plant fossils. Neither the Pewamo nor the Haybridge rocks have any demonstrated relationship to red core cuttings reported as Jurassic from the central Lower Peninsula of Michigan. No firm evidence exists for Jurassic, or any other post-Pennsylvanian rocks in the Michigan Basin. The red core cuttings may be glacial sediments with reworked palynomorphs from rocks transported from elsewhere. A shallow coring project, followed by detailed sedimentologic, petrographic, mineralogic, and paleontologic studies, is necessary to: (1) refine the vertical and lateral stratigraphy of the Pennsylvanian rocks in Michigan; (2) solve the “Jurassic red bed problem”; and (3) understand the late Pennsylvanian–Pleistocene history of the Michigan Basin.

ABSTRACT The Carboniferous Michigan Basin is the subject of conflicting interpretations resulting from the lack of detailed stratigraphic analysis of relevant rock units. In this study, an ~610 m (2000 ft) section of recently acquired core material was evaluated on the basis of lithofacies and stacking patterns, stratigraphic contacts, and well-established regional geologic relations of Mississippian and Pennsylvanian strata. The Bayport formation is composed of seven distinct primary depositional lithofacies reflecting open-marine and shoal-water to restricted peritidal environments, typically capped by an exposure surface. Carbonate-dominated strata of the Bayport formation are interstratified but ultimately transition up section into siliciclastic-dominated strata (previously called the Parma Sandstone) deposited in tidally influenced, estuarine facies. Late Mississippian Bayport strata are sharply overlain by Pennsylvanian-aged siliciclastic lithofacies of the Saginaw Formation. These facies were deposited in a range of terrestrial and marginal-marine environments, from coarse-grained fluvial sandstones at the base (previously known as the Grand River Formation), to the finer-grained channel sandstones and floodplain mudstones of mixed fluvial and estuarine systems in the middle Saginaw Formation. Carbonaceous shales, mudstones, and thin coal intervals characterize the middle to upper Saginaw Formation. In the southern Michigan Basin, an important unconformity at the Mississippian-Pennsylvanian contact is represented by either an incised valley-fill succession or a prominent paleosol above the Bayport formation at the base of the Absaroka section in the Saginaw Formation. In upthrown areas adjacent to a major wrench fault, the Lucas fault in south-central Michigan, the Bayport formation is transitional upward from an intensely karsted limestone to a red-bed paleosol and then to primarily carbonaceous mudrock of the Saginaw Formation. In downthrown areas adjacent to the fault, the formation contact, and systemic unconformity, is a sandstone-on-sandstone contact. Climate-sensitive strata indicate a significant transition from predominantly arid conditions in the Mississippian Bayport formation to humid climate conditions in the Pennsylvanian Saginaw Formation across the Mississippian-Pennsylvanian systemic boundary. Previously, the Bayport formation was considered Meramecian in age; however, palynologic analyses of samples collected from core within the interval indicate a Chesterian (late Mississippian) age, representing a significant revision of existing Michigan Basin stratigraphy.

Abstract Geoheritage is recognized globally as a critical concept that celebrates unique geological sites, their history and scientific value, educational potential and geotourism opportunities. Importantly, geoheritage encompasses a wide range of geodiversity, which exists in a variety of scales – from local outcrops to internationally recognized UNESCO sites – and within a continuum of scientific value, historical merit, indigenous meaning, educational potential and geotourism possibilities. We celebrate a selected example of geoheritage sites across the world that have been noticed, recognized and utilized. The breadth and geodiversity of some of these sites indicate we should broaden our geoheritage definition and include historical collections and largely inaccessible sites. Notably, all geoscientists and educators must remain diligent to ensure the sustainability of these sites so that future generations can enjoy our geological and cultural heritage.