Abstract The best public access to quarries from which the noted Indiana Limestone (trade name) is produced is at a park and demonstration center in the NE¼NW00BC;Sec.33, T.6N., R.1W., Lawrence County, Indiana (Oolitic 7½-minute Quadrangle), and lies 1 mi (1.6 km) north of Oolitic, which is, in turn, some 3 mi (4.8 km) north of Bedford, the county seat of Lawrence County (Fig. 1). The site may be reached by passenger car or bus. Visitors approaching from the south by 4-lane Indiana 37 should pass the turnout to the north part of Oolitic and proceed 2.3 mi (3.7 km) to Trogden Lane, turning right (east) there and passing through Needmore to the old 2-lane route of Indiana 37(1.2 mi [1.9 km]). Turn right (southeast) and proceed half a mile (0.8 km) to the entry for the Indiana Limestone Tourist Park and Demonstration Center. Visitors approaching from the north by Indiana 37 (4-lane)will pass a stoplight intersection with Indiana 45 at the southwest edge of Bloomington and proceed 7.7 mi (12.3 km) to the place where the road descends from the upland in a deep bedrock cut through the lower part of the Salem Limestone, the entire Harrodsburg Limestone and Ramp Creek Formation, and the upper few feet of the Borden Group (Middle Mississippian). The highway crosses Clear Creek about 0.3 mi (0.5 km) south of the cut, and 2.2 mi (3.7 km) south of the bridge the new highway intersects old Indiana 37 at a blinker light. Turn left

ABSTRACT The Mitchell Plateau of south-central Indiana is one of the iconic karst landscapes of the United States. The sinkhole-dimpled forests, fields, and farms; the extensive cave systems; and the deep windows into the groundwater system have fostered curiosity, exploration, and publication since the mid-1800s. This paper is designed to complement a field excursion to the classic features of this landscape. Included are literature reviews focused on three karst basins of the Mitchell Plateau: Mill Creek–Mosquito Creek, Bluespring Caverns, and Lost River. Geomorphic, hydrologic, and geochemical data are synthesized in the modern context of our understanding of epigenetic karst. Revealed are three styles of karst basin: (1) small, shallow karst aquifers strongly controlled by meteoric recharge and epikarst percolation; (2) intermediate-size karst aquifers with significant base flow and surface-water–groundwater interaction; and (3) regional aquifer systems with outcrop belt recharge, downdip transport into confinement with long water-rock interaction times, and artesian flow or entrainment of mineralized waters through fractures into springs or surface waters. Quaternary glaciation has greatly influenced the vertical position of base level through river incision and sediment aggradation; conduit development is controlled by proximity to the major rivers and the stratigraphic position of conduits.

ABSTRACT This field guide provides an updated synthesis of the stratigraphy and chronology of glacial deposits in central Indiana near the southern limit of glaciation in the midcontinent. Central Indiana contains evidence of multiple glaciations—deposits from the last two glaciations (Oxygen Isotope Stages [OIS] 2 [Wisconsin Episode] and 6 [Illinois Episode]) have been the focus of recent stratigraphic and chronologic investigation. New radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating from outcrop and core has refined the timing of OIS 2 and OIS 6 ice sheet advances, outwash/slackwater aggradation, glacial lake formation, and eolian activity. Radiocarbon ages within or below late Wisconsin till from three sites within 5 km (3 mi) of the late Wisconsin maximum limit indicate an age of 24.0 k cal yr B.P. for maximum OIS 2 ice sheet extent in central Indiana, consistent with chronology from Illinois and Ohio. A subsequent >50 km (31 mi) readvance (21.6 k cal yr B.P.) across central Indiana came within 10 km (6 mi) of the maximum limit and in the western part of the field-trip area, terminated in glacial Lake Eminence. The start of outwash aggradation and associated slackwater sedimentation in the West Fork White River valley and tributaries began ca. 27 k cal yr B.P. and continued until ca. 20.5 k cal yr B.P., representing the timing of ice sheet advance into and out of the paleo–White River drainage basin. Ice sheet advance and retreat rates average ~40 m/yr before and after the global Last Glacial Maximum (ca. 26−21 k cal yr B.P.) when ice was within ~50 km of the late Wisconsin maximum. OSL dating of pre-Wisconsin outwash and glacio-lacustrine sediment return ages between ca. 218 and 127 ka, confirming deposition during OIS 6. These ages document spatially complex sedimentation in bedrock valleys beyond the Wisconsin limit.

ABSTRACT About 17,000 yr ago, Glacial Lake Maumee breached the Fort Wayne Moraine, sending an unimaginably large torrent of meltwater down the upper Wabash River Valley (UWRV). The Maumee Megaflood (MM) may have lasted only a few weeks, but it scoured out a deep trough along the main stem of the river, radically lowering regional base level in what amounts to a geological instant and imposing a strong disequilibrium on a landscape that continues to experience major geomorphic, environmental, and ecological adjustments. In Huntington and Wabash Counties, the central part of the trough is engorged in resistant, Late Silurian reef-associated and inter-reef rocks, producing the largest natural bedrock exposure in heavily glaciated northern Indiana. Unlike the immature, deranged drainage pattern that characterizes most of the glaciated region, streams adjacent to the UWRV form well-integrated drainage networks that exhibit features and processes more typical of high-relief bedrock areas, such as steep fall zones with prominent, lithologically controlled knickpoints, canyons, large terraces, falls and cascades, and a variety of bluff and hillside morphologies and associated groundwater phenomena. The exceptional exposures and diverse landscape of this region have attracted well over a century of interest from geomorphologists and glacial geologists, sedimentologists, stratigraphers, and paleontologists, as well as hydrogeologists, anthropologists, ecologists, and geoscience educators. Among other firsts, the organic origin of fossil reefs in the southern Great Lakes was definitively established in the UWRV, as was the occurrence of convulsive meltwater outbursts during deglaciation of the Laurentide Ice Sheet; likewise, the first direct Mississippi River–Great Lakes connection was also established here by early voyageurs. Today, the region is a popular destination for both nature tourism and history buffs, due in no small part to the burgeoning number of geologically inspired natural areas and historical sites. This field trip traces the MM from its outlet at Fort Wayne, through the bedrock gorge of the upper Wabash River, to the confluence with the late Tertiary Teays Bedrock Valley, with major emphasis on how the depositional framework and diagenetic history of the Late Silurian reef archipelago continue to reverberate in the modern geomorphic response of the valley to Pleistocene events. The first three stops focus on the Wabash-Erie Channel, which acted as the principal outlet of Glacial Lake Maumee and whose underlying geologic characteristics controlled the overall incision history of the MM. Several stops in the Wabash bedrock gorge and Salamonie Narrows will examine the handiwork of this flood, which created the spectacular klintar, or pinnacle-like reefs, of the UWRV, within a landscape that early geomorphologists likened to the scablands of eastern Washington. There, we will see world-class exposures of the fossilized Late Silurian reefs and how their organic framework and diagenesis are controlling the ongoing adjustment of the UWRV landscape and its streams to the convulsive changes imposed by the MM. Stop 9 will showcase the elusive Teays Bedrock Valley and its complex pre-Wisconsin fill, where it converges with the modern river and has been partially exhumed by a major tributary, and offers a study in contrasts between the bedrock-controlled landscapes of earlier stops and an equally steep one excavated entirely into unconsolidated deposits. After a brief stop at the iconic Seven Pillars landmark, the trip concludes at the spectacular Pipe Creek Jr. Quarry, which features several km of tall exposures through the Late Silurian carbonate complex, a late Neogene sinkhole deposit, and the overlying Pleistocene section.