Grain orientation in a Berea Sandstone channel at South Amherst, Ohio

A particulate study of the orientation of elongate quartz grains in horizontal and vertical planes was performed on a well-documented, sand-filled stream channel preserved in the Berea Sandstone, a protoquartzite, in Buckeye quarry at South Amherst, northern Ohio. A mean compass orientation of 263 degrees (standard deviation = 18.8 degrees ) with a mean magnitude of 17.7 percent was obtained for the imbricated, horizontally oriented grains. This direction is in good agreement with paleocurrent directions inferred from channel trend and crossbedding measurements. Paleocurrent studies of sandstones based on grain orientations have much broader application than those based on megascopic directional sedimentary structures.