Palynologic samples for this study were collected in April of 1975 at the Hawthorne and Minnehaha Mines near Linton and Dugger, Indiana, respectively. All samples were taken from the Coal No. 7 and the overlying shale.A total of eighty-three species assigned to thirty-one genera were recovered. Sixty-six species assigned to twenty-nine genera were recovered from the Hawthorne Mine and forty-seven species assigned to twenty-three genera were recovered from the Minnehaha Mine. Comparison of the palynomorph floras of the two localities reveals twenty-one genera and thirty-three species in common to both mines.Palynologic data from the sample area reveals two slightly different depositional basins. The ecology of the area was probably a coastal-swamp type of environment with an abundance of arborescent lepidodendrids.Ball State UniversityMuncie, IN 47306

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The shale and mudstone directly superjacent to Desmoinesian coal seams of southern Indiana (Springfield, Houchin Creek, Survant, and Seelyville coals) were initially deposited under marine waters and are shown to exhibit high concentrations of organic carbon, sulfur and redox-sensitive metals (Mo, V, Ni, Fe, and U) that were sequestered during times of benthic anoxia and intermittent to sustained euxinia (anoxic and sulfidic). Strata upsection display geochemical signatures that indicate increasingly oxic and nearshore sedimentation that mirrors cyclothemic sequence stratigraphic trends Carbon source, nearshore and offshore proximity, freshwater and marine influence, and redox conditions of the epeiric sea overlying southern Indiana during the Late Middle Pennsylvanian were identified and tracked throughout the deposition of four drill cores of the Petersburg, Linton and Staunton Formations. Carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur data (total organic carbon [TOC], total nitrogen [TN], and total sulfur [TS]); paleoredox proxies ([Mo/Al], [V/Al], [Th/U], [Fetot/Al]); organic carbon isotopes (δ13Corg); and detrital influx concentrations (Zr) were all used in conjunction with lithological and paleontological interpretations to better understand the mode of deposition in this unique midcontinent ancient epeiric sea. Geochemical results when combined with lithologic and paleontologic interpretations reveal a dynamic environmental system where water column geochemistry varies with the influence of variable magnitudes of epeiric seawater flooding on the extensive peatlands of equatorial Late Middle Pennsylvanian southern Indiana.