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Aminostratigraphic Correlation and Geochronology of Two Quaternary Loess Localities, Central Mississippi Valley

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

June E. Mirecki  and
Barry B. Miller
June E. Mirecki
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences, Memphis State University, Memphis, Tennessee 38152
Barry B. Miller
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242
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Abstract

Amino acid epimeric (aIle/Ile) values from terrestrial molluscs are used to define and correlate three aminozones in loess sequences exposed across the central Mississippi Valley, in Arkansas and Tennessee. Three superposed aminozones are defined at Wittsburg quarry, Arkansas, primarily using aIle/Ile values from total hydrolysates of the gastropod genus Hendersonia: Peoria Loess (aIle/Ile = 0.07 ± 0.01), Roxana Silt (0.14 ± 0.02), and a third loess (0.28 ± 0.06). Loess units at Wittsburg quarry can be correlated on lithologic characteristics eastward across the Mississippi Valley to the Old River section, near Memphis, Tennessee; however, only one loess unit is fossil-bearing (Peoria Loess, aIle/Ile = 0.05) at that section. Radiocarbon analyses of charcoal from the upper Roxana Silt (ca. 26,000 to 29,000 yr old) and mollusc shell carbonate from the basal Roxana Silt (ca. 39,000 yr old) are used to calibrate amino acid epimeric data for the central Mississippi Valley. These data, applied to the apparent parabolic kinetic model of R. M. Mitterer and N. Kriausakul (1989, Quaternary Science Reviews 8, 353-357), suggest an Illinoian (>120,000 yr) age for the third loess in the central Mississippi Valley that is correlative with part of the Loveland Loess in Illinois and Iowa.

Type
Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , May 1994 , pp. 289 - 297
Copyright
University of Washington

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