Guidebook Series

Zakaria Lasemi and Scott Elrick, editors, 2016, 140 pp.

Highlights of the field trips from the 50th Annual Meeting of the North Central Section of the Geological Society of America. Caron and Curry-three-dimensional geologic mapping in Will County.  Denny et al-focuses on the relationship between the mineralization and the igneous activity in the Illinois-Kentucky Fluorspar District. Grimley et al-highlights some of the recent research and geologic mapping in the Upper Sangamon River Basin of east-central Illinois. Rovey et al- discusses the Grover Gravel in St. Louis County, Missouri, and adjacent Illinois. Huysken et al-developments of a series of field-based projects that make use of state parks and natural areas. Overall a broad spectrum of the geologic features of Illinois, Kentucky, and Missouri, which range in age from mid-Paleozoic to Quaternary, including fluorspar deposits.

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Samuel V. Panno, Philip G. Millhouse, Randy W. Nyboer, Daryl Watson, Walton R. Kelly, Lisa M. Anderson, Curtis C. Abert, and Donald E. Luman 2016. 78 pp.

This guidebook presents the geology, hydrogeology, history, archaeology, & biotic ecology of Jo Daviess County. The pages are filled with informative maps, figures, & photographs from mid- to late 1800s & early 1900s showing early street scenes & mining activities. It is an excellent primer on the region and can be used as a basic reference for local gray and green infrastructure planning and other land-use management decisions. Residents of Jo Daviess and surrounding areas interested in their heritage, teachers and students studying their place in history and the surrounding environment, and visitors who wish to have a better understanding of the area, the local culture, and its historic significance would benefit by owning this guidebook.

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A summary of the Quaternary history, landforms, and deposits in the Kaskaskia River drainage basin of southwestern Illinois. The Kaskaskia Basin area contains some of the best preserved and most intriguing landforms of the penultimate glaciation in the U.S. Midcontinent. The guidebook was originally developed for the two-day 55th Midwest Friends of the Pleistocene Field Conference in May 2011. Included is an overview of the Quaternary geology of the region as well as detailed geologic reports for each of 10 field trip stops, from the Vandalia area to the Mascoutah area. Topics include the origin of the ridged-drift topography of south-central Illinois, a possible Kaskaskia sublobe or ice stream, the history of glacial Lake Kaskaskia, fossil and paleoenvironmental records, chronology, archeology, and sodium-affected soils. Includes 15 tables and 48 figures

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Brandon Curry, editor, with contributions by 22 others, 2015. 179 pp.

The geology of the collar counties of Chicago is revealed in an extended description of the glacial deposits & bedrock, & exemplified through discussion of nine field trip stops. The stop topics include discussions of the geology, fossils, fantastically folded and faulted deposits of glacial fluvial deposits; the sedimentology and fossils of proglacial and postglacial deltaic deposits; the sedimentology and behavior of subglacial diamicton; the catena of an ancient preglacial soil complex; evidence and age of a deglacial flood known as the Kankakee Torrent; sediment architecture of periglacial ice-walled lake deposits that archive delicate fossils of tundra plants; and descriptions of decidedly older plant fossils, including possibly the oldest conifer fossil in North America, in sinkhole deposits of Pennsylvanian age.

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By Samuel V. Panno, Keith C. Hackley, Walton R. Kelly, and Donald E. Luman. 2011. 45 pp.

Travel to the sinkhole plain along the western flank of the Illinois Basin; where the loess-and till-covered Mississippian-age limestone bedrock has given rise to a landscape of more than 10,000 cover-collapse sinkholes, active branchwork caves, and large picturesque springs. The trip discusses the karst geology and hydrogeology of the sinkhole plain and ongoing research involving: isotopic chemistry and an rRNA gene; the use of stalagmites in nearby caves to study the periodicity of large earthquakes; the significance of saline springs in the Illinois Basin; and mapping efforts to identify and catalogue karst features in Illinois. Includes 37 full-color images. 

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By Bruce A. Brown, Thomas C. Hunt, David M. Johnson, and Daniel D. Reid.
2009. 32 pp.

This guidebook provides a brief introduction to the geology, mining history, cultural history, and related environmental and reclamation issues of the historic lead-zinc mining region of southwestern Wisconsin and the Upper Mississippi Valley mining district, which includes parts of adjacent Iowa and Illinois. The area is of significant historical interest and is of current interest because of ongoing environmental issues, including reclamation and water quality.

By Michael J. Chrzastowski.
2009. 32 pp.

This guidebook is designed to accompany a day-long driving tour near and within the Chicago area. The book presents an overview of the Chicago River's geological framework and describes five select locations that are important to the river's geologic history.

By Michael J. Chrzastowski.
2008. 42 pp.

This guidebook was timed to immediately precede the 2009 Chicago centennial celebration of the 1909 publication of Plan of Chicago, the vision for the Chicago lakefront outlined by Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett. The guidebook juxtaposes images from the Plan with historic and modern maps and images of the Chicago lakefront so the reader can see the remarkable impact of the Burnham’s vision on Chicago’s unique, diverse, and entirely man-made urban shoreline.

By E. Don McKay III, Richard C. Berg, Ardith K. Hansel, Timothy J. Kemmis, and Andrew J. Stumpf.
2008. 98 pp.

This ISGS guidebook discusses the complex sedimentary record of the ancient Mississippi River valley. Results of recent geologic mapping of the Middle Illinois River valley and the buried ancient courses of the Mississippi River in north-central Illinois provided new information about the succession of deposits that fill the valley as well as details of the region’s rich Quaternary record. The field trip examines surface exposures and data from cores that reveal the succession of glacial, proglacial (fluvial, lacustrine, and loessal), and interglacial deposits and paleosols along the ancient Mississippi River valley.

P.H. Heckel, P.L. Brenckle, H.R. Lane, E.C. Rankey, B.J. Witzke, B.J. Bunker, J.M. Masters, and Z. Lasemi.
2005. 118 pp. This is a revised and updated version of the guidebook prepared in 2001 for field trip participants by the International Union of Geological Sciences Subcommission on Carboniferous Stratigraphy. The guidebook makes available to the public important lithostratigraphic and biostratigraphic information on the classic type Mississippian exposures in the Mississippi River valley. Included is a self-guided tour of the Mississippi River valley in Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa and features maps, photographs, and illustrations of Mississippian subsystem stratigraphy and biostratigraphy.

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David Malone, editor. 2001. 116 pp.

Rodney D. Norby and Zakaria Lasemi, editors and field conference chairmen, F. Brett Denny, Joseph A. Devera, David A. Grimley, Zakaria Lasemi, Donald G. Mikulic, Rodney D. Norby, and C. Pius Weibel, Joanne Kleussendorf.
2000.
63^rd Annual Tri-State Geological Field Conference, October 6-8, 2000.