Midcontinent Stratigraphy of the Gulf Coastal Plain: Northern Embayment - Illinois, Kentucky, and Missouri, a Two-Year Project

Kentucky part of the Northern Embayment Stratigraphy of the Gulf Coastal Plain Province Period of Performance: January 15, 2024 – through January 14, 2026 (2 years) Abstract Westernmost Kentucky is part of the northern Mississippi Embayment. The embayment is a broad structural feature defined by a northward-thinning wedge of late Mesozoic and Cenozoic sediments around the current Mississippi River. Late Mesozoic and Cenozoic sediments are as much as 2,000 ft thick in western Kentucky. Although the geologic units at the surface and near- surface in the Kentucky part of the embayment were mapped during previous U.S. Geological Survey cooperative research, more work is needed to interpret and define stratigraphic relationships of some of the units in the subsurface and resolve differences in Late Mesozoic and Cenozoic nomenclature between Kentucky and surrounding states. The Kentucky Geological Survey will join a stratigraphic working group with the Illinois and Missouri geological surveys, managed by ISGS, to address interstate stratigraphic frameworks, terminology discrepancies, and resolve state-line inconsistencies. Samples will be collected and analyzed to help with the correlation of subsurface units towards developing a uniform stratigraphic nomenclature for post-Paleozoic bedrock units across the northern Mississippi Embayment.