Theses and Dissertations

ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9427-0575

Advisor

Skarke, Adam D.

Committee Member

Schmitz, Darrel W.

Committee Member

Dockery, David T.

Committee Member

Rodgers, John C.

Date of Degree

12-12-2025

Original embargo terms

Immediate Worldwide Access

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

Major

Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Department of Geosciences

Abstract

Pre-loess Terrace Deposits are a Pleistocene, high-quality aggregate resource of gravel, sand, and clay subjacent to loess of varying thickness along the eastern valley wall of the Yazoo Basin in Mississippi. This project delineated 1,230 mi2 of this resource with a volume greater than 33 billion yd3 from the misinterpreted Citronelle Formation in Desoto, Tate, Marshall, Panola, Tallahatchie, Yalobusha, Grenada, Carroll, Holmes, Yazoo, Madison, Hinds, Warren, Jefferson, Claiborne, Adams, Franklin, and Wilkinson Counties with nine terrace base levels at 40, 180, 220, 250, 270, 300, 330, 340, and 370 feet msl indicated by test holes, gravel mine data, outcrop studies, and GIS modeling. A review of literature published by the Mississippi Geological Survey demonstrates the misapplication of the Citronelle Formation across the state. Clasts within the Pre-loess Terrace Deposits became available to the Mississippi River following rerouting of midcontinent drainages by Pleistocene glaciation. In addition to Pleistocene Pre-loess Terrace Deposits, the Citronelle Formation in Mississippi is replaced with Holocene Mississippi River Alluvium, Pliocene Brookhaven and Magee Terrace deposits, Oligocene to Miocene Grand Gulf Group members, Tennessee-Tombigbee River terraces, and Cretaceous Tuscaloosa gravel using petrology, stratigraphic position, and provenance analysis. The prevailing dogma of the Citronelle Formation continues in Alabama and Florida. The evidence presented herein demonstrates the need to abandon the term and redefine those units to which the Citronelle Formation has been applied. The Citronelle assumption has clouded evidence of the evolution of eustatic sea-level in the Gulf Coastal Plain. In Mississippi, the erroneous perpetuation of the Citronelle Formation resulted in the omission of Pre-loess Terrace Deposits, a significant and proven aggregate resource, from The Geologic Map of Mississippi.

Download

Included in

Geology Commons

Share

COinS