The Geology of Mississippi

The Geology of Mississippi is an encyclopedic work by authors with extensive experience in Mississippi’s surface geology mapping program. It brings together published work, unpublished work from agency fi les, and the authors’ experience, both in personal field work and in collaboration with experts from around the world.

With over a thousand images, the voluminous text relates ways in which Mississippi’s geology has contributed to the understanding of global events, such as the extinction of the dinosaurs and the first occurrence of tiny primates. Fossil illustrations include Devonian trilobites, Mississippian scale trees, Pennsylvanian brachiopods, Cretaceous dinosaur bones, Paleocene lignite and petrified wood, Eocene seashells and the excavation of fossil whales, Oligocene marine fossils and rare land mammal finds, Miocene plants and animals, Paleozoic marine fossils, and the bones of giant ice-age mammals. The text is arranged by geologic age.

Economic minerals cited in the book include oil and gas (both methane and carbon dioxide), lignite, dimension stone, crushed stone, sand and gravel, various clay deposits, limestone, and potential economic deposits of bauxite, heavy minerals, and iron ore. Groundwater is Mississippi’s most valuable natural resource and supplies over 90 percent of the state’s public and industrial water supply and most of the state’s irrigation supply for agriculture and catfish ponds. Mississippi’s surface geology causes the state’s fertile and not-so-fertile soil types responsible for foundation and infrastructure substrates that range from stable to failure-prone due to expansive clays. Finally, The Geology of Mississippi, coupled with site-specific surface geologic maps, provides information for the wise use of land and the environmental protection of the state’s resources.