Environmental and tectonic influences on the formation and distribution of carbonate nodules above the Springfield coal seam, southern Illinois Basin

Of the 450 carbonate nodules documented at a study mine in the southern Illinois Basin, the long axes of 36% are preferentially aligned parallel to regional structures such as anticline axes and drag folds that are interpreted to have formed in response to compression during the Late Pennsylvanian-Permian Alleghanian orogeny. Mapping also suggests that clusters of carbonate nodules are spatially associated with the trends of low-angle drag folds in the immediate roof of the Springfield seam at the study mine. The preferential elongation and distribution with respect to tectonic structures suggest that regional compression influenced the shape and distribution of carbonate nodules, and that nodule lithification may have been approximately contemporaneous with regional deformation.