File:Quartz-pebble conglomerate (Black Hand Sandstone, Lower Mississippian; railroad cut west of Black Hand Gorge, Ohio, USA) 4 (31028211251).jpg

Quartz-pebble conglomerate in the Mississippian of Ohio, USA. (handlens for scale)

The Black Hand Sandstone is a prominent, cliff-forming sedimentary unit in the Mississippian of parts of eastern Ohio, USA. This photo was taken near the type locality - Black Hand Gorge in Licking County, Ohio, where an American Indian pictograph formerly existed. The "Black Hand" was destroyed long ago by canal builders. The pictograph represented an early "highway sign" that roughly indicated directions to Flint Ridge, where arrowhead-quality flint was quarried.

The Black Hand Sandstone consists of horizontally bedded and cross-bedded quartzose sandstones, granulose sandstones, pebbly sandstones, plus minor quartz-pebble conglomerate. Stratigraphically, the unit was traditionally considered as a coarse-grained upper member of the Cuyahoga Formation (Lower Mississippian) and represented a delta deposit.

A revised understanding of the Black Hand Sandstone was published in the 2000s by West Virginia geologists. The unit is now understood to be temporally and genetically unrelated to the Cuyahoga Formation, and therefore cannot be considered one of its members. The Black Hand Sandstone is now interpreted as an incised valley fill deposit.

The Black Hand Sandstone in parts of Ohio produces some oil and natural gas. Oil drillers refer to the Black Hand as the “Big Injun Sandstone”.

Stratigraphy: Black Hand Sandstone, Lower Mississippian

Locality: large talus block slumped from railroad cut just west of the Licking River, west of the town of Toboso, far-eastern Licking County, eastern Ohio, USA

Some references on the Black Hand Sandstone:

Ver Steeg, K. 1947. Black Hand sandstone and conglomerate in Ohio. Bulletin of the Geological Society of America 58: 703-727.

Szmuc, E.J. 1970. The Mississippian System. pp. 23-67 in Guide to the Geology of Northeastern Ohio. Cleveland. Northern Ohio Geological Society.

Walker, D.A. 1978. Paleontology and Paleoecology of the Cuyahoga and Logan Formations of Central Ohio. Senior Thesis. Denison University, Granville, Ohio, USA. 9+102+11+(1)+2 pp. 11 pls.

Bork, K.B. & R.J. Malcuit. 1981. Cuyahoga and Logan Formations of central and eastern Licking County, Ohio. Ohio Sedimentary Geology III. 21 pp.

Kammer, T.W. & D.L. Matchen. 2002. Biostratigraphic constraints on the timing of valley incisement and deposition of the Lower Mississippian Black Hand Sandstone of Ohio. Geological Society American Abstracts with Programs 34(6): 428.

Matchen, D.L. & T.W. Kammer. 2002. Reinterpretation of the Black Hand Sandstone (Lower Mississippian) of Ohio as incised valley fill. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 34(6): 277.