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Midnight Volcano

Coordinates: 33°02′57″N 90°34′25″W / 33.049040°N 90.573494°W / 33.049040; -90.573494
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Midnight Volcano is believed to be a buried extinct volcano in southern Humphreys County, Mississippi. It is named after the nearby town of Midnight, Mississippi. During the time it was active, Midnight Volcano may have been a volcanic island in the Mississippi Embayment.[1]

The volcanic activity in the area is associated with the Monroe Uplift,[2][3] and igneous rocks in the region have been dated from 84 to 73 Ma.[4] A well drilled in Humphreys County found around 600 m (2000 ft) of volcanic rock, starting 1110 m (3641 ft) below the surface at the shallowest.[5] The most recent measured volcanic rock was dated to 66 Ma,[6] while older (and deeper) samples were dated at 81 and 94 Ma.[7]

These most recent deposits roughly coincide with the activity of Jackson Volcano, another buried volcano southeast of Midnight[8]

Volcanic debris from this volcanism was also found in the "Coffee sands", a Cretaceous sand layer to the north.[2]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Ask Rufus: Tombigbee sharks and Mississippi volcanoes". The Commercial Dispatch. Retrieved June 11, 2018.
  2. ^ a b Mellen, Frederic Francis (April 18, 1958). "Cretaceous Shelf Sediments of Mississippi, Mississippi State Geological Survey, Bulletin 85" (PDF). pp. 23–24. Retrieved June 11, 2018.
  3. ^ Pitts, Bill. "NSV Whatever Happened To...?". www.newsouthernview.com. Retrieved June 11, 2018.
  4. ^ Cox, Randel Tom (September 2002). "The Mississippi Embayment, North America: A first order continental structure generated by the Cretaceous superplume mantle event". Journal of Geodynamics. 34 (2): 163–176. Bibcode:2002JGeo...34..163C. doi:10.1016/S0264-3707(02)00019-4 – via ResearchGate.
  5. ^ Baksi, Ajoy (1997). "The Timing of Late Cretaceous Alkalic Igneous Activity in the Northern Gulf of Mexico Basin, Southeastern USA". The Journal of Geology. 105 (5): 629–643. Bibcode:1997JG....105..629B. doi:10.1086/515966. JSTOR 10.1086/515966. S2CID 129911825.
  6. ^ Merrill, Robert (1981). "Genesis of bentonite in the Upper Cretaceous strata of Monroe County, Mississippi". Report of Student Investigations (Mississippi Mineral Resources Institute). 820. University of Mississippi Library, Special Collections.
  7. ^ Sundeen, Daniel A.; Cook, Philip L. (August 1, 1977). "K-Ar dates from Upper Cretaceous volcanic rocks in the subsurface of west-central Mississippi". GSA Bulletin. 88 (8): 1144–1146. Bibcode:1977GSAB...88.1144S. doi:10.1130/0016-7606(1977)88<1144:KDFUCV>2.0.CO;2. ISSN 0016-7606.
  8. ^ Livesey, Christina Lee (1990). "Petrogenesis and Provenance of Epiclastic Volcanic Cobbles From the Cretaceous Woodbine Formation, Southwest Arkansas". LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses 4933. Retrieved November 11, 2018.

33°02′57″N 90°34′25″W / 33.049040°N 90.573494°W / 33.049040; -90.573494