A FAULT-BOUNDED DEBRIS FLOW, LEE FORMATION (PENNSYLVANIAN) , EASTERN
KENTUCKY COAL FIELD
GREB, Stephen F., CHESNUT, Donald R., DAVIDSON, 0. Barton, Kentucky
Geological Survey, 228 Mining and Mineral Resources Building,
University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0107

Fluvial facies in the Pine Creek Sandstone Member of the Lower
Pennsylvanian Lee Formation in the Eastern Kentucky Coal Field are
interrupted along their western, fault-bounded margin by a matrix-
supported, shale-clast conglomerate informally called the Poison Honey
beds.
	The unit consists of a wedge of matrix-supported conglomerates with
an erosive base, exhibiting massive or crude accretion layering
truncated by narrow channels or troughs filled with both matrix-
supported conglomerates and sandy conglomerates, and covered by
eastward-accreting sheet sandstones. The vertical and lateral
associations of matrix-supported lithotypes and sheet-sand stringers,
the lack of internal grading, the imbrication of siderite pebbles, and
the abundance of brittle shale clasts indicate that the unit was
deposited by multiple, subaerial, watery to partially fluidized, semi-
plug, debris-flow surges.
	The rarity of debris flows in this part of the section, the
reversal in sedimentation direction from west in the underlying
fluviatile deposits to east in the debris flow, the abundant shale
clasts indicating short transport distance, and the proximity of the
unit to a fault indicate that the flow was instigated by fault
movement or by climatically controlled tributary drainages cut into an
upthrown fault block along the margin of the Pine Creek sandstone
belt.