The information on this page is a summary description.
The full formal description is available here: Luchtbal Member
| Abbreviation | LiLu |
| Parent unit | Lillo Formation |
| Child units | |
| Lithological description | The Luchtbal Member as formally defined by De Meuter & Laga (1976) is a light brown-grey to whitish, glauconiferous quartz sand with abundant well-preserved shells and large amounts of shell grit. The bivalve Palliolum gerardi is conspicuously present, sometimes in dense accumulations forming beds, together with the calcareous tubes of polychaete Ditrupa, bryozoans and echinoderm spines. In the Port of Antwerp area, there is a lower part with dispersed shells, and an upper part with shells beds (Marquet & Herman, 2009). |
| Age | Early Pliocene, see Louwye et al. (2020). |
| Thickness | De Meuter and Laga (1976) stressed the irregular thickness of the unit, maximum 2 m to absent, due to local erosion. However, thicknesses of up to 10 m are documented in the Campine area north of Antwerp (see profiles http://collections.naturalsciences.be/ssh-geology/geology/profiles-neogeen2020). |
| Area of occurrence | Described in outcrops to the north of the City of Antwerp and in the Port of Antwerp area. Also interpreted in boreholes in the western Campine area, to the west of Turnhout. |
| Type locality | The type locality is the neighborhood Luchtbal north of Antwerp and east of the harbor. The type section of the member lies in the Tweede and Derde Havendok (Second and Third Harbour Docks), situated west of the Luchtbal district, between 10 m and 8 m below the natural land surface. In the Tunnel Kanaaldok section of Laga (1972) (now named Tijsmanstunnel) (GSB 015W0304; DOV BGD015W0304), which is the stratotype-section of the Lillo Formation, the member outcropped from 21.20 m to 23.50 m depth (Figure 57 1). On the nearby CPT (DOV GEO-20/034-S5), the Luchtbal Member is characterised by relatively low friction ratios (< 1%). |
| Alternative names | “Sables gris blanchâtres à la base du Scaldisien”; “Faluns blanchâtres”; “Zone à Pecten gerardi”; “Zone à Modiolus”, ”Horizon du Luchtbal”; “Sables et Faluns du Luchtbal” (see De Meuter & Laga (1976) and Louwye et al. (2020) for references and more historical details). |
| Authors | Deckers, J., Louwye, S. & Goolaerts, S. |
| Date | 01/09/2023 |
| Cite as | Deckers, J., Louwye, S. & Goolaerts, S., 2023. The Luchtbal Member, 01/09/2023. National Commission for Stratigraphy Belgium. http://ncs.naturalsciences.be/lithostratigraphy/Luchtbal-Member |
