The information on this page is a summary description.
The full formal description is available here: Oxhe Formation
Abbreviation
OXH
Parent unit
Child units
Lithological description
Black micaceous shale with isolated black quartzite beds (Dewalque, 1894); blackish, micaceous and fossiliferous quartzite and black shale (Malaise, 1900); blackish green coarse shale with greenish quartzite intercalations (Martin, 1969a); most commonly micaceous mudstone and siltstone (sometimes cleaved), occasional thin (up to 10 cm) impersistent beds of fine-grained sandstone within the mudstone; all rocks are blue grey when fresh, and brown or browngreen on weathering (Dean, 1991); dark grey micaceous mudstone, compact bedded, with intercalated centimetric to decimetric quartzitic sandstone and siltstone beds, often very micaceous, laminated to obliquely stratified; the dark grey colour changes by weathering to (dark) brown or greenish-brown (De Geest, 1998 ms).
Age
Longvillian, upper substage of Burrellian, Caradoc, based on trilobites (Dean, 1991); acritarchs indicate an ArenigLlanvirn (ex-Llandeilo) interval (Martin in Dean, 1991); the chitinozoan assemblages from the upper half of the formation compare well with those from the Burrellian stage in the Caradoc type area in U.K. (De Geest, 1998 ms).
Thickness
Estimated in the western part of the inlier: 200 m (Dean, 1991); possibly up to 900 m (De Geest, 1998 ms).
Area of occurrence
Only in the Oxhe inlier (Condroz inlier).
Type locality
Not defined exactly, but contains the outcrops in the middle and western part of the Oxhe geological inlier, along the river Ri dOxhe/Ohe, at the localities of Fond dOhe and Petit Fond dOhe.
Alternative names
Included as part of the Vitrival-Bruyère Fm by Michot (1954); Assise of, shale of, sandstone of, quartzite and shale of, horizon of Oxhe or Fond d’Oxhe; Horizon of Oxhe with Trinucleus concentricus, considered equivalent of the Climacograptus wilsoni zone (Maillieux, 1926a) and later considered equivalent of the base of the Pleurograptus linearis zone (Maillieux, 1930a); “Schistes d’Oxhe” with Cryptolithus gibbifrons (Maillieux, 1930a); “Zone à Cryptolithus gibbifrons” (Michot, 1954); Oxhe Fm (Dean, 1991).
Authors
Verniers, J., Herbosch, A., Vanguestaine, M., Geukes, F., Delcambre, B., Pingot, J.-L., Belanger, I., Hennebert, M., Debacker, T., Sintubin, M. & De Vos, W.
Date
01/01/2001
Cite as
Verniers, J., Herbosch, A., Vanguestaine, M., Geukes, F., Delcambre, B., Pingot, J.-L., Belanger, I., Hennebert, M., Debacker, T., Sintubin, M. & De Vos, W., 2001. The Oxhe Formation, 01/01/2001. National Commission for Stratigraphy Belgium. https://ncs.naturalsciences.be/lithostratigraphy/Oxhe-Formation
