ON THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF THE STYLOLITIC 
STRUCTURE IN TENNESSEE MARBLE’ 
C. H. GORDON 
University of Tennessee, Knoxville 
CONTENTS 
INTRODUCTION 
CHARACTER OF THE PHENOMENA 
Early Observations, and Names Applied to It 
Description of the Structure in Tennessee Marble 
THEORIES OF ORIGIN 
Organism Theory 
Crystallization Theory 
Pressure Theory 
Gas Theory 
Erosion Theory 
Solution Theory 
SUMMARY 
INTRODUCTION 
The stone known commercially as ‘‘Tennessee marble”’ consti- 
tutes what the government geologists have called the Holston 
formation, which is of Ordovician age. The quarries are located 
chiefly in the central portion of the East Tennessee Valley with 
Knoxville as a center. The marble is sub-crystalline to crystalline 
in texture and varies in color from light pink and gray to differing 
shades of red, dark chocolate, and cedar. At present the light 
pink and gray are the varieties most in demand. The formation 
is from 200 to 4oo feet thick, though by no means is all of this 
suitable for decorative purposes. As a result of folding, accom- 
panied in places by faulting, the outcrops occur in belts extending 
from northeast to southwest. The strata dip usually 25 to 35 
« Read before the Tennessee Academy of Science, November 26, 1915, and the 
American Association for the Advancement of Science, Pittsburgh, December, 1917. 
(Abstract, Science, New Series, XLVII [1018], 492.) 
561 
