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Stratigraphic Divisions, continued
Missouri Series
MISSOURI SERIES (Keyes, 1893), Moore, 1932
1893, Missouri terrane, KEYES, C. R., Ia. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, pp. 85, 114-116. Proposed name without definite indication of stratigraphic boundaries, to replace the nongeographic term "Upper Coal Measures," and to include the beds typically developed in northwestern Missouri.
1894, Missouri formation, KEYES, C. R., Ia. Geol. Survey, vol. 2, pp. 137-139, 155-159.
1894, Missouri stage, KEYES, C. R., Mo. Geol. Survey, vol. 4, pp. 30, 82. Same as "Missouri terrane." Missouri stage 1895, LONSDALE, E. H., Ia. Geol. Survey, vol. 4, pp. 391-411.
1896, Missourian series, WHEELER, H. A., Mo. Geol. Survey, vol. 11, p. 46. Missourian series 1897, PROSSER, C. S., Jour. Geol., vol. 5, p. 3. Proposes to include unnamed beds from the base of the series to the base of the Wabaunsee, the Wabaunsee formation and the Cottonwood formation. The upper boundary of the series is thus placed at the base of the Florena shale of present classification. Missourian series 1899, KEYES, C. R., Am. Geologist, vol. 23, pp. 302-303. Defines the series as including strata from the base of the †Bethany limestone [corresponds to base of Hertha limestone] to top of Cottonwood limestone. Missourian series 1900, KEYES, C. R., Ia. Acad. Sci., Proc., vol. 7, pp, 83, 86. Definition same as in Keyes, 1899. Missourian series 1902, PROSSER, C. S., Jour. Geol., vol. 10, p. 704. Places upper boundary of series at base of Wreford limestone.
1897, Missourian formation, BAIN, H. F., Ia. Geol. Survey, vol. 7, pp. 446-451. Missourian formation 1897, TILTON, J. L., AND BAIN, H. F., Ia. Geol. Survey, vol. 7, pp. 509-520. Missourian formation 1898, LEONARD, A. G., Ia. Geol, Survey, vol. 8, pp. 82-83. Missourian formation 1898, MARBUT, C. F., Mo. Geol. Survey, vol. 12, pt. 2, pp. 31, 210, 268.
1901, Missourian stage, CALVIN, S., Ia. Geol. Survey, vol. 11, pp. 400-460. Missourian stage 1901, UDDEN, J. A., Ia. Geol. Survey, vol. 11, pp. 202-277. Missourian stage 1903, UDDEN, J. A., Ia. Geol. Survey, vol. 13, pp. 123-183.
1902, Missourian division, BAIN, H. F., U. S. Geol. Survey, 22d Ann. Rept., pt. 3, pp. 333-366.
1915, Missouri group, HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, pp. 22-35. Define base at bottom of Hertha limestone. Include Wabaunsee formation at top but upper limit of the group is not definitely stated. Missouri group 1917, MOORE, R. C., AND HAYNES, W. P., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 3, pp. 94-107. Include beds from base of Hertha limestone to top of Eskridge shale. Missouri group 1920, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 6, pt. 2, p. 29. Same.
1927, Missouri series, CONDRA, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 1, p. 24. Includes beds from base of Hertha limestone to top of Eskridge shale.
1932, *Missouri series, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 90. Defines lower boundary at disconformity that occurs between Altamont or Lenapah limestone below and Hertha limestone above, and places upper boundary at disconformity that occurs immediately above the Stanton limestone, Weston shale, or Iatan limestone. *Missouri series (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., AND JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, pp. 19-79, 168-184. Same.
Type locality, northwestern Missouri.
The name Missouri or Missourian was introduced by Keyes as a geographic term to designate the "Upper Coal Measures" essentially as defined by Broadhead (1872) and Winslow (1891). The base of Broadhead's "Upper Coal Measures" was drawn at the bottom of sandstone in what has subsequently been called †Pleasanton shale, whereas the lower boundary of the Missouri "stage" was placed at the base of the "great limestone at Winterset" Iowa, which is the base of the later defined Kansas City formation. The top of the Missourian was set by Keyes at the base of the Cottonwood limestone, a horizon long established in an arbitrary manner as the boundary of strata classed respectively as Pennsylvanian (or Coal Measures) and Permian (see fig. 12). Using the same lower limit as employed in Keyes' Missouri stage, but extending the upper boundary to the base of the Wreford limestone, Haworth [Haworth, E., and Bennett, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 9, pp. 73-76, 1908] preferred the designation "Upper Coal Measures," but Adams [Adams, G.I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 211, pp. 69-72, 1903] concluded that neither lithologic nor paleontologic characters were sufficiently well defined to afford basis for satisfactory major subdivision of the Pennsylvanian rocks in the northern Mid-Continent area. As a matter of fact, there is ample paleontologic basis for separation of the beds at a horizon near the base of the Missouri as defined by Keyes, and there are lithologic and stratigraphic differences in the beds below and above this line. Accordingly, Hinds and Greene, Moore, Condra and others have adopted this division.
Hinds and Greene [Hinds, H., and Greene, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 6, 1915] note that "there are strong indications of a widespread unconformity within the Pleasanton formation, and it may be that the faunal break . . . is due to this feature. If this is so, the boundary between the two groups [Des Moines and Missouri] should be drawn at the unconformity." This boundary within the Pleasanton, as commonly defined, is apparently that which Broadhead used in dividing the "Upper Coal Measures" from the lower beds, and it is the line of separation which I suggest shall be used in redefining the base of the Missouri beds. It is true that it is difficult to map this boundary accurately, but there is little doubt that it is really the significant line of stratigraphic partition, rather than the base of a nearby limestone bed that rests conformably on underlying shale. The widespread channel sandstones and sheet sand bodies at this horizon, the generally clastic character of the †Pleasanton beds which is in contrast to the calcareous deposits of adjacent lower and higher parts of the section, and the change in the faunas that occurs at this horizon, are all features associated with interruption of sedimentation. The beds above and below the break are mostly parallel and physical evidence of the existence of an unconformity is generally not striking, but the interruption of sedimentation in a stable platform area of the earth crust, such as includes the northern Mid-Continent region, is probably equivalent in time to crustal deformation in certain geosynclinal regions, although no such disturbance is known in North American geosynclines. It should not be inferred that evidence of the unconformity at the base of the Missouri series is in any degree a matter of doubt, even though in some sections where basal sandstone or conglomerate is lacking the precise position of the boundary may not be determinable. On the contrary, the break can be recognized on the basis of physical features and stratigraphic relations at very many places from Oklahoma to Iowa, and wherever fossils are found above and below the boundary they are accordant with the division that is made on the basis of the unconformity. An interesting account of the disconformity and associated channel sandstone deposits at the base of the Missouri series in the vicinity of Kansas City has recently. been published by Bartle. [Bartle, G. G., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, 57th Bien. Rept., App. S, pp. 16-18, pl. 2, 1933.]
The upper boundary of the Missouri beds is here redefined to coincide with the widespread unconformity that has been recognized recently between the Stanton limestone, Weston shale or Iatan limestone, below, and clastic Douglas deposits of the Stranger formation (new) or possibly in places of the Lawrence shale. This break marks the base of the Virgil series as defined in this report. There is well marked physical evidence of this boundary that is traceable southward into Oklahoma, and it is believed that the Missouri-Virgil break corresponds to the large hiatus in the Arbuckle Mountains area between the Belle City limestone of Kansas City age, below, and the Vamoosa and succeeding coarse clastic deposits that are clearly of Late Pennsylvanian age. There are paleontologic characters that distinguish the Missouri beds from those classed as Virgil, but the faunal change at the boundary of these divisions is less strongly marked than that at the lower boundary of the Missouri series.
The Missouri beds are designated as a series because they are defined by physical and faunal breaks from contiguous strata that are similar in character but of lesser magnitude than the break that separates Pennsylvanian from Mississippian. The unconformities below and above the Missouri series are not obviously different in character or time value, however, from the break that is regarded as marking the Pennsylvanian-"Permian" boundary in the northern Mid-Continent region.
Correlation--The Missouri series is a clearly defined unit in Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri and Iowa, characterized on the whole by prominence of limestones. Correlation of Des Moines beds from Missouri to Illinois, which in the main is believed to be fairly accurate, indicates that equivalents of the Missouri series form most of the McLeansboro formation, extending from slightly above the base nearly to the top (probably from base of Trivoli cyclothem to base of Merom sandstone). In Ohio the equivalents of the Missouri beds are tentatively identified as including strata from the Brush Creek limestone to some distance above the Ames limestone. In terms of the Appalachian stratigraphic units, this means that the Missouri series corresponds to most of the Conemaugh beds, but the boundaries of the major divisions of the Appalachian district do not exactly coincide in position with the breaks recognized as series boundaries in the Mid-Continent region.
In northern Oklahoma the "Cleveland sand," which rests unconformably on different upper Des Moines strata, marks the base of the Missouri series, and the contact between the Ochelata and Nelagoney formations, as defined in most places, marks the top of the Missouri. In southern Oklahoma the base of the Missouri series is marked by sandstone and grit at the base of the Seminole formation (shown by Dott to be equivalent to the base of the "Cleveland sand"; and the youngest Missouri beds remaining on the northern flank of the Arbuckle Mountains is the Belle City limestone. The Hoxbar formation in the Ardmore Basin south of the Arbuckles appears to contain beds of Missouri age and the Hoxbar-Pontotoc angular unconformity is interpreted as corresponding to the Missouri-Virgil break, although the hiatus in the southern Oklahoma area is much greater. Faunal and lithologic evidence indicates that equivalents of the Missouri series occur in the lower Canyon strata of north-central Texas and in the Gaptank formation of west Texas. An unconformity below the Home Creek limestone, near the top of the Canyon group, is believed to mark the boundary between the Missouri and Virgil series in north-central Texas. There are unconformities also in West Texas, the classificatory significance of which has not yet been sufficiently studied. It is not now possible to correlate the Kansas and Texas beds as precisely as will surely be possible in future.
Subdivision--No satisfactory subdivision of the Missouri series into groups that are well differentiated throughout the entire northern Mid-Continent region can be made. This is due to marked changes in the character of stratigraphic units along the strike, especially from central Kansas southward. It is desirable, however, to recognize the groups that appear natural in the Kansas and Missouri river valleys and to drop this classification in areas to the south where it is inappropriate. Reference may be made conveniently to combinations of groups by using two or more group terms joined by a hyphen where, as at the outcrop in southern Kansas or in subsurface studies of central and western Kansas, the boundaries between strata belonging to different groups cannot be recognized.
The main subdivisions that are here defined in the Missouri series of northeastern Kansas are called, in upward order, Bourbon formation, Bronson group, Kansas City group, Lansing group, and Pedee group. The stratigraphic limits and content of these groups will be described in following sections.
BOURBON FORMATION, Moore, 1932
1866, †Marais des Cygnes coal series (part), SWALLOW, G. C., Kan. Geol. Survey, Prelim. Rept., pp. 22-24. Includes beds between Pawnee limestone below and †"Well rock series" [Bronson?] above. Marais des Cygnes coal series 1867, SWALLOW, G. C., Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., Proc., vol. 15, p. 69. Same.
1894, †Laneville shale (part), HAWORTH, E., AND KIRK, M. Z., Kan. Univ. Quart., vol. 2, p. 108. Includes beds between †Oswego [Ft. Scott] limestone and †Erie [Hertha-Winterset] limestone. Use of term in different places indeterminate because of confusion in identification of Erie.
1895, †Pleasanton shale (part), HAWORTH, E. (See under Bandera shale.)
1900, †Marais des Cygnes shale (part), KEYES, C. R. (See under Bandera shale.)
1903, Dudley shale (part), ADAMS, G. I. (See under Memorial shale.)
1920, †La Cygne shale (part), MOORE, R. C. (See under Memorial shale.)
1932, *Bourbon group, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 90. *Bourbon group 1932, JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 99. *Bourbon group 1933, JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Acad. Sci., Trans., vol. 36. p. 136.
(1935) 1936, Bourbon shale, OCKERMAN, J. W., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 20, p. 20. Same as Moore, 1932.
(1935) 1936, Bourbon formation, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 21. Same as Moore, 1932.
Type locality, Bourbon County, Kansas. Most of the formation is exposed on Kansas highway No. 3 where the road ascends the bluffs of Marmaton river about one mile south of Uniontown.
The Bourbon formation includes the beds between the disconformity that marks the base of the Missouri series and the base of the Hertha limestone. As seen in Bourbon and Linn counties the outcrop of the formation comprises most of the slope of the prominent escarpment that is capped by beds of the Bronson group, and the same is probably true northeastward to Kansas City and southwestward beyond Erie. Because the lower boundary of the formation is difficult to trace, except where fairly prominent sandstone occurs at the base, it may be necessary in geologic mapping to combine the Bourbon with the disconformably underlying upper Des Moines shale, but this does not invalidate the stratigraphic definition of the Bourbon formation. Much detailed work remains to be done on this part of the section.
Most of the Bourbon formation consists of bluish-gray and yellowish-brown silty to sandy shale. Locally at the base there is thick, irregularly bedded or massive yellow-brown sandstone and in places there are extensive sandstones in the middle and upper parts of the formation. The latter sandstone beds are apparently distinguished by their more even bedding and by lateral gradation into shaly sandstone or sandy shale. The presence of prominent channel sandstones belonging to the Bourbon in the Kansas City region is shown by Bartle [Bartle, G. G., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, Bien. Rept., App. 8, pp. 16-18, 1988.] and throughout much of western Missouri is reported by F. C. Greene [Personal communication]. Bartle has shown that locally near Kansas City the channel sandstones cut out all of the limestone and shale beds of the upper Des Moines series, reaching downward into the Cherokee shale. The Warrensburg and Moberly sandstones in central Missouri and several other channel sandstone occurrences in that state [see Hinds, H., and Greene, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, pp. 91-106, 1915] are in part certainly and in part questionably classed as representing basal deposits of the Missouri series and belonging to the Bourbon formation. Locally there are deposits of conglomerate that are to be placed in the same category. An interesting occurrence described by Hinds and Greene [see Hinds, H., and Greene, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, pp. 105, 1915.] is found in Putnam and Schuyler counties, northern Missouri, where conglomerate containing rounded fragments of Chaetetes derived from Marmaton limestones rests on successively lower beds of the "Henrietta formation" going eastward. The conglomerate which attains a thickness of 20 feet is classed by Hinds and Greene as "basal Pleasanton." It appears to correspond to the Chariton conglomerate of Bain [Bain, H. F., Ia. Geol. Survey, vol. 5, pp. 39i-398, 1895] in Appanoose County, Iowa. These conglomerates that overlap successive units of the upper Des Moines section are to be classed as basal Missouri series deposits belonging to the Bourbon formation as here defined.
Much variation in the lithologic character of the formation from place to place is indicated by field studies. For example, in part of southwestern Linn County 30 feet or more of dense blue flaggy and concretionary limestones alternating with dark shale grade laterally in a short distance into shale that lacks limestone. Fossiliferous dark-blue limestones and black fissile shale occur in the lower part of the formation toward the south. One of the limestone beds in this part of the section is tentatively identified as equivalent to the Checkerboard limestone of Oklahoma.
Near the top of the Bourbon formation is a fairly persistent, but lenticular sandy impure limestone that, as seen in most places, is distinctly nodular or apparently composed of irregularly shaped limestone fragments. The rock is gray to brown and weathers with an uneven surface. This bed has been named the "Critizer limestone" (corrected spelling is "Critzer") by Jewett [Jewett, J. M., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 99, 1932; Kan. Acad. Sci., Trans., vol. 36, p. 136, 1933], who classed it, however, as a member of the Swope formation and, according to conclusions of F. C. Greene, N. D. Newell, and me based on field examination in 1934, assigned this bed to an erroneous position above the Schubert Creek limestone. Further discussion of the stratigraphy of these beds is given under description of the Hertha limestone. The "Critzer limestone" of Jewett is believed by Greene and me to be equivalent to the "Fragmental limestone" [Tilton, J. L., and Bain, H. F., Ia. Geol. Survey, vol. 7, pp. 511-514, 1897] of Iowa geologists. We have seen this rock above the Ovid coal in northern Missouri and southern Iowa. The "Critzer" is apparently a "super" limestone, representing the receding algal, molluscan phase of the sedimentation cycle that includes the Ovid coal, and it is probable that somewhere along the strike other typical members of this cyclothem will be observed. For the present, recognition of the "Critzer" as a named member of the Bourbon formation and of other stratigraphic units in this part of the section that may come to be differentiated is withheld, for it is clear that much additional study is desirable.
The thickness of the Bourbon formation is not definitely known in most of the area of its outcrop, but it probably exceeds 100 feet in most places. In parts of the Kansas City region the thickness of beds assignable to the Bourbon appears to exceed 150 feet. Beds equivalent to this formation have been traced across northwestern Missouri and into southern Iowa. Southward in Oklahoma there is apparently a rapid expansion in thickness of the beds between the Checkerboard, which belongs below the top of the Bourbon, and the post-Des Moines unconformity. In east-central Oklahoma, therefore, it appears that beds stratigraphically equivalent to the Bourbon formation measure several hundreds of feet in thickness.
BRONSON GROUP, Adams, 1904
1894; †Erie limestone, HAWORTH, E., AND KIRK, M. Z., Kan. Univ. Quart., vol. 2, p. 108. Name applied to limestones above †Laneville [Bourbon in part] shale. Not clearly defined. This name is preoccupied by the Erie beds of Devonian age in New York (1842). †Erie limestone 1894, HAWORTH, E., AND PIATT, W. H. H., Kan. Univ. Quart., vol. 2, p. 116. †Erie limestone 1894, HAWORTH, E., Kan. Univ, Quart., vol. 2, p. 118. †Erie limestone 1895, HAWORTH, E., Am. Jour. Sci. (3), vol. 50, p. 458. States that the †Erie consists of three main limestone "systems," occupying interval between †Pleasanton [Bourbon in part] and †Thayer [Fontana-Chanute] shales. †Erie limestone 1896, HAWORTH, E., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, p. 45. †Erie limestone 1896, KIRK, M. Z., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, p. 76. "Triple system near Uniontown." †Erie limestone 1896, BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, p. 95. Same. †Erie limestone 1898, HAWORTH, E., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 3, pp. 44, 88, 94, 101.
1896, †Bethany limestone, KEYES, C. R., Am. Jour. Sci., (4), vol. 2, pp. 221-225. Extends usage as given by Broadhead, and states that the †Bethany is synonymous with the "Erie" or "Triple limestone" of Haworth.
1898, †Pottawatomie formation (part), HAWORTH, E., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 3, p. 92. Includes "†Erie limestones, †Thayer shales, Iola limestone, Lane shale, †Garnett limestone. This division is limited stratigraphically by the †Pleasanton shale below and the Lawrence [Weston-Lawrence] shales above." This corresponds to beds from the base of the Bronson group to the top of the Lansing group of present classification.
1904, *Bronson formation, ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 238, pp. 17-19. Applies name to include Haworth's "triple limestone system" and designates members, in upward order, Hertha limestone, Ladore shale, †Mound Valley limestone, Galesburg shale, and Dennis limestone. These subdivisions are erroneously indicated in the bulletin but corrected in an errata sheet.
1905, Bronson beds, WOOSTER, L. C., Kan. Acad. Sci., Trans., vol. 19, pp. 118-121.
1908, †Pottawatomie stage, HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 9, p. 75. Includes beds from base of "Bethany Falls [Hertha] limestone to top of Stanton limestone."
1915, Kansas City formation (part), HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, pp. 23, 116. Includes strata from base of Hertha to top of "Iola [Argentine] limestone." Kansas City formation 1917, MOORE, R. C., AND HAYNES, W. P., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 3, p. 95. Kansas City formation 1920, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 6, pt. 2, p. 29. Kansas City formation 1927, CONDRA, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 1, p. 26. Kansas City formation 1933, GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, 57th Bien. Rept., App. 2, p. 19. Kansas City formation 1933, BARTLE, G. G., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, 57th Bien. Rept., App, 3, p. 18.
1932, Bronson group, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., pp. 90-91. Bronson group 1932, JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 99. Bronson group 1933, JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Acad. Sci., Trans., vol. 36, p. 136. Bronson group (1935) 1936, OCKERMAN, J. W., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 20, pp. 18-20. Bronson group (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., AND JElWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, pp. 24-34, 168-171.
Type locality, vicinity of Bronson, Bourbon County, Kansas.
That the grouping of beds which are called Bronson is convenient and desirable is shown by the recognition of the so-called "triple limestone system" named †Erie by early Kansas stratigraphers. Keyes regarded these limestones as belonging together and extended Broadhead's †"Bethany Limestone" to include them. Adams introduced the term Bronson to replace the inappropriate names previously used. The Bronson group is here defined as by Adams to include the strata from the base of the Hertha limestone to the top of the Dennis limestone.
The Bronson beds are defined as a group because the constituent major limestone and shale units are each more or less complex, representing individual sedimentation cycles or important lithologic elements of cycles. In other words, the group contains at least three cyclothems, or rather, megacyclothems. Each limestone formation at least, as will be noted, contains a number of distinctive members.
The chief distinguishing feature of the Bronson group is the prominence of limestone. From east-central Kansas to central Iowa the three limestone formations of the group are separated by thin shale so that in general they form a single escarpment. The thickness of the different formations and members changes somewhat along the outcrop but except in southern Kansas, where thickening of the shales and thinning of the limestones causes divergence and weakening of some of the escarpment-forming units, the group is a compact, readily defined stratigraphic assemblage.
The thickness of the Bronson group in the type region is about 100 feet. In the Kansas City area it comprises about 85 feet of beds. In southern Kansas 150 to 175 feet of strata belong to the Bronson.
The Bronson group contains strata that are continuous with the upper part of the Coffeyville formation (above the Checkerboard limestone) and the Hogshooter limestone of the northern Oklahoma section.
According to the classification that has been developed by our studies, the Bronson group contains the following formations, named in upward order: Hertha limestone, Ladore shale, Swope limestone, Galesburg shale, and Dennis limestone.
HERTHA LIMESTONE, Adams, 1903
1894, †Erie limestone (part), HAWORTH, E., AND KIRK, M. Z. The Hertha is the lowermost of the limestones in the "triple system" called †Erie. For references see under Bronson group.
1903, *Hertha limestone, ADAMS, G. I., U: S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 211, p. 35. Applies name to "limestones succeeding the upper Pleasanton shale as exposed in the vicinity of Hertha, . . . equivalent to the lower member of the Erie formation." *Hertha limestone 1904, ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 238, p. 18. Same as above but classed as lowermost member of the Bronson formation. *Hertha limestone 1915, HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 23. Class as lowermost member of Kansas City formation. *Hertha limestone 1917, MOORE, R. C., AND HAYNES, W. P., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 3, p. 96. Same as Hinds and Greene. *Hertha limestone 1920, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 6, pt. 2, p. 31. Same as Hinds and Greene. *Hertha limestone 1933, BARTLE, G. G., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, 57th Bien. Rept., App. 3, p. 19. Same. *Hertha limestone (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, pp. 24-26. Same as Adams, 1904.
1898, Bethany Falls limestone, HAWORTH, E.,. Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 3, pp. 45, 100. Erroneously regards lowermost division of the †Erie limestone as Bethany Falls. Bethany Falls limestone 1908, HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 9, p. 89. Applies the name Bethany Falls to the limestone between †Pleasanton and Ladore shales, because of erroneous conclusion that Adams' Hertha is equivalent to the Bethany Falls limestone at Kansas City.
1932, Swope limestone (part), MOORE, R. C., AND NEWELL, N. D., cited in Moore, R. C. Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 90. Includes beds classed in this paper as Hertha limestone, Ladore shale, and Bethany Falls limestone. Swope limestone (part) 1932, JEWETT, J. M.; Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 100. Same, proposing names for limestone and shale members. Swope limestone (part) 1933, JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Acad. Sci., Trans., vol 36, p. 132. Same.
Type locality, Hertha, Neosho County, Kansas. The limestone is exposed just east of the town, but the best outcrops are in northeast corner sec. 20, T. 29 S., R. 20 E. and in road cut 2 miles north and 1 mile west of Hertha. Adams' description of type locality is indefinite, but his map shows clearly the limestone to which he intended to apply the name Hertha.
As noted in the discussion of the Bronson group, early workers on the stratigraphy of southeastern Kansas observed the three-fold character of the succession of limestones exposed in central Neosho and Bourbon counties. Adams applied the name Hertha to the lowermost of these limestones, and referring to his description and maps of the Iola quadrangle, there is no difficulty or uncertainty in identifying the beds called Hertha in the type region. In tracing the Hertha and associated limestones northeastward, however, various difficulties and some confusion have been encountered. These are due partly to the thinning of the shales between the limestones so that the outcrop of individual limestones is not clearly reflected in the topography, partly to variations in the thickness and lithologic characters of each of the limestones along the strike, and partly to the lithologic and faunal similarity of portions of each limestone to the others. It is necessary to measure and study sections at short intervals in order to determine the nature of the variations and to establish definitely the stratigraphic relations of exposures in distant places. The difficulties are somewhat greater in the lower part of this limestone section than the upper, because of the more lenticular nature of some of the lower limestone units. It is hardly surprising to find that Haworth and Bennett miscorrelated the Hertha with the Bethany Falls limestone. Correction of this was made by Hinds and Greene, who showed that the Bethany Falls was equivalent to the middle rather than the lower of the three main limestones.
Working under my general direction, J. M. Jewett, now of the University of Wichita, studied the Bronson beds during parts of 1931 and 1932, and concluded that Haworth and Bennett were right in regarding the Hertha as synonymous with Bethany Falls. It appears that Jewett's identification of type Hertha was based on Adams' original description and map (1903) rather than his revised map (1904) in which the designation of the Hertha was changed. Adams states that the Hertha limestone at the type locality is about 10 feet thick. This is in fair agreement with the thickness of the limestone designated as Hertha in 1903, but is nearly twice the thickness of the limestone indicated as Hertha in 1904. Haworth, Bennett, and Jewett are right in concluding that the Hertha as mapped in 1903 is Bethany Falls, but the definition and description given by Adams in 1903 and his generalized stratigraphic section in the 1904 paper agree in indicating that the rock which it was intended to name Hertha is the one exposed just east of Hertha. This latter limestone is not the Bethany Falls but occurs some 50 feet lower in the section at this place. The confusion in determining the relations of Hertha to Bethany Falls is due chiefly to Adams' carelessness.
Returning to consideration of Jewett's work, it is to be noted that because he regarded the Hertha as synonymous with Bethany Falls this name was dropped in favor of the latter term and new names were introduced for limestones that are found beneath the Bethany Falls. In the Kansas City area the prominent brown limestone that was called Hertha by Hinds and Greene was named Sniabar by Newell. Traced southward this was found to occur above another limestone which Jewett named "Critzer." Jewett's studies indicated that these limestones disappear southward and a third limestone of different character, which he named Schubert Creek, makes appearance. This limestone in turn was thought to pinch out before the latitude of Hertha is reached and the limestone at the east edge of Hertha (Adams' Hertha limestone, 1904) was interpreted to belong still lower in the section. Under urgency of preparing information for the field conference of the Kansas Geological Society in September, 1932, I made a reconnaissance in the field with Jewett and the results of his work were released somewhat prematurely. The stratigraphic sequence of the limestones and shales below the Bethany Falls determined by Jewett is as follows, in upward order: Hertha limestone (at Hertha), unnamed shale included in the Bourbon, Schubert Creek limestone, Tennison Creek shale, Critzer limestone, Mound City shale, Sniabar limestone, Elm Branch shale, Middle Creek limestone, and Hushpuckney shale.
Because the sequence of beds indicated did not agree satisfactorily with evidence of the cyclic succession of strata in other parts of the Missouri series and because of doubts as to some of Jewett's correlation of beds, the section between Kansas City and Oklahoma was reexamined by me in June, 1934, and in company with F. C. Greene and N. D. Newell in July, 1934. Additional field studies by Jewett during the summer of 1935 have settled some points, but not all. It is agreed that the beds called Hertha by Hinds and Greene at Kansas City are the same as the Hertha limestone at the type locality. The names, Elm Branch, Sniabar, Tennison Creek and Schubert Creek, are applicable to lithologic elements of the cyclothem in which the Hertha limestone is the dominant element, but these names are not required in order to delineate the features of stratigraphy. They will not be recognized, therefore. It may be useful to employ the term Critzer limestone, but it is not now included in the list of recognized units.
The Hertha limestone is considered to comprise the first important limestone unit, locally divided by shale into two or more beds, below the Middle Creek limestone member of the Swope limestone. The Middle Creek is an excellent, very persistent marker bed that occurs next below the Bethany Falls limestone. The thickness of the shale interval between the top of the Hertha and the base of the Middle Creek, or in the south where the Middle Creek disappears, the base of the Bethany Falls, ranges from 2 to 50 feet or more. The Hertha rests conformably on the Bourbon formation. A marker bed near the top of the Bourbon from Linn County, Kansas, northeastward is the fragmental limestone called "Critzer." Black fissile shale immediately underlies the Hertha near Hertha and to the south.
The thickness of the Hertha limestone ranges from about 4 feet to as much as 30 feet locally in northern Bourbon County where the upper and lower members are separated by some 15 feet of shale. About 20 feet of solid limestone belonging to the Hertha is observed also in Bourbon County. The Hertha formation is known to extend from south-central Iowa to Labette County, Kansas, but it is not known to reach the Oklahoma line.
The lower limestone of the Hertha formation is a light bluish-gray rock when fresh. It is typically very massive and weathers to a strong yellowish- or reddish-brown color. The texture is fine and dense, and the rock resists weathering. Fine sandy impurities appear to be present as seen at most places, and toward the south there is a rather characteristic irregular lamination of silty or sandy layers alternating with purer limestone. This rudely laminated rock appears somewhat mottled blue and brownish. Fossils are mostly not abundant in this limestone, but fragments of crinoid stems and a variety of brachiopods, some bryozoans, and in places bellerophontid gastropods appear weathered in relief on the exposed rock surface.
The upper part of the Hertha limestone in many places is a lightgray rock that weathers creamy-white or gray. In places the color is distinctly bluish-gray in fresh exposures. The texture is very fine and dense, some portions of the member being almost lithographic limestone, but in most places the rock appears roughly porous or brecciated with irregular solution of the matrix around angular and nodular dense limestone fragments. Thin veins of calcite in irregular forms are distributed through the limestone; also. It is identified as a "super" limestone, for it has many of the peculiarities of this unit (algal-molluscan bed) of the typical cyclothem. Fossils are rare at most places. In the Hertha limestone at Hertha and southward there are numerous specimens of Marginifera. The thickness of this light-gray, apparently fragmented limestone ranges from a feather edge to about 20 feet. In Bourbon County it is fairly uniform but farther north it is developed only locally. The thickness of the member near Kansas City varies in a few miles along the outcrop from less than an inch to about 12 feet.
LADORE SHALE, Adams, 1904
1894, †Erie limestone (part), HAWORTH, E., AND KIRK, M. Z. (See under Bronson group.)
1896, †Bethany limestone (part), KEYES, C. R. (See under Bronson group.)
1904, *Ladore shale, ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 238, p. 18. Includes beds between Hertha and †Mound Valley [Bethany Falls] limestones. Called Galesburg in text but name changed to Ladore on errata sheet. Classed as member of the Bronson formation. *Ladore shale 1908, HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 9, p. 91. Name applied to shale between "Bethany Falls [Hertha] limestone" below and †Mound Valley [Bethany Falls] limestone above. *Ladore shale 1915, HINDS; H., AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 25. Shale between Hertha and Bethany Falls limestones. Classed as member of Kansas City formation. *Ladore shale 1917, MOORE, R. C., AND HAYNES, W. P., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 3, p. 96. Same as last. *Ladore shale 1920, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 6, pt. 2, p. 33. Same as last. *Ladore shale 1933, BARTLE, G. G., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, 57th Bien. Rept., App. 3, p. 19. *Ladore shale (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 26. Includes beds between Hertha limestone, below, and Middle Creek limestone member of the Swope limestone, above.
1906, Ladore-Dudley shale (part), SCHRADER, F. C., AND HAWORTH, E., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 296, p. 14. Describe as lowermost member of Coffeyville formation in the Independence quadrangle where Hertha is not found. Ladore-Dudley shale (part) 1908, SCHRADER, F. C., U. S. Geol. Survey, Geol. Atlas, Folio 159, p. 2. Same as last.
1932, †Elm Branch shale, NEWELL, N. D., Mss. cited in Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 90. Defined to include beds between Sniabar and Middle Creek limestones. Classed as member of the Swope formation. †Elm Branch shale 1932, JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 101. Same. †Elm Branch shale 1933, JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Acad. Sci., Trans., vol. 36, p. 134. Same.
Type locality, Ladore, southern Neosho County, Kansas. The town, located in sec. 27, T. 30 S., R. 19 E., is built on Hertha. The Swope scarp crosses NW. cor. of same section, so that the thick shale between the two in sec. 27 may be regarded as the type of this unit.
The Ladore shale includes the beds between the top of the Hertha limestone and the base of the Swope limestone. Throughout the region north of Erie, Kan., the top of the Ladore is at the base of the Middle Creek member of the Swope, but south of Erie, where the Middle Creek limestone is absent, the top of the Ladore is considered to extend to the base of the Bethany Falls limestone. The latter condition obtains at the type locality of the Ladore. This definition recognizes the probable inclusion at the top of the Ladore in southern Kansas of shale that is equivalent to the Hushpuckney and Middle Creek members of the Swope formation, but it is certainly undesirable to extend an imaginary boundary at some guessed position beneath the Bethany Falls, and it seems likewise undesirable in this case to employ a cumbersome hyphenation of stratigraphic terms, such as Ladore-Hushpuckney, in order to indicate the shale between Hertha and Bethany Falls.
As interpreted by previous authors, in parts of eastern Kansas and western Missouri, where the dense blue limestone that is now called Middle Creek is present, the Ladore shale includes this limestone and the overlying shale, the top of the Ladore being thus uniformly drawn at the base of the Bethany Falls limestone. This seems on casual consideration to be much simpler and more natural. It is apparent, however, that the dense blue limestone is definitely a part of the cyclothem that includes the Bethany Falls. It is the "middle" limestone and the Bethany Falls comprises the "upper" and "super" limestones. As already defined in many other cases the blue "middle" limestone is regarded as an integral part of limestone formations of which the succeeding "upper" and "super," if the latter is present, make up the main thickness. Consistency in classification and recognition of the cyclic relationship of the various beds thus demands that the Middle Creek limestone be pigeonholed with the Bethany Falls rather than left as a parting in the Ladore shale.
The Ladore shale includes blue-gray or brownish-clayey and sandy beds that attain a thickness of 50 feet or more to the south but in places to the north are only 2 feet thick. Shaly sandstone appears in part of the Ladore section in Neosho County and southward.
SWOPE LIMESTONE (Moore and Newell, 1932), Moore and Newell, 1936
1894, †Erie limestone (part), HAWORTH, E., AND KIRK, M. Z. (See under Bronson group.)
1896, †Bethany limestone (part), KEYES, C. R. (See under Bronson group.)
1904, Bronson formation (part), ADAMS, G. I. (See under Bronson group.)
1932, Swope limestone, MOORE, R. C., AND NEWELL, N. D., cited in Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 90. Used to include beds from the Schubert Creek limestone to Bethany Falls limestone inclusive. Swope limestone 1932, JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 100. Same. Swope limestone 1933, JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Acad. Sci., Trans., vol. 36, pp. 132-133. Same.
(1935) 1936, *Swope limestone, MOORE, R. C., AND NEWELL, N. D., cited by Newell, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 26. Restricted to include three members, named in upward order, Middle Creek limestone, Hushpuckney shale, and Bethany Falls limestone. *Swope limestone (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., AND JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, pp. 168-169.
Type locality, Swope park, Kansas City, Mo. Typically shown in quarry at 49th street and Swope Parkway in Kansas City, Missouri, also in road cut on U. S. 50, one-half mile northwest of Knobtown, Jackson County, Missouri.
The Swope limestone is here defined to include the beds from the base of the Middle Creek limestone to the top of the Bethany Falls limestone. The reasons for placing the Middle Creek with the Bethany Falls as part of a limestone formation, rather than leaving it as a more or less unnoticed bed in the Ladore shale, have been given in the discussion of Ladore. The typical expression of cyclothem units that appears in the Middle Creek, Hushpuckney and Bethany Falls was recognized clearly by me in 1930 or before. Study of beds in the Shawnee group had led to observation of the repetition in constant sequence of "lower," "middle," and "upper" limestones with black slaty shale between the "middle" and "upper" beds. The Middle Creek is obviously a "middle" limestone, in terms of homology with the Shawnee cycles, the Hushpuckney contains black slaty shale, and the Bethany Falls (at least in part) is identifiable as an "upper" limestone. The massive brown somewhat impure Hertha limestone in the Kansas City district closely resembles in many features the "lower" limestone members of the Shawnee limestone formations. The conclusion was reached that the Hertha, Ladore and Bethany Falls units, as previously defined, when joined together represent a limestone formation corresponding to those in the Shawnee group. The Swope formation was thus defined in 1932. Subsequently the proper classificatory status of the Hertha limestone has appeared more and more doubtful. Since nowhere else in the Missouri series has a well defined "lower" limestone (in terms of the Shawnee cycle) been found, it seems best to withdraw the Hertha and Ladore from the Swope as first proposed, restricting it to the beds already indicated. The Swope limestone thus becomes comparable to other limestone formations of the Missouri series which begin with "middles," contain "uppers," and locally have "supers" at the top.
The thickness of the Swope limestone at the type locality in the southeast part of Kansas City, Mo., is 28 to 30 feet. Excepting some local variation this is about the thickness of the formation northeastward into Iowa and southwestward to southern Bourbon County, Kansas. Farther south the limestone becomes gradually thinner and disappears a few miles south of Mound Valley in Labette County. Strata equivalent to the Swope formation belong in the upper middle part of the Coffeyville formation as defined in northern Oklahoma.
SWOPE LIMESTONE
MIDDLE CREEK LIMESTONE MEMBER, Newell, 1932
1904, Ladore shale (part), ADAMS, G. I. (See under Ladore shale.)
1932, *Middle Creek limestone, NEWELL, N. D., Mss., cited in Jewett, J. M., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 101. Consists of dense blue limestone evenly bedded, 1 to 2 feet thick, between Ladore shale below and Hushpuckney shale above. Classed as member of the Swope formation. *Middle Creek limestone 1933, JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Acad. Sci., Trans., vol. 36, p. 134. Same. *Middle Creek limestone (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, pp. 26, 27. Same.
Type locality, SW sec. 22, T. 18 S., R. 24 E., on Middle Creek at crossing of main highway 3 miles east of La Cygne, northern Linn County.
The Middle Creek limestone member of the Swope formation conformably overlies the Ladore shale and is overlain by black fissile shale of the Hushpuckney shale member of the Swope. It is a dark bluish, dense, hard, brittle, even-textured limestone that in most outcrops shows vertical joints. The thickness of the member ranges from a few inches to about 4 feet, the maximum being observed in parts of Bourbon County. The thickness in anyone region shows very slight change. There are one or two beds normally, but only locally are the two beds separated by a few inches of shale. Batostomellid bryozoans are common in the upper part, especially at the base of the upper layer where two beds are present, and on the upper surface of the lower layer there are common fucoid markings.
SWOPE LIMESTONE
HUSHPUCKNEY SHALE MEMBER, Newell, 1932
1904, Ladore shale (part), ADAMS, G. I. (See under Ladore shale.)
1932, *Hushpuckney shale, NEWELL, N. D., in Jewett, J. M., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 101. For the black and gray shale between the Middle Creek limestone below and Bethany Falls limestone above. Classed as a member of the Swope formation. *Hushpuckney shale 1933, JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Acad. Sci., Trans., vol. 36, p. 134. Same. *Hushpuckney shale (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p.27. Same.
Type locality, on Hushpuckney Creek. Typically exposed at railroad cut center north line sec. 13, T. 19, R. 23; also center south line sec. 22, T. 18, R. 24, in creek bed.
The Hushpuckney shale member of the Swope formation includes the beds between the top of the Middle Creek limestone and. the base of the Bethany Falls limestone. The upper half to two thirds of the member consist of bluish or bluish-gray clay shale, and the remaining lower part of the shale is black and fissile. Excepting microscopic forms fossils are rare or lacking. The thickness of the Hushpuckney shale member ranges from about 3 to 6 feet, the average being 4 feet. The member is distinguishable in northwestern Missouri and across eastern Kansas as far as Erie where the Middle Creek limestone disappears.
SWOPE LIMESTONE
BETHANY FALLS LIMESTONE MEMBER, Broadhead, 1865
1865, *Bethany Falls limestone, BROADHEAD, G. C., St. Louis Acad. Sci., Trans., vol. 2, p. 320, 1868. (First issued July, 1865.) *Bethany Falls limestone 1873-'74, BROADHEAD, G. C., Mo. Geol. Survey Rept., pp. 97, 317. Used †"Bethany limestone" and various authors have since used this term. The original name Bethany Falls, however, is preferred. *Bethany Falls limestone 1900, GALLAGHER, JOHN A., Mo. Geol. Survey, vol. 13, Prel. Rept., pp. 189, 198. *Bethany Falls limestone 1915, HINDS, HENRY, AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 25. Classes as a member of the Kansas City formation. *Bethany Falls limestone 1917, MOORE, R. C., AND HAYNES, W. P., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 3, p. 96. Same as Hinds and Greene. *Bethany Falls limestone 1920, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 6, pt. 2, p. 33. Same. *Bethany Falls limestone 1932, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 90. Classed as uppermost member of the Swope formation. *Bethany Falls limestone 1932, JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 101. Same as Moore, 1932. *Bethany Falls limestone 1933, JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Acad. Sci., Trans., vol. 36, p. 134. Same. *Bethany Falls limestone 1933, BARTLE, G. G., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, 57th Bien. Rept., App. 3, p. 20. *Bethany Falls limestone (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., AND JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, pp. 27-29, 168-169. Same.
1896, †Mound Valley limestone, ADAMS, G. I., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, p. 23. Refers to limestone 10 to 15 feet thick that makes bold escarpment a short distance northwest of Mound Valley, Kan. Erroneously correlating this limestone with beds belonging to the Dennis formation, Adams states that it passes under the surface at Cherryvale and has 5 inches of coal under it on Drum Creek. As shown in the accompanying section this limestone is the first above the Altamont and occurs between unnamed shales. The Dennis limestone is not recognized as distinct from the †Mound Valley [Bethany Falls] and accordingly the next higher limestone is said to be the †Independence [Drum] limestone. †Mound Valley limestone 1898, HAWORTH, E., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 3, pp. 47, 102. Same, but regards the †Mound Valley as equivalent to the middle limestone of the †Erie or "triple system" [Bronson]. †Mound Valley limestone 1904, ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 238, p. 18. Reports that the †Mound Valley limestone occurs between Ladore shale (called Galesburg in text but changed on errata sheet) and Galesburg shale (called Cherryvale in text). Classes it as the middle member of the Bronson formation. †Mound Valley limestone 1906, SCHRADER, F. C., AND HAWORTH, E., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 296, p. 14. Describe the †"Mound Valley limestone lentil" as a division of the "Coffeyville formation" in the Independence quadrangle. Overlies "Ladora-Dudley" shale and occurs below Galesburg shale. †Mound Valley limestone 1908, HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 9, p. 92. Apply the name to limestone immediately northwest of Mound Valley, between Ladore and Galesburg shales. †Mound Valley limestone 1908, SCHRADER, F. C., U. S. Geol. Survey, Geol. Atlas, Folio 159, p. 2. Same as Schrader and Haworth.
1896, Not †Bethany limestone, KEYES, C. R., Am. Jour. Sci., (4), vol. 2, pp. 221-225. Applies the name †Bethany limestone to the lower limestone of the Missourian series. Synonymous with †"Erie" or "triple limestone" of Haworth, and to Bronson group as now defined.
1903, Hertha limestone, ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 211, p. 35, map, pl. 3. This original application of the term Hertha clearly refers to limestone that is Bethany Falls. Adams later (1904) shifted application of Hertha to the limestone next below the Bethany Falls.
1908, Not Bethany Falls limestone, HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey. vol. 9, p. 89. This name is erroneously applied to the lower limestone [Hertha] of the "triple system" called Bronson by Adams, "because field study shows that this is the same as the Bethany Falls (Broadhead's bed No. 78) at Kansas City."
Type locality, falls on Big Creek at Bethany, Mo.
The Bethany Falls limestone is classed as the uppermost member of the Swope formation and it is the main limestone unit in the formation. It occurs above the Hushpuckney shale and beneath the Galesburg shale. The Bethany Falls limestone is somewhat variable from place to place, but on the other hand can be identified at most outcrops very readily and definitely. There are two chief elements in the member, a lower part consisting of light-gray, dense, thin-bedded limestone that occurs in uneven, somewhat wavy layers with shale partings and fairly abundant fossils, and an upper part consisting of bluish-gray, massive, mottled or nodular limestone that is believed to be of algal origin, and locally of gray-white oolitic limestone. The lower subdivision ranges in thickness from less than one foot in a few places to a maximum of about 20 feet, the average being about 12 feet. This part of the Bethany Falls limestone is a typical "upper limestone" in lithologic and faunal characters and in stratigraphic position, as compared to limestone formations in the Shawnee group. The upper subdivision is a typical "super limestone" in lithologic characters and in abundance of algal deposits, but mollusks and other fossils that are very abundant in some "super" beds are lacking here. The massive mottled or nodular limestone ranges in thickness up to about 7 feet, and the oolitic limestone to about 13 feet. At many places the oolitic part of the Bethany Falls is weathered so that the oolitic granules are removed by solution leaving the material between the oolites behind, and accordingly the rock appears very porous. The oolitic phase of the upper Bethany Falls limestone is widely developed in Kansas south of the Kansas river, but is not common to the northeast. The total thickness of the Bethany Falls limestone ranges from about 12 to 27 feet, the average in eastern Kansas being about 18 feet.
The outcrop of the Bethany Falls limestone is marked in many places by the occurrence of large blocks, 10 to 20 feet in diameter, that are separated from the formation along joint planes and moved various distances down hill sides on account of creep. No other formation of the Missouri series exhibits this feature so commonly as the Bethany Falls limestone.
The Bethany Falls is traced from south-central Iowa, where it was called the †Earlham limestone by the Iowa Geological Survey, to southern Kansas not far from the Oklahoma boundary. This limestone was called †Mound Valley by the early Kansas Geological Survey, but the name Bethany Falls has priority. A good deal of confusion was introduced in the classification and nomenclature of beds that are now referred to the Bronson group by reason of mistakes and carelessness on the part of Adams.
GALESBURG SHALE, Adams, 1903
1894, †Erie limestone (part), HAWORTH, E., AND KIRK, M. Z. (See under Bronson group.) ,
1896, †Bethany limestone (part), KEYES, C. R. (See under Bronson group.) 1903, *Galesburg shale, ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 211, p. 36. "This name is here applied to the rocks occupying the interval between the Hertha [Bethany Falls] limestone and the Dennis limestone." As used in this publication the new name Hertha limestone is synonymous with Bethany Falls. Adams later (1904) shifted application of Hertha to the limestone next below the Bethany Falls. †Bethany limestone (part) 1904, ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 238, p. 18. Calls this the Cherryvale shale in text but on errata sheet changes name to Galesburg. Lies between †Mound Valley limestone (erroneously called Dennis in text) below and Dennis limestone (erroneously called Drum in text) above. †Bethany limestone (part) 1906, SCHRADER, F. C., AND HAWORTH, E., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 296, p. 14. Describes Galesburg shale as a member of the Coffeyville formation in the Independence quadrangle. It is reported to occur above the †Mound Valley [Bethany Falls] limestone lentil and below the Dennis limestone lentil. †Bethany limestone (part) 1908, SCHRADER, F. C., U. S. Geol. Survey, Geol. Atlas, Folio 159, p. 2. Same. †Bethany limestone (part) 1908, HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 9, p. 93. States that Adams applied the name Galesburg to shale between the Hertha and Dennis, overlooking the †Mound Valley [Bethany Falls] limestone. (Change in use of the term Hertha by Adams in 1903 and 1904 is overlooked by Haworth and Bennett.) The name is here restricted to shale above †Mound Valley and below Dennis. †Bethany limestone (part) 1915, HINDS, HENRY, AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 26. Name applied to shale between Bethany Falls and Winterset limestones. Classed as a member of the Kansas City formation. †Bethany limestone (part) 1917, MOORE, R. C., AND HAYNES, W. P., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 3, p. 96. Same. †Bethany limestone (part) 1920, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 6, pt. 2, p. 33. Same. †Bethany limestone (part) 1932, JEWETT, J, M., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 101. Restricts name to the shale between Bethany Falls limestone and Canville limestone, the latter being classed as the basal member of the Dennis limestone. Contains Cedar Bluff coal and Dodds Creek sandstone. †Bethany limestone (part) 1933, JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Acad, Sci., Trans., vol. 36, p. 133. Same as Jewett. †Bethany limestone (part) 1933, BARTLE, G. G., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, 57th Bien. Rept., App. 3, p. 20. †Bethany limestone (part) (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., AND JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, pp. 30-31, 169. Same as Jewett.
1904, Bronson formation (part), ADAMS, G. I. (See under Bronson group.)
Type locality, Galesburg, Neosho County, Kansas. Galesburg is built largely on Winterset limestone. The Galesburg shale makes the slope south of town in sec. 5, T. 30 S., R. 19 E.
The Galesburg shale includes the beds that lie between the Swope and Dennis limestones. The member of the Swope that everywhere occurs next below the Galesburg is the Bethany Falls limestone. Throughout east-central Kansas the basal member of the Dennis is the Canville limestone, in northeastern Kansas and northwestern Missouri the basal Dennis is the Stark shale, and in southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma the only recognizable member of the Dennis is the Winterset limestone. The upper boundary of the Galesburg shale, therefore, shows more varied relationships than the lower. It should be pointed out that as previously defined in the Kansas City area, the Galesburg includes the Stark shale. Because the Stark shale is a member of the Dennis formation and because it is readily distinguishable from the Galesburg shale on the basis of lithologic characters, it should not be included with the Galesburg.
The Galesburg shale near Galesburg, Kan., comprises about 70 feet of gray and yellowish-brown clayey and sandy shale and near the top some sandstone. The shale is unfossiliferous. The sandstone becomes increasingly prominent southward. It has been designated as the Dodds Creek sandstone by Jewett. Below the sandstone is a fairly persistent thin. coal named the Cedar Bluff coal. In western Bourbon County, near Uniontown, the Galesburg shale is about 10 feet thick. At Kansas City it consists of 2 to 3 feet of buff calcareous nodular shale. The lower part of the overlying Stark shale is black and fissile.
Although very thin in northeastern Kansas and northwestern Missouri, the Galesburg shale is traceable into Iowa. The southern limit of the Galesburg as a distinct stratigraphic unit is in Labette County, Kansas, for the Swope limestone disappears in this region and except for thin apparently discontinuous limestone that probably represents the Checkerboard limestone of Oklahoma there is a continuous shale section extending downward from the base of the Winterset limestone to the base of the Missouri series.
DENNIS LIMESTONE, Adams, 1903
1894, †Erie limestone (part), HAWORTH, E., AND KIRK, M. Z. (See under Bronson group.)
1896, †Bethany limestone (part), KEYES, C. R. (See under Bronson group.)
1903, *Dennis limestone, ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 211, p. 36. Adams states: "The name Mound Valley limestone was proposed in 1896 for the limestone exposed in the hills northwest of Mound Valley (Adams, Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, p. 23, 1896), and the bed was correlated with the middle member of the Erie (same, p. 25). The formation as exposed at Cherryvale had been previously described but not named, and had been incorrectly correlated with the Oswego of Haworth (Kan, Univ. Quart., vol. 2, p. 118, 1894). The name Dennis, from the town of that name in Labette County, Kansas, near which it is conspicuously exposed, is now proposed for this limestone. This formation has a thickness of from 10 to 15 feet and varies from a heavy-bedded limestone to a thin-bedded limestone with shale partings. It has been traced from Mound Valley southwestward to the Verdigris river near Liberty where it thins out." *Dennis limestone 1904, ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 238, p. 19. Erroneously calls this the Drum limestone, but the name is changed to Dennis on an accompanying errata sheet. It is classed as the uppermost member of the Bronson formation. *Dennis limestone 1906, SCHRADER, F. C., AND HAWORTH, E., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 296, p. 14. Describe Dennis limestone lentil as a division of the Coffeyville formation in the Independence quadrangle. The Dennis lies between Galesburg and Cherryvale shales. *Dennis limestone 1908, SCHRADER, F. C., U. S. Geol. Survey, Geol. Atlas, Folio 159, p. 2. Same. *Dennis limestone 1908, HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 9, p. 93. Notes outcrops of upper of two limestones to which Adams applied the term "Dennis" at the station of Dennis, and restricts use of the name to this upper limestone which overlies the Galesburg shale. *Dennis limestone 1915, HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C.; Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 26. Regards the Dennis formation as the exact equivalent of the Winterset limestone. *Dennis limestone 1932, JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 102. Dennis limestone contains Winterset limestone member at the top, with Stark shale and Canville limestone below. *Dennis limestone 1933, JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Acad. Sci., Trans., vol. 36, p. 132. Shows that the Winterset limestone is the uppermost limestone of the typical Dennis formation, and names the two lower members of the Dennis the Stark shale and Canville limestone. *Dennis limestone (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., AND JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, pp. 32-34, 170-171. Same as Jewett.
1904, Bronson formation (part), ADAMS, G. I. (See under Bronson group.)
Type locality, Dennis, Labette County, Kansas. Typical outcrops are located near the northwest corner of sec. 14, T. 31 S., R. 18 E.
The Dennis limestone is the uppermost formation of the Bronson group. It overlies the Galesburg shale and is succeeded conformably by the Fontana shale. Near Dennis and for a considerable distance northward, the formation contains three members, the thin blue dense blocky Canville limestone at the base, the black fissile and gray or buff Stark shale in the middle, and the thick gray or blue thin-bedded or in part massive oolitic Winterset limestone at the top. The Canville is a typical "middle" limestone, as compared to the members of Shawnee limestone formation. The Stark is typical of the shale members that occur between "middle" and "upper" limestones. The Winterset contains parts that are typical of both "upper" and "super" limestones, as seen in other formations. There is no question, therefore, as to the genetic relationships of the beds that are included in the Dennis formation. The lithologic and faunal characters of the formation will be described under headings devoted to the respective members. The thickness of the Dennis limestone ranges from 5 or 6 feet, in an area a few miles southwest of Coffeyville, to more than 70 feet. The Winterset and Stark members are continuous to south-central Iowa, and the Winterset extends to southern Oklahoma. The Oklahoma name Hogshooter limestone is an exact synonym of Winterset and accordingly should be dropped.
DENNIS FORMATION
CANVILLE LIMESTONE MEMBER, Jewett, 1932
1932, *Canville limestone, JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 102. Consists of 2 feet or less of dense blue limestone, classed as lowermost member of Dennis limestone. *Canville limestone 1933, JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Acad. Sci., Trans., vol. 36, p. 133. Same. *Canville limestone (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 32. Same.
Type locality, Canville Creek, Neosho County. Typical exposures about 3 miles west of Stark in roadcuts at the NE. cor. sec. 26, T. 27 S., R. 20 E., and in the SE sec. 20, T. 27 S., R. 19 E.
The Canville limestone is the lowermost member of the Dennis limestone. It overlies the Galesburg shale and is overlain by the Stark shale member of the Dennis. The Canville limestone is dense, fine-grained, hard, and shows prominent vertical joints. As seen at some outcrops it is a single layer about a foot thick, but where the thickness is greater there may be two or three beds. The maximum observed thickness is about 3 feet. The member becomes thin and disappears in southern Neosho County and in northern Linn County, the area of typical development, therefore, being confined to Neosho, Bourbon and Linn counties.
DENNIS FORMATION
STARK SHALE MEMBER, Jewett, 1932
1932, *Stark shale, JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 102. Middle member of the Dennis limestone. *Stark shale 1933, JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Acad. Sci., Trans., vol. 36, p. 133. Same. *Stark shale (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., AND JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, pp. 32, 170. Same.
Type locality, near Stark, Neosho County, Kansas. Typical exposures are found in the SE sec. 18, T. 27 S., R. 21 E., and NW sec. 28, T. 27 S., R. 20 E.
The Stark shale is the middle member of the Dennis limestone, occurring normally above the Canville limestone and below the Winterset limestone. North of the point in Linn County where the Canville limestone disappears, the Stark shale rests directly on the Galesburg shale, but because the lower part of. the Stark member consists of black fissile shale that is unlike the Galesburg, it is readily possible to differentiate the two shales. Where the Canville limestone is missing in southern Kansas, absence of black platy shale at the horizon of the Stark member makes it impossible to recognize the Stark shale. The upper boundary of the Galesburg shale is here extended to the base of the Winterset limestone.
The Stark shale consists typically of two parts, a lower subdivision of black fissile shale, 1 to 3 feet thick, and an upper subdivision of gray or buff, more or less calcareous clay shale, 2 to 5 feet thick. At Kansas City the total thickness of the Stark member amounts to about 4 feet. The black shale contains conodonts and macerated plant remains. Small phosphatic concretions occur here rather commonly. The upper shale contains a mixed brachiopod and pelecypod fauna in many places. The most common fossils are Derbya crassa and Aviculopectens. Liorhynchus rockymontanum has been observed in this shale at Kansas City.
DENNIS FORMATION
WINTERSET LIMESTONE MEMBER, Tilton and Bain, 1897
1897, *Winterset limestone, TILTON, J. L., AND BAIN, H. F., Ia. Geol. Survey, vol. 7, pp. 517-519. The "Missourian formation" in Madison County is reported to be represented only by the †"Bethany limestone." They propose to restrict the term Winterset, "heretofore used loosely as the equivalent of Bethany," to beds 6 and 7 of section exposed at Winterset (pp. 509-510 for stratigraphic section in sec. 22, T. 75 N., R. 28 W., Iowa). The Winterset limestone is here 17 feet thick. *Winterset limestone 1915, HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 26. Apply the name to a limestone above the Bethany Falls. Classed as a member of the Kansas City formation. The Winterset is regarded as synonymous with Dennis limestone. *Winterset limestone 1917, MOORE, R. C., AND HAYNES, W. P., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 3, p. 97. Same. *Winterset limestone 1920, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 6, pt. 2, p. 34. Same. *Winterset limestone 1932, JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 102. Classed as upper member of Dennis formation. Notes that the limestone at Coffeyville was called lower Drum by Schrader (Independence folio, 1908). *Winterset limestone 1933, JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Acad. Sci., Trans., vol. 36, p. 132. Same. *Winterset limestone 1933, BARTLE, G. G., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, 57th Bien. Rept., App. 3, p. 20. *Winterset limestone (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., AND JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, pp. 32-34, 170-171. Same as Jewett.
1898, †DeKalb limestone, BAIN, H. F., Ia. Geol. Survey, vol. 8, pp. 277-278. Proposes the name DeKalb to replace the inappropriate term, "Fusulina limestone" previously used. The typical section is just east of DeKalb station, sec. 28, T. 28 N., R. 26 W. †DeKalb limestone 1927, CONDRA, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 1, p. 29. Condra believes this is the same as the Drum limestone described by G. I. Adams at a later date. In October, 1932, G. E. Condra, F. C. Greene, and R. C. Moore traced the so-called Drum limestone of the Kansas City area to Winterset, Iowa. They determined that the type DeKalb limestone is the same as the Winterset limestone. The latter name being the oldest, the term DeKalb must be dropped.
Type locality, vicinity of Winterset, Iowa (sec. 22, T. 75 N., R. 28 W.).
The Winterset limestone is here classed as the uppermost member of the Dennis limestone. From Neosho County northward the Winterset rests on shale that is called Stark, but to the south the underlying shale is included in the Galesburg. In east-central Kansas, northwestern Missouri, and southern Iowa, the shale next above the Winterset is called the Fontana shale. In southern Kansas the shale overlying the Winterset has been termed Cherryvale. As will be noted in later discussion devoted to the Cherryvale, there are unsolved problems in connection with the detailed correlation of the southern and northern Kansas sections between the Winterset and Drum limestones.
The Winterset limestone is typically a light bluish-gray to bluish fine-grained limestone that occurs in somewhat uneven to distinctly wavy thin beds separated by thin shale partings. In places the lower part is thick-bedded, dark-gray limestone with abundant fine calcite veins. Beds of shale, including black platy shale, a foot or more in thickness, occur in a number of sections of the Winterset limestone. Near the top there is commonly a prominent zone of very dark-gray to black chert concretions and in places this type of chert occurs in the middle part of the member. The associated limestone beds may be distinctly siliceous. Light-gray oolitic limestone is present at the top or in the upper half of the member locally, especially in east-central Kansas. Farther south there is a prominent development of irregularly bedded, pseudo-brecciated and veined light-gray limestone in the upper part of the member that is regarded as probably algal in origin. This type of limestone has a thickness of more than 50 feet locally. Near Cherryvale and Coffeyville the typical Winterset limestone is succeeded by a zone of very dense dark-blue, fine-grained siliceous to sandy limestone beds interbedded with shale. These beds are unfossiliferous flagstones. They are tentatively regarded as forming one type of the "super" limestone deposits that occur in the Dennis formation, because the same sort of beds are known elsewhere in such relations.
The Winterset limestone yields abundant fossils in many places. The thin wavy-bedded strata commonly contain numerous brachiopods, including especially representatives of the genus Marginifera, bryozoans, and in the siliceous and oolitic beds abundant pelecypods and gastropods. Large nautiloid cephalopods and some ammonoids have been collected in the Winterset of the Kansas City area. Fusulinds of the Triticites irregularis type are numerous in some of the brachiopod-bearing beds.
The variety of deposits and their succession in the Winterset limestone, as here recognized, indicate somewhat greater complexity of cyclic phases than in other members of formations in the Missouri series. Some of these variations, especially the recurrence in vertical sequence of phases that normally are confined to a single part of a cyclothem, suggest rudimentary cycles or minor oscillations within the main one. For the present it can be said that no doubt is attached to the correlation or tracing of the limestone that is called Winterset, from its type locality in Iowa to southern Kansas, and there is no difficulty in recognizing typical elements of the sedimentary cycle in various exposures of the Winterset (that is, "upper" and "super" types of limestone, both as regards lithologic and faunal characters), but there are uncertainties as to the interpretation of the cyclic phases. Detailed studies of the Winterset limestone will probably furnish information that will permit answers to a number of present questions concerning the member.
The equivalence of the Winterset limestone to the Hogshooter limestone of Oklahoma has been determined by tracing outcrops and by comparison of sections at frequent intervals along the outcrops. A part of this tracing that calls for special care is in the vicinity of Coffeyville, Kansas, where the limestone formations in this part of the Pennsylvanian section are much thinner than to the north or south, and where there are local variations in lithologic characters. Structural irregularities further complicate field study of the stratigraphy. Ohern in 1910 traced the limestone that caps the bluffs west of the Verdigris at Coffeyville into limestone that is definitely identified as Hogshooter, and this was checked later by Condra and Moore in 1930 and again by Moore in 1933. In the course of studying the lower Missouri series beds in northeastern Kansas, R. H. Dott, Joseph Borden, and Ronald J. Cullen, were in doubt as to relationships of the Hogshooter and Winterset, but a field conference of those geologists and R. C. Moore in May, 1934, led to agreement that the limestone called Winterset at Coffeyville and that called Hogshooter in northern Oklahoma are the same.
KANSAS CITY GROUP (Hinds and Greene, 1915), Moore, 1936
1886, Not Kansas City oolite, BROADHEAD, G. C., St. Louis Acad. Sci., Trans., vol. 4, p. 483. Refers to beds now classed as Westerville limestone.
1898, Not Kansas City limestone, GALLAHER, J. A., Mo. Geol. Survey, Bien. Rept., p. 51. Not Kansas City limestone 1900, GALLAHER, J. A., Mo. Geol. Survey, vol. 13, p. 203. Refers to three different limestones that were miscorrelated.
1898, †Pottawatomie formation (part), HAWORTH, E. (See under Bronson group.)
1915, Kansas City formation, HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 23, 116. Proposed name to include beds from the base of the Hertha limestone to the top of the "Iola" (Argentine) limestone. Kansas City formation 1917, MOORE, R. C., AND HAYNES, W. P., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 3, p. 95. Same. Kansas City formation 1920, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 6, pt. 2, p. 29. Same. Kansas City formation 1927, CONDRA, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 1, p. 27. Name applied to beds identified as Hertha to Iola, inclusive. Kansas City formation 1932, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conference, p. 91. Application of name modified to include beds from the top of the Winterset limestone to the base of the Wyandotte limestone. Kansas City formation 1933, GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, 57th Bien. Rept., App. 2, p. 19. Same as Hinds and Greene, 1915. Kansas City formation 1933, BARTLE, G. G., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, 57th Bien. Rept., App, 3, p. 18. Same as Hinds and Greene. *Kansas City formation (1935) 1936, MOORE, R. C., cited by Newell, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 34. Name applied to beds between the top of the Winterset limestone and the base of the Plattsburg limestone. Kansas City formation (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., AND JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, pp. 34-69, 171-181. Same as Moore, 1936.
Type locality, Kansas City, Mo.
As originally proposed, the Kansas City group or "formation" was designed to include the lower portion of the prominent limestones and interbedded shales that formed the [Pottawatomie formation of Haworth. The "Pottawatomie" beds are separated from the Marmaton limestones below by thick shale and sandstone that was formerly called Pleasanton shale, and they are separated from the relatively thick Shawnee limestones above by a considerable thickness of shale and sandstone that was formerly Classed as the Douglas formation. Thus, the "Pottawatomie" is a well characterized group that is distinguished by prominence of limestones. It corresponds exactly to the widely used "Kansas City-Lansing" limestones of workers in the subsurface geology of Kansas, for in many places it is not possible to differentiate the subdivisions of this group of beds in study of materials from deep drilling even though the bottom and top are clearly determinable. The two-fold division of the "Pottawatomie" beds was made because the escarpments made by the lower group of limestones (here termed Bronson group) and the upper group of limestones (Lansing group) were distinct, and perhaps more importantly because it was believed that there was a significant paleontologic distinction, marked mainly by the appearance of the brachiopod Enteletes in the Lansing beds. It is now known that Enteletes appears locally in the limestone called Iola by Hinds and Greene (Argentine limestone of present classification) , and in Oklahoma this fossil is found in the Holdenville formation which is considerably lower than the Argentine in stratigraphic position. Cogent practical reasons can be advanced for reviving the term Pottawatomie, but objection might be raised that this lumping of beds includes all of the Missouri series, as restricted, except the lower and upper clastic deposits. If the Missouri series is to be divided into smaller group units, it appears that the Bronson beds are readily and clearly differentiated as a lithologically distinct, stratigraphically useful element. Similarly, the limestones of the Lansing "formation," as defined by Hinds and, Greene, are a compact unit of persistent and prominent hard strata. There is then left the middle portion of Haworth's "Pottawatomie" beds, which is composed mostly of shale and thin limestones. There is possible question as to the advisability of retaining the name Kansas City for this stratigraphic division, but the term is so familiar to geologists in the northern Mid-Continent region that it has been thought best to continue its use. The splendid sections in the river bluffs at Kansas City show the entire group, and except in a few places all of the rocks in these sections belong to the group as here revised.
The Kansas City group is now defined to include the strata from the top of the Winterset member of the Dennis limestone to the. base of the Plattsburg limestone. Named in upward order, the following formations are recognized: Fontana shale, Block limestone, Wea shale, Westerville limestone, Quivira shale, Drum limestone, Chanute shale, Iola limestone, Lane shale, Wyandotte limestone, and Bonner Springs shale. Recent observations by Newell in southern Kansas suggest the possibility that the Fontana shale and Block limestone are really to be recognized as upper elements of the Dennis formation, and if this proves to be indicated by further detailed studies, the boundary between the Bronson and Kansas City groups should be placed at the top of the Block limestone.
FONTANA SHALE, Newell, 1932
1908, Cherryvale shale (part), HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 9, p. 95. The beds between the Dennis and Drum limestones in eastern Kansas are here called Cherryvale shale. Cherryvale shale (part) 1915, HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 26. Strata between the Winterset and Drum [Westerville] limestones are called Cherryvale shale and classed as a member of the Kansas City formation. Cherryvale shale (part) 1917, MOORE, R. C., AND HAYNES, W. P., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 3, p. 97. Same as Hinds and Greene except that in southeastern Kansas the limestone called Drum is correctly defined. Cherryvale shale (part) 1920, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 6, pt. 2, p. 34. Same as Moore and Haynes. Cherryvale shale (part) 1933, BARTLE, G. G., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, 57th Bien. Rept., App. 3, p. 21. Same as Hinds and Greene.
1932, *Fontana shale, NEWELL, N. D., Mss. cited by Moore, R. C., Kan: Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 91. This name applies to a 15-foot argillaceous shale immediately above the Winterset limestone in the vicinity of Fontana, Miami County, and elsewhere in eastern Kansas. *Fontana shale (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 36. First formal definition.
Type locality, village of Fontana, Miami County, Kansas, typical exposures near NE cor. sec. 11, T. 18 S., R. 23 E., and near middle west side NW sec. 36, T. 18 S., R. 23 E.
The Fontana shale overlies the Winterset member of the Dennis limestone and underlies the Block limestone. lt is a fairly uniform clay shale of greenish-gray to buff color that contains scattered calcareous nodules. Locally there is ferruginous calcareous shale at the base. The formation is mostly barren of fossils but near the top there are commonly abundant specimens of the small brachiopod Chonetina flemingi var. plebeia. The Fontana shale is 15 feet thick near Fontana and about 5 feet thick in the vicinity. of Kansas City. Southward the shale thickens to 25 feet in Linn County. Since the Winterset and Block limestones are found at various places in northwestern Missouri and southern Iowa, it appears that the Fontana shale can be recognized from Linn County, Kansas, to Iowa. The southern Kansas equivalent of the Fontana shale is not satisfactorily determined at the present time. It may be found in the Cherryvale shale but this is not certain. The Cherryvale shale, defined from outcrops in the vicinity of Cherryvale, northeastern Montgomery County, lies between the Winterset limestone, below, and the Drum limestone, above .. As very well shown in brick pits about two miles south of Cherryvale, this shale is a uniform blue silty sedimentary deposit about 60 feet in thickness and it is practically devoid of fossils. Near the top of the shale are a few layers of blue dense limestone flags which persist northward and southward for several miles. In the vicinity of Coffeyville, these flaggy blue limestones lie considerably below the horizon of the Drum limestone and only a few feet above the Winterset limestone. Similar but less clearly defined relations are observed to the north. It thus appears that the Cherryvale shale of the type region is a decidedly lenticular stratigraphic unit and that it is lower than other fairly thick shale and sandstone locally occurring above the flaggy limestones and beneath the Drum limestone. The correlation of the Cherryvale shale with Fontana and other formations that are recognized between the Winterset and Drum limestones of the Kansas City area is very uncertain. It is not advisable at present to use the term Cherryvale shale except in the vicinity of Cherryvale.
BLOCK LIMESTONE, Newell, 1932
1908, Cherryvale shale (part), HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J. (For references see under Fontana shale.)
1932, *Block limestone, NEWELL, N. D., Mss. cited by Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 91. Term applied to a dense, bluish, evenly-bedded limestone about 15 feet above the Winterset limestone; 3 to 5 feet thick in the type region. *Block limestone (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 37. First formal description.
Type locality, near the hamlet of Block in eastern Miami County. Typical exposures are found in roadcuts near center S. line sec. 6, T. 18 S., R. 24 E., and near center W. line sec. 18, T. 19 S., R. 23 E.
The Block limestone occurs between the Fontana shale, below, and the Wea shale, above. As developed in the type area of eastern Miami County, it is a blue-gray, fine-grained, hard limestone that occurs in moderately thick even beds with common vertical joints. The rock breaks into angular fragments on weathering and in some respects resembles a "middle" limestone of the thicker, more complex limestone formations. The Block limestone is not definitely classifiable in this maner, however, for in some outcrops the beds are thin and wavy or nodular, a character that is foreign to "middle" limestones. Near Kansas City there are several thin dense blue limestones separated by a few inches to a foot or two of shale at the horizon of the Block limestone. The lithologic and faunal characters of these limestones are typical of the Block limestone, but the occurrence of the interbedded shale is not normal. Fusulinids are common in various outcrops of this limestone and the brachiopod Marginifera wabashensis is abundant at many places. The thickness of the Block limestone ranges from about 3 to 8 feet, the average being about 4 feet. The unit has been identified at exposures from Linn County, Kansas, northward to Iowa.
WEA SHALE, Newell, 1932
1908, Cherryvale shale (part), HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J. (For references see under Fontana shale.)
1932, *Wea shale, NEWELL, N. D., Mss. cited by Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 91. The term is applied to shale, 15 to 20 feet thick, between the Block and Westerville limestones. *Wea shale (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 38. First formal description.
Type locality, Wea Creek in northeastern Miami County, Kansas. The best exposures occur near the SE. cor. sec. 31, T. 16 S., R. 24 E., and near the center of the east side of sec. 12, T. 18 S., R. 22 E.
The Wea shale occurs next above the Block limestone and is overlain by the Westerville limestone. The shale is mostly olive-green in .color and clayey, but there is a persistent thin zone of maroon silty to clayey shale near the top. The Wea shale is more calcareous to the north. The thickness of this shale in eastern Kansas ranges from about 10 to 30 feet, the greatest thickness being observed in eastern Johnson County, a few miles southwest of Kansas City. The Wea shale is traceable across northwestern Missouri into Iowa, but south of the type region the Westerville limestone is mostly missing so. that the shales that belong below and above this limestone are in contact. The stratigraphic relationships of the shales can be determined in well exposed sections because of lithologic distinctions between the Wea shale and the Quivira shale. It is not practicable, however, to draw a boundary at the top of the Wea shale where the Westerville limestone is absent, and the shale between the Block and Drum limestones is designated as Wea-Quivira shale.
WESTERVILLE LIMESTONE, Bain, 1898
1886, Kansas City oolite, BROADHEAD, G. C., St. Louis Acad. Sci., Trans., vol. 4, p. 483.
1898, *Westerville limestone, BAIN, H. F., Iowa Geol. Survey, vol. 8, pp. 276- 277. "In Union County there is an important bed of limestone, which, from the fact that it is well shown on Sand creek near Westerville, may be called the Westerville limestone. It lies some little distance above the De Kalb horizon." *Westerville limestone 1898, BAIN, H. F., Am. Jour. Sci., (4), vol. 5, pp. 337, 339. *Westerville limestone 1933, CONDRA, G. E., AND UPP, J. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Paper 4, pp. 5, 8, 10. Note that in October, 1932, G. E. Condra, F. C. Greene, and R. C. Moore traced the so-called Drum limestone of the Kansas City area to Winterset, Iowa, and found it to be the same as the type Westerville limestone. *Westerville limestone (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., AND JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, pp. 40-43, 172-173. Shows that Westerville is not the same as Drum.
1908, Drum limestone (part), HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 9, p. 96. The oolite [Westerville limestone] at Kansas City is regarded as equivalent to the Drum limestone of southern Kansas. Drum limestone (part) 1915, HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 26. Indicate doubt as to the identification of Drum at Kansas City but accept correlation with the "Kansas City oolite" [Westerville] largely on basis of faunal similarity noted by Beede. Classed as a member of the Kansas City formation. Drum limestone (part) 1930, SAYRE, A. N., Kan. Univ. Sci. Bull., vol. 19, pp. 75-80. Describes type Drum in southeastern Kansas but erroneously includes the oolite of the Bethany Falls near Elsmore and the Westerville limestone at Kansas City as equivalents of the Drum. Drum limestone (part) 1933, BARTLE, G. G., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, 57th Bien. Rept., App. 3, p. 22. Same as Hinds and Greene.
1915, †Cullom limestone, CONDRA, G. E., AND BENGSTON, N. A., Neb. Acad. Sci., Pub., vol. 9, p. 20. Name applied to limestone in Cass County, Neb., thought to belong in the Lecompton limestone, but subsequently (Condra, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 3, p. 11, 1930) recognized as equivalent to †DeKalb. Studies by Condra, Greene, and Moore in October, 1932, indicate that the †Cullom is equivalent to the lower part of the Westerville limestone.
1927, †DeKalb limestone, CONDRA, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, Bull. 1, (2), p. 29. Correlates the so-called Drum limestone at Kansas City and the true Drum limestone of Kansas with the †DeKalb limestone of Iowa, and because of priority of †DeKalb adopts this instead of Drum. †DeKalb limestone 1932, DUNBAR, C. O., AND CONDRA, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 5, pp. 15, 18, table C. Note that the "Drum limestone" of Kansas City is not the same as the type Drum but is probably equivalent to the †DeKalb limestone of Iowa.
Type locality, on Sand creek near Westerville, Union County, Iowa.
The Westerville limestone is a persistent and distinctive stratigraphic unit in the vicinity of Kansas City and northward to Iowa, but it appears to be absent south of Miami County, Kansas. The Westerville occurs next above the Wea shale and underlies the Quivira shale. There has been a good deal of confusion in the classification and correlation of beds in this part of the section, but it is now determined that the formation called Westerville limestone by Bain in Iowa is a valid unit, that the †DeKalb limestone which has been misidentified in Missouri and Nebraska is a synonym of Winterset, and that the beds previously called Drum limestone at Kansas City really belong to the Westerville limestone.
The lithologic characters shown by Westerville beds in northeastern Kansas and northwestern Missouri are much more variable than in adjacent limestones. There is commonly a lower and an upper division, however, the former distinguished by its fine texture, moderately thin, somewhat uneven bedding and the latter by prominence of massive or cross-bedded oolite. Both parts of the formation are light bluish-gray to nearly white, and weather gray or buff, but their appearance is yet quite different one from the other. In places the upper beds of the Westerville are not oolitic but are dense, siliceous, chert-bearing rock that weathers light brown. Fossils are not common except in the oolite which yields a rich fauna of mollusks, brachiopods, bryozoans and various other invertebrates. In northern Missouri and in Iowa and Nebraska, oolite is not common in the upper Westerville limestone; and the fine-grained light blue-gray rock which generally occurs contains very abundant small fusulinids.
The thickness of the Westerville limestone averages about 8 feet.
QUIVIRA SHALE, Newell, 1932
1908, Chanute shale (part), BEEDE, J. W., AND ROGERS, A. F., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 9, p. 340. Class beds at Kansas City between "Drum" [Westerville 1 and "Iola" [Argentine] as "Chanute." The basal shale of this so-called Chanute is now called Quivira. Chanute shale (part) 1915, HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 27. Same. Chanute shale (part) 1917, MOORE, R. C., AND HAYNES, W. P., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 3, p. 98. Interprets Kansas City section as by Beede and Rogers. Chanute shale (part) 1920, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 6, pt. 2; p. 35. Same. Chanute shale (part) 1933, BARTLE, G. G., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, 57th Bien. Rept., App. 3, p. 22. Same as Hinds and Greene.
1932, *Quivira shale, NEWELL, N. D., Mss., cited by Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 91. Comprises shale with a carbonaceous layer between Westerville limestone and Cement City limestone. *Quivira shale 1932-'34, name adopted in publications of the Neb. Geol. Survey. *Quivira shale (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., AND JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, pp. 43, 173. First formal description.
Type locality, Quivira Lake, east of Holliday, in sec. 32, T. 11 S., R. 24 E., Johnson County, Kansas. Also well shown behind school building at east edge of Holliday.
The Quivira shale comprises strata between the Westerville limestone below and the Drum limestone above. It is the shale formerly called "lower Chanute" at Kansas City. Where the Westerville limestone is absent, as in Miami County and to the south, the Quivira shale is in contact with the Wea shale, but because of distinguishing lithologic characters the two may be differentiated in many outcrops. Where it is not feasible or convenient to separate the shales, the combined units may be designated as the Wea-Quivira shale.
The Quivira shale consists mostly of olive-green clay shale but in most sections about 1 foot of black carbonaceous shale with corneous brachiopods, or in some sections about the same thickness of maroon clay occurs at the base. In Johnson County the carbonaceous layer is observed near the middle of the shale. The greenish shale is unfossiliferous.
The thickness of the Quivira shale in northeastern Kansas ranges from 4 to 11 feet. In the Kansas City section the thickness of this shale averages 7.5 feet. The Quivira is at present differentiated only in the region from Miami County northward across Johnson and Wyandotte counties, Kansas, and in Jackson and Platte counties. Missouri.
DRUM LIMESTONE, Adams, 1903
1894, †Independence limestone, HAWORTH, E., AND PIATT, W. H. H., Kan. Univ. Quart., vol. 2, p. 117. Name preoccupied by Independence shale (Calvin, 1878), Devonian of Iowa. †Independence limestone 1896, ADAMS, G. I., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, pp, 23-24. †Independence limestone 1898, HAWORTH, E., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 3, pp. 48-49.
1903, *Drum limestone, ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 211, p. 37. "The name Independence limestone was first used provisionally by Haworth and Piatt (1894) for the limestone exposed at Independence, Kan., which at that time was erroneously correlated with the Oswego limestone. Exposures of the formation at Cherryvale were also described and correlated with the whole of the Erie (same). Subsequently, the name Independence was used by Adams (1896) for the limestone which is exposed at the original locality and the formation was correlated with the upper member of the Erie. The name has been used in this sense, but is preoccupied by the Independence shale in the Devonian of Iowa, and the name Drum limestone, from Drum Creek, Kansas, where it is conspicuously exposed, is adopted."*Drum limestone 1906, SCHRADER, F. C., AND HAWORTH, E., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 296, p. 14. Near Independence the Drum is a single bed of limestone about 20 feet thick, but to the south it includes heavy-bedded limestone in the lower part, 12 feet, shale, 10 to 25 feet, and thin-bedded blue fiaggy limestone in the upper part, 2 to 10 feet. Except as referring to the vicinity of Independence, this statement is erroneous, the heavy-bedded limestone indicated being Winterset. *Drum limestone 1908, HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 9, p. 96. The typical outcrops on Drum Creek near Independence are probably equivalent to the oolite [Westerville] of Kansas City. This correlation is erroneous. *Drum limestone 1908, BEEDE, J. W., AND ROGERS, A. F., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 9, p. 340. Same. *Drum limestone 1908, SCHRADER, F. C., U. S. Geol. Survey, Geol. Atlas, Folio 159, p. 2. Describes Drum limestone in the Independence quadrangle as resting on "Coffeyville formation" and overlain by "Wilson formation." Northwest of Coffeyville Schnider miscorrelates Winterset and overlying fiaggy limestone with the Drum. *Drum limestone 1917, MOORE, R. C., AND HAYNES, W. P., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 3, p. 98. Classes the Drum limestone as a member of the Kansas City formation. The type Drum is miscorrelated with oolitic limestone at Kansas City that is now called Westerville. *Drum limestone 1920, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 6, pt. 2, p. 35. "Drum limestone member of Kansas City formation" lies between Cherryvale shale and Chanute shale. *Drum limestone 1930, SAYRE, A. N., Kan. Univ. Sci. Bull., vol. 19, pp. 75-80. Describes type Drum is southern Kansas, but erroneously includes the oolite of the Bethany Falls limestone near Elsmore (p. 80) and the Westerville limestone of Kansas City. *Drum limestone 1932, NEWELL, N. D., Mss., cited by Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., pp. 91, 92. States that the Cement City limestone at Kansas City represents the lower part of the Drum limestone. in southeastern Kansas, as evidenced by field tracing. *Drum limestone (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., AND JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, pp. 44, 174.
1915, Not Drum limestone, HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. GeoI. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 26. Refers to Westerville limestone. Not Drum limestone 1933, BARTLE, G. G., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, 57th Bien. Rept., App, 3, p.22.
1915, Chanute shale (part), HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C. (op. cit.). The Cement City limestone, classed as a subdivision of the Chanute shale, is a member of the Drum limestone. Chanute shale (part) 1917, MOORE, R. C., AND HAYNES, W. P., op. cit. Same. Chanute shale (part) 1920, MOORE, R. C., op. cit. Same. Chanute shale (part) 1927, CONDRA, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 1, pp. 27-29. Same. Chanute shale (part) 1933, BARTLE, G. G., op cit.
1933, Westerville limestone, DUNBAR, C. O., AND CONDRA, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 5.
Type locality, Drum Creek, Montgomery County, Kansas. Typical exposures along highway east of Independence, along south line sec. 28, T. 32 S., R. 16 E., and at cement plant quarry in NW sec. 4, T. 33 S., R. 16 E.
In central Montgomery County, Kansas, where the type locality of the Drum limestone occurs, this formation rests conformably on shale called Cherryvale and is overlain by shale equivalent to the Chanute. In northeastern Kansas and northwestern Missouri the Drum limestone lies conformably on shale called Quivira and is overlain by the Chanute shale. Partly because of pronounced variation in lithologic characters and thickness of the Drum and to some extent also of the contiguous formations, and partly because of an absence of good exposures at frequent intervals or of a well defined escarpment at the Drum outcrop, there has been much confusion in the stratigraphic nomenclature of beds in this part of the section in northeastern Kansas and in Missouri. Early investigators of the geology of southeastern Kansas erroneously correlated the Drum with the Iola, the Winterset, the entire Bronson group and even the Fort Scott. These mistakes were due to very incomplete or careless field work and are only of historical interest. Correlation of the Drum limestone with the "Kansas City oolite" (Haworth and Bennett, Beede and Rogers, 1908; Hinds and Greene, 1915) is a different matter. This limestone which is prominent in the Kansas City region occurs in the approximate stratigraphic position of the Drum limestone and closely resembles it in the prominence of oolite, in the presence also of dense blue-gray limestone, in pronounced local variations of lithology and thickness, and in faunal characters. In 1927 Condra [Condra, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 1, p. 29, 1927] concluded that the "Drum limestone" at Kansas City is the same as the †DeKalb limestone, defined by Bain in 1898 from exposures in Iowa, and since the latter term has priority over Drum, †DeKalb was used replacing Drum both in the Kansas City area and southern Kansas. Field work by N. D. Newell in 1930 to 1932 showed that the "Drum limestone" at Kansas City is not the same as the type Drum, but a lower unit, the true Drum limestone being determined as equivalent to the so-called Cement City limestone of the Kansas City section. Also, as has been indicated, field study by Condra, Greene and Moore in 1932 showed that the "Drum limestone" of Kansas City is the same as the Westerville limestone of Iowa.
The Drum limestone is composed partly of fine-grained dense limestone, partly of granular more or less crystalline crinoidal limestone, and partly of oolite. Locally there are deposits of fine to very coarse limestone conglomerate. Fossils are very abundant in many places, the fauna being rich in the variety of species.
The thickness of the Drum limestone ranges from less than 2 feet to a known maximum of about 60 feet, found locally east of Independence. The average thickness is about 5 feet. The Drum has been traced from the Oklahoma line northward to Kansas City and has been identified at various places in northern Missouri, Iowa, and Nebraska.
Two subdivisions of the Drum limestone are at present recognized, the Cement City limestone member below, and the Corbin City limestone member above. At some exposures these are separated by a few inches of shale but elsewhere they are in contact.
DRUM LIMESTONE
CEMENT CITY LIMESTONE MEMBER, Hinds and Greene, 1915
1898, †Parkville limestone, GALLAHER, J. A., Mo. Geol. Survey, Bien. Rept., p. 51. Identifiable only by reference to localities cited. Appears to be erroneously placed in section or miscorrelated with other limestones. †Parkville limestone 1900, GALLAHER, J. A., Mo. Geol. Survey, vol. 13, p. 205. Same.
1915, *Cement City limestone, HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, pp. 27, 118. Apply the name to persistent limestone (Broadhead's No. 90) in the "Chanute shale." *Cement City limestone 1933, BARTLE, G. G., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, 57th Bien. Rept., App. 3, p. 23. *Cement City limestone (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 45. Notes that this is the lower member of the Drum limestone.
Type locality, Cement City, northeastern Jackson County, Mo. Typical exposures in cement plant quarry.
The Cement City limestone member of the Drum formation, although less prominent in some exposures than the overlying Corbin City member, is the most persistent and really most important of the two units. At most outcrops it is the only member present. The fresh limestone is blue-gray to pale-drab in color and on weathering the rock becomes light-gray somewhat mottled with brown or the member may become entirely brown. The texture of the rock is typically very fine and dense. Obscure thin wavy bedding may be observed, especially on weathered outcrops in many places, but the member tends to appear as a single massive ledge that breaks along widely spaced joint planes to make large blocks. In southern Kansas the wavy thin shale partings between the dense nodular limestone beds are somewhat more evident than in general to the north, and they yield a profusion of finely preserved bryozoans. A persistent zone of Campophyllum torquium is found near the top of the Cement City limestone in northeastern Kansas, and since this fossil is not observed in adjacent beds it is an aid in identifying the member. A variety of brachiopods, bryozoans and less commonly other invertebrates occurs in the Cement City limestone. At some places this member is unfossiliferous, or, as typically shown in parts of Johnson and Miami counties, there is an abundance of crinoid fragments evenly scattered through the rock but very few other fossil remains.
The thickness of the Cement City limestone ranges from about 2 feet to 10 feet.
DRUM LIMESTONE
CORBIN CITY LIMESTONE MEMBER, Moore, 1932
1932, *Corbin City limestone, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 92. This is the upper, oolitic part of the Drum formation. *Corbin City limestone (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., AND JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, pp. 45, 174.
Type locality, Corbin City, about 2 miles south of Cherryvale, Kansas.
The main part of the Drum limestone where it is locally some tens of feet in thickness near Independence consists of oolite that is here termed the Corbin City member. Lithologically and faunally this member is very sharply differentiated from the Cement City member, on which it rests disconformably in southern Kansas. Near Cherryvale the irregularities in the upper surface of the Cement City limestone are very abrupt and locally have a relief of nearly 5 feet. The oolitic limestone fills hollows and covers high parts of the underlying dense blue-gray rock. To the southwest, west, and northwest of Coffeyville the Corbin City member is represented by limestone conglomerate in which pebbles, cobbles and locally rounded boulders of limestone 1 foot in diameter are embedded in a matrix of sandy, in part oolitic limestone. Despite the apparently unfavorable surroundings, there are well preserved fossils in parts of the matrix. The limestone pebbles appear to be in part identifiable as having come from the Cement City member and at least in part from dense dark-blue Baggy limestone beds that belong normally a few feet below the Cement City limestone in this region. The irregular surface carved in shale and sandstone beneath this conglomeratic limestone is well exposed in a highway cut about 3 miles west of Coffeyville. The oolitic limestone which is so prominent near Independence, is very light gray and weathers creamy-white. Much of this rock is prominently cross-bedded. It is highly fossiliferous, containing a large variety of brachiopods, bryozoans, and mollusks. Near Kansas City a limestone 1 foot or less in thickness, separated from the Cement City by a few inches of shale that contains abundant Teguliferina, is thought to represent the Corbin City member. This limestone is suboolitic to coquinoid and contains Osagia.
All of the observed characters suggest that the Cement City limestone is to be compared to the so-called "upper limestones" of the typical cyclic succession of beds in the Pennsylvanian limestone formations. The Corbin City limestone is very definitely a "super" limestone, as designated in this cycle.
The thickness of the Corbin City member ranges from a feather edge to approximately 50 feet, but the thickness is highly variable within even short distances.
CHANUTE SHALE (Haworth and Kirk, 1894), Haworth and Bennett, 1908
1894, Chanute shale, HAWORTH, E., AND KIRK, M. Z., Kan. Univ. Quart., vol. 2, p. 109. Includes beds between the Winterset and Iola limestones. "Above the Erie limestone [Hertha to Winterset] there is another system of shales and sandstones, which in places reach a thickness of nearly 100 feet, but which along the Neosho river section possibly does not exceed 100 feet. It reaches maximum thickness in the vicinity of Thayer, where it is estimated to be 150 feet thick. It extends from below Osage Mission to above Chanute, which town may well give it a name, so that it may be called the Chanute shale. Here as elsewhere sandstone appears and disappears with great readiness. Around Thayer the sandstone occurs in heavy beds, some of which produce excellent building material. Below the sandstone at Thayer a seam of coal is found of sufficient thickness and quality to justify its being worked." Chanute shale 1903, ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 211, p. 38. Includes beds between the "Drum [Dennis] and †Earlton [Iola] limestones." Since Adams in 1904 (see below) placed the lower boundary of the Chanute shale at the top of the Bronson limestone, which term he proposed to replace the invalid name †Erie, and since he erroneously called this limestone Drum in the southern part of the Iola quadrangle, it is clear that the intended definition of the boundaries of the Chanute by Adams in 1903 is the same as the original definition by Haworth and Kirk. Chanute shale 1904, ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 238, p. 19. Applies name to shale between the Bronson and Iola limestones in the north part of the Iola quadrangle, and between the Dennis (called Drum limestone in text, name changed on errata sheet) and Iola limestones in the south part of the quadrangle. Notes "lenses of limestone at about the same horizon in the upper part," but regards them as local. These "lenses" are Drum limestone of present classification. Chanute shale 1906, SCHRADER, F. C., AND HAWORTH, E., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 296, p. 14, pl. 3. Includes beds between Winterset and Iola limestones. Seventy-five feet of shale above the Drum limestone is classed as "Chanute shale in part" and placed as lowermost member of Wilson formation. One hundred feet of shale called Cherryvale, next below Drum, is classed as "part of Chanute" in plate but not mentioned in text. Chanute shale 1908, SCHRADER, F. C., U. S. Geol. Survey, Geol. Atlas, Folio 159, p. 3. Describes formation in Independence quadrangle, using same classification as Schrader and Haworth, 1906. Chanute shale 1908, *HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 9, p. 97. Applies Chanute to shale between Drum and Iola limestones. In one place correlate the Chanute with beds at Kansas City between "the oolite [Westerville] and base of number 98 [Argentine]" and in another place with "number 97 [Lane]" which is the shale between the Raytown and Argentine limestones. Chanute shale 1915, HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 27. Beds between the "Drum" [Westerville] and "Iola" [Argentine] limestones are called Chanute shale. This follows one of the suggested correlations of Haworth and Bennett. Thus defined, the Chanute contains two persistent limestones which are here named Cement City and Raytown. The Chanute shale is classed as a member of the Kansas City format-ion. Chanute shale 1917, MOORE, R. C., AND HAYNES, W. P., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 3, p. 98. Includes beds between Drum and Iola limestones and classes the Chanute as a member of the Kansas City formation. Chanute shale 1920, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 6, pt. 2, p. 35. Same as Moore and Haynes, 1917. Chanute shale 1932, NEWELL, N. D., Mss., cited by Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 92. States that owing to miscorrelation the so-called Chanute shale at Kansas City includes more than the typical Chanute shale. According to the revised classification the Chanute shale occupies the interval between the top of the Cement City limestone and a horizon a foot or so below the base of the Raytown limestone. Chanute shale 1933, BARTLE, G. G., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, 57th Bien. Rept., App. 3, p. 23. Same as Hinds and Greene. Chanute shale (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., AND JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, pp. 48, 174.
1896, †Thayer shale, ADAMS, G. I., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, p. 24. Applies name to the shale, about 100 feet at Thayer, between †"Independence" [Dennis] and Iola limestones. Includes Thayer coal, coal mined south of Brooks and south of Independence. It is probable that Adams miscorrelated limestone now called Dennis near Thayer with the †Independence [Drum] limestone, for the true Drum is very inconspicuous in this region. This is indicated by the fact that he later abandoned Thayer as a synonym of the older name Chanute, which was applied to beds between the Dennis and Iola limestones. †Thayer shale 1896, KIRK, M. Z., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, p. 76. Includes beds between the †Erie [Bronson] and Iola limestones. †Thayer shale 1896, BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, p. 97. Same as Kirk. †Thayer shale 1896, HAWORTH, E., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, p. 131. Includes shale between the †Independence [Dennis] and Iola limestones, without making any reference to the previously introduced term Chanute. †Thayer shale 1895, HAWORTH, E., Am. Jour. Sci., (3), vol. 50, p. 459. Includes shale between †Erie [Bronson] and Iola limestones, but states that it forms main mass of bluffs along Verdigris and Fall rivers from Fredonia and Benedict southward [Lane-Bonner Springs shale in part]. †Thayer shale 1900, KEYES, C. R., Ia. Acad. Sci., Proc., vol. 7, p. 87. Includes beds between the †Bethany [Bronson] and Iola limestones. Credits introduction of the term Thayer to Broadhead (St. Louis Acad. Sci., Trans., vol. 4, p. 481, 1884), but it appears that Broadhead's use of the term was incidental and not formal.
Type locality, Chanute, Neosho County, Kansas. Typically exposed in SE sec. 33, T. 26 S., R. 18 K, along highway and at several places in the central part of T. 28 S., R. 18 E.
Early usage of the term Chanute shale is somewhat confused because of miscorrelations of the limestones below and above. It is clear, however, that it was intended to designate by this name the shale and thin sandstone beds that form the plain extending eastward from Chanute to the prominent escarpment made by the Bronson limestones. The Iola limestone is well exposed in the vicinity of Chanute and it can be traced without difficulty to Iola, about 20 miles to the north. The term †Thayer shale is a subsequently introduced, synonymous unit. In 1908, Haworth and Bennett restricted application of Chanute shale to include only the upper part of the original Chanute, that is to the beds between the top of the Drum limestone and the base of the Iola limestone. This change may have been occasioned by recognition that the Cherryvale shale corresponds to the lower part of the Chanute as first defined and accordingly by decision to modify this overlap, but there is no discussion or explanation. Nevertheless, application of Chanute in the restricted sense has come to be accepted generally. There are difficulties in drawing the boundaries of the Chanute shale in some sections because of the thinning and local disappearance of the limestones below and above. These limestones have been miscorrelated, also, which leads to erroneous identification of beds classed as Chanute.
Recent field studies by Newell, moreover, have established that there is an important disconformity at the base of the Chanute beds in part of southeastern Kansas, including especially the region of the "Chautauqua arch," a structural uplift that affects Montgomery and Chautauqua counties, Kansas, and adjacent territory in northern Oklahoma. This dis conformity is observed also in the vicinity of Chanute where the Drum limestone and underlying shale is eroded, so that sandstone of the basal Chanute rests directly on different beds of the upper Dennis limestone. This observation explains the original definition of Chanute shale as extending from the top of the †"Erie" [Bronson] limestone, of which the Dennis is the uppermost division, to the base of the Iola limestone. Since the shale and sandstone that, because of the disconformity, tends downward, locally to stratigraphic horizons below the Drum, are of post-Drum pre-Iola age, corresponding to deposits that elsewhere lie between the Drum and Iola limestones, the Chanute shale may be recognized, as in later usage of the Kansas Geological Survey, to include beds above the Drum and below the Iola.
Careful tracing of outcrops accompanied by study of many sections shows that the supposed Drum limestone at Kansas City is the Westerville limestone, which is older than Drum, and that the supposed Iola limestone of this region is the Argentine limestone, which is younger than true Iola. Therefore, the so-called Chanute shale at Kansas City embraces beds that are stratigraphically lower and higher than the Chanute shale at the type locality.
The Chanute shale is mainly composed of yellowish-brown or buff sandy shale and dark-gray or greenish clay shale, but especially toward the south it contains much thin-bedded sandstone and there is at least one persistent coal bed. The sandy shale and sandstone occur chiefly in the upper part of the formation, above the coal bed mentioned. Where the sandstone above the coal becomes prominent it is differentiated under the name Cottage Grove sandstone member. The lower part of the Chanute shale is predominantly clayey but sandy shale and sandstone. is found here also and locally there is very calcareous shale containing limestone nodules. A widespread deposit of maroon shale, 1 to 5 feet thick, averaging about 2 feet, occurs in northeastern Kansas and northwestern Missouri near the base of the Chanute. A coal bed, called the Thayer coal, extends almost uninterruptedly from the vicinity of Kansas City to Oklahoma. In the north it ranges in thickness from less than an inch to 3 or 4 inches and in some sections occurs very near the top of the formation. Farther south the coal is found at an increasing distance below the top of the Chanute up to 50 feet or more. The coal has a maximum thickness of about 2.5 feet and has been mined near Thayer and in the neighborhood of Independence. Marine fossils are not common in most parts of the Chanute shale but they occur in places. A fairly well preserved assemblage of land plants has been collected from the Chanute shale near Thayer.
The thickness of the Chanute shale ranges from about 10 feet at some places near Kansas City to 100 feet or more in southern Kansas. The average thickness in northeastern Kansas is about 25 feet and the thickness increases rather uniformly southward.
The Chanute is correlated with beds in the lower part of the Ochelata formation of northern Oklahoma.
CHANUTE SHALE
COTTAGE GROVE SANDSTONE MEMBER, Newell, 1932
1932, *Cottage Grove sandstone, NEWELL, N. D., Mss., cited by Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann, Field Conf., p. 92. (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 49.
Type locality, Cottage Grove Township, in Allen County, Kansas.
The Cottage Grove sandstone member of the Chanute shale constitutes about the upper half or more of the formation in much of southeastern Kansas. The sandstone is yellowish-brown or tan and includes both thin-bedded and massive sandstone. Some parts of the member are soft and friable. Others consist of tightly cemented rock that resists weathering. According to reconnaissance studies it appears that the Cottage Grove sandstone is represented in northern Oklahoma by one of the prominent escarpment-forming sandstones west of the Hogshooter outcrop. The thickness of the Cottage Grove sandstone ranges from 2 or 3 feet in the northern-most area where it is differentiated to about 50 feet in southern Kansas.
IOLA LIMESTONE, Haworth and Kirk, 1894
1894, *Iola limestone, HAWORTH, E., AND KIRK, M. Z., Kan. Univ. Quart., vol. 2, pp. 109, 116, 119. The limestone underlying the town of Iola, Kan. *Iola limestone 1895, HAWORTH, E., Kan. Univ. Quart., vol. 3, p. 276. *Iola limestone 1895, HAWORTH, E., Am. Jour. Sci., (3), vol. 1, p. 459. *Iola limestone 1896, HAWORTH, E., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, p. 132, also pp. 47, 132, 158, 160. *Iola limestone 1896, KIRK, M. Z., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, p. 77. *Iola limestone 1896, BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, p. 97. *Iola limestone 1903. ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 211, p. 40. Formation "generally correctly correlated." Occurs between "Vilas [Chanute] shale" below and "Lane [Lane-Bonner Springs] shale" above. *Iola limestone 1904, ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 238, p. 19. *Iola limestone 1906, SCHRADER, F. C., AND HAWORTH, E., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 296, p. 14. Limestone 2 to 3 feet in Independence quadrangle below the †Concreto [Lane] shale and above the Chanute shale. Classed as a member of the tWilson formation. *Iola limestone 1908, SCHRADER, F. C., U. S. Geol. Survey, Geol. Atlas, Folio 159, p. 3. Same as Schrader and Haworth, 1906. *Iola limestone 1908, HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 9, p. 98. Describe type outcrops at Iola and erroneously refer to a 30-foot limestone [Argentine] in the bluffs of Kansas City as equivalent to the Iola. *Iola limestone 1917, MOORE, R. C., AND HAYNES, W. P., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 3, p. 98. Class the Iola as uppermost member of the Kansas City formation. *Iola limestone 1920, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 6, pt. 2, p. 37. Same as Moore and Haynes, 1917. *Iola limestone 1932, NEWELL, N. D., Mss., cited by Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 92. Notes that the so-called Iola limestone at Kansas City is a younger formation than the type Iola, and proposes the new term, Argentine limestone, for it. States that the Iola is represented at Kansas City by the Raytown limestone and an underlying thin limestone. *Iola limestone (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., AND JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, pp. 51, 175
1896, Not Iola limestone, ADAMS, G. I., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, pp. 24, 25. Erroneously classes as Iola the limestone capping Table Mound, 6 miles northwest of Independence. This is Stanton limestone. Not Iola limestone 1915, HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, pp. 28, 119. Accept Haworth and Bennett's correlation of the Iola limestone with Broadhead's No. 98 [Argentine limestone] at Kansas City, where it is prominent "Crusher ledge" capping bluffs. The "Iola" is classed as uppermost member of the Kansas City formation. Not Iola limestone 1933, BARTLE, G. G., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, 57th Bien. Rept., App, 3, p. 24. Same as Hinds and Greene.
1915, Chanute shale (part), HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C., op. cit. The Iola limestone at Kansas City and elsewhere in Missouri is included in the so-called Chanute shale. Chanute shale (part) 1933, BARTLE, G. G., op. cit.
Type locality, Iola, Kan. Well exposed at the cement plant quarry, NE sec. 2, T. 25 S., R. 18 E.
The Iola limestone is a prominent light-gray limestone about 30 feet thick at Iola where it is extensively quarried. Beneath this limestone is the Chanute shale and above it at Iola is the LaneBonner Springs shale which is formed by the coalescence of the Lane and Bonner Springs shales of northeastern Kansas. At Kansas City and neighboring territory the limestone that has long been identified as Iola is now known to be an entirely different formation that belongs above the Lane shale.. The main part of the true Iola is represented in northeastern Kansas and northwestern Missouri by the limestone called Raytown which has previously been classed as a subdivision of the Chanute shale.
At the type locality, the Iola limestone is composed chiefly of light bluish-gray, irregularly thin-bedded fine-grained limestone that contains numerous thin veinlets of calcite. In fresh exposures the rock appears massive, but where weathered the bedding is distinct. The basal part of the limestone, 1.5 to 2 feet, appears slightly more bluish and more massive than the higher part of the formation from which it is separated by a few inches of shale, but study of the section at Iola would hardly lead one to notice this unless he had followed the outcrop of the formation for many miles northeastward. Between Iola and Kansas City the lowermost bed of the Iola becomes increasingly distinct as a unit and is identifiable as a typical "middle limestone" member of the sedimentary cycle. The shale above this limestone persistently carries small phosphatic nodules which aid in identifying the horizon, and part of the shale becomes black and fissile, as may be expected of the shale next above a "middle limestone." As has been stated, the main body of the Iola is traced into the Raytown limestone at Kansas City. Three members are accordingly recognized in the Iola formation, the Paola limestone member below, the Muncie Creek shale member in the middle, and the Raytown limestone member above.
The Iola limestone is known to extend northeastward to southcentral Iowa and northward to the Platte Valley in Nebraska, in both of which regions the Paola and Muncie Creek members are found to be strongly defined and somewhat more persistent than the Raytown member. In southern Kansas the Iola becomes very thin and appears locally to be absent. The limestone is not found along the state line either in Kansas or Oklahoma, but it is thought to be represented by the Dewey limestone a little farther south. The thickness of the Iola ranges from a feather edge to a maximum of about 30 feet, near Iola. The average thickness of the formation in northeastern Kansas is about 7.5 feet.
IOLA LIMESTONE
PAOLA LIMESTONE MEMBER, Newell, 1932
1932, *Paola limestone, NEWELL, N. D., Mss., cited by Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 92. Name applied to blocky, dense, blue limestone, 1 to 2 feet thick, classed as the basal member of the Iola formation. *Paola limestone (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 52.
Type locality, north edge of Paola, Kan.
The Paola limestone member lies at the base of the Iola formation. It consists of fine-grained, dense, hard limestone that in part is like lithographic stone in texture. The rock is brittle and breaks with a subconchoidal fracture. It occurs as a single massive bed, one to two feet thick, and is typically intersected by vertical joints. The color of the fresh rock ranges from dark blue to bluish-gray, and unlike some of the higher beds in the formation which weather creamy or brown, the Paola limestone remains bluish-gray after weathering. The upper surface of the member is slightly hummocky, being marked by irregularly disposed depressions and protuberances. Worm borings, marked by iron-stained unevenly cylindrical rock material that differs slightly from the matrix, extend downward a few inches from the top of the bed. The Paola member is identified near Independence in southern Kansas and is persistent northward as far as the Iola is known.
IOLA LIMESTONE
MUNCIE CREEK SHALE MEMBER, Newell, 1932
1932, *Muncie Creek shale, NEWELL, N. D., Mss., cited by Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 92. Comprises 1 to 3 feet of shale between the Paola limestone below and the Raytown limestone above. *Muncie Creek shale (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 52.
Type locality, Muncie Creek, Wyandotte County, Kansas. Typically exposed in the bluffs between Muncie and City Park, Kansas City, Kan.
The Muncie Creek shale member of the Iola limestone overlies the Paola limestone member and occurs beneath the Raytown limestone member. In the type region just west of Kansas City, Kan., where the shale is excellently exposed for several hundred yards in highway cuts, the lower part of the member is composed of black fissile shale, such as normally overlies the "middle limestones" in the sedimentary cycle. The upper part of the member is gray or buff clay shale containing numerous dark-gray or black phosphatic concretions, one fourth inch to one half inch in diameter. The surface of these concretions weather light-gray or nearly white, but the interior remains dark. Phosphatized specimens of Conularia crustula occur also in this zone. Northward the black shale is very persistent but to the south it becomes thinner and disappears in southern Johnson County. The light-colored shale and the zone of concretions can be traced to Iola. In exposures near Independence the black fissile shale reappears.
The thickness of the Muncie Creek shale ranges from less than one foot to a maximum of about 3 feet. If it were.not for the geographic persistence and significance of this unit in terms of cyclic sedimentation, differentiation of such a thin shale as a distinct member would hardly be justified. Despite its thinness, the Muncie Creek member is by no means the least important element in the Iola formation.
IOLA LIMESTONE
RAYTOWN LIMESTONE MEMBER, Hinds and Greene, 1915
1915, *Raytown limestone, HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 27. Name proposed for a 5-foot limestone in the upper part of the "Chanute shale" at Raytown, Jackson County, Missouri. *Raytown limestone 1932, NEWELL, N. D., Mss., cited by Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 92. Notes that the Raytown bed, instead of being a member of the Chanute shale, is in reality the upper, main part of the Iola limestone. *Raytown limestone (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 52.
Type locality, Raytown, Jackson County, Missouri. Well exposed in railroad cut just west of the town.
The Raytown limestone member of the Iola limestone overlies the Muncie Creek shale. It is clear from the description of Hinds and Greene that the Raytown limestone, as defined by them, does not include the Muncie Creek shale and Paola limestone, and consequently the name is here used in the precise sense of the original definition. The member is found to represent the main part of the Iola limestone, however, rather than a local bed in the Chanute shale.
The Raytown limestone is a dark-gray or buff limestone that in part weathers dark-brown. Presumably due to mottled coloration and to an abundance of large fossil shells that add a light-gray pattern to the weathered rock surface, the Raytown is commonly termed the "calico ledge" by quarrymen at Kansas City. It is also sometimes termed the "large fossil bed" in this region. Near Raytown the member appears very massive or on weathered crops rather even beds a few inches to a foot or more in thickness are evident. Southwestward the limestone becomes gradually thinner bedded, with uneven wavy partings between the layers. The color changes also to a light-gray and weathered outcrops appear light-buff or creamy-white. This is the character of the member at Iola. The Raytown member contains abundant fossils at most places but the composition of the fauna differs somewhat in the south and in the north. At Iola a large variety of brachiopods, bryozoans and, near the top of the member, crinoids has been obtained. Near Kansas City, large productids, especially Linoproductus, Echinoconchus and somewhat smaller Juresania, are very abundant. Neospirifer dunbari is locally common and bryozoans occur in profusion.
The thickness of the Raytown limestone averages about 5 feet near Kansas City. In Miami County, Kansas, it is about 6 feet, but farther south the member gradually thickens to 28 feet near Iola. The Raytown limestone is persistent in northern Missouri and in Iowa, but is locally absent where the underlying Muncie Creek and Paola members are found.
LANE SHALE, Haworth and Kirk, 1895
1895, *Lane shale, HAWORTH, E., AND KIRK, M. Z., Kan. Univ. Quart., vol. 3, p. 277. *Lane shale 1895, HAWORTH, E., Am. Jour. Sci. (3), vol. 50, p. 460. "Passing upwards from the Iola limestone and leaving unnoticed a shale bed 40 to 50 feet thick and a limestone one-fourth as great, we come to the Lane shale, which in many places reaches 150 feet in thickness." *Lane shale 1908, HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 9, p. 100. Used for the shale between Iola and †Allen [in different places Wyandotte and Plattsburg] limestone. "The term Lane shales was applied by Haworth in 1895 to the bed of shales first above the Iola limestone, and is here used with the same significance." *Lane shale 1917, MOORE, R. C., AND HAYNES, W. P., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 3, p. 99. Lane shale classed as a member of the Lansing formation. Includes beds between Iola [Argentine at Kansas City] and Plattsburg limestones. *Lane shale 1920; MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 6, pt. 2, p. 38. Same as Moore and Haynes. *Lane shale 1932, NEWELL, N. D., Mss., cited by Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 92. Notes that the limestone overlying Lane shale at Lane, Franklin County, Kan., is not the Plattsburg formation, but an unnamed limestone for which the name Wyandotte is proposed. It is stated that the shale bed at Kansas City between the Raytown and "Iola" [Argentine] limestones, called upper Chanute by Missouri geologists, is really the Lane shale. *Lane shale (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 55.
1896, Not Lane shale, KIRK, M. Z., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, p. 79. Describes as Lane shale the shale and sandstone between †Carlyle [Stanton] limestone and †Garnett [Oread] limestone west of Neosho Falls. This really includes beds belonging to the Pedee and Douglas groups. Not Lane shale 1896, HAWORTH, E., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, p. 134. Used for shale between †Carlyle [Plattsburg] and †Garnett [Stanton] limestones. Not Lane shale 1915, HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 28. Apply the name to the shale between Iola [Argentine] and Plattsburg limestones. Names the Farley limestone as a member of the "Lane."
1904, †Concreto shale (part), ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 238, p. 20. Applies this name to shale about 75 feet thick above the Iola limestone and below the †Allen [Plattsburg] limestone, near Iola. Type locality is a small town north of Gas (not shown on Iola quadrangle map). †Concreto shale 1906, SCHRADER, F. C., AND HAWORTH, E., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 296, p. 14. Use this term for clay shale about 60 feet thick between the Iola and †Allen [Plattsburg] limestones, in the Independence quadrangle. Classed as a member of the Wilson formation. †Concreto shale 1908, SCHRADER, F. C., U. S. Geol. Survey, Geol. Atlas, Folio 159, p. 3. Same as Schrader and Haworth.
Type locality, Lane, Franklin County, Kansas. Comprises thick shale above flood plain level in river bluffs in S2 sec. 33, T. 18 S., R. 21 E.
The Lane shale includes beds between the top of the Iola limestone and the base of the Wyandotte limestone. It is developed as a distinct unit from the type locality in Franklin County northward, but disappearance of the Wyandotte limestone a short distance south of Lane makes it impossible to recognize the upper boundary of the Lane shale. Accordingly in this region the Lane is combined with overlying shale under the designation Lane-Bonner Springs shale.
Confusion in identification of the Lane shale and consequent misuse of the term in many sections is due to lack of understanding of the adjacent limestones. The Iola limestone which lies next below the Lane at the type locality has been miscorrelated with a higher formation, now called Argentine limestone, at Kansas City and nearby places. Hence the Lane shale was supposed to belong above the Argentine. Field studies have shown also that the limestone next above the Lane shale at Lane is not the †Allen [Plattsburg] as determined by Haworth, but a lower formation that is not present in Allen County. The base of the Plattsburg limestone does not mark the upper boundary of the Lane shale, as inferred by several geologists. The limestone next above the Lane shale is traced into limestone that is called Argentine.
The Lane shale, thus defined, is variable both in lithologic characters and in thickness. At some places the entire unit consists of dark bluish-gray clayey shale. This type of deposit is mostly found where the formation is thin, that is, about 15 to 35 feet in thickness. Locally, as in parts of the Kansas City region, the clay shale contains fairly common marine invertebrates, including remarkably preserved complete crinoid calices with attached arms. Where the Lane shale is thick, that is, 50 to about 110 feet, most of the shale is sandy and micaceous. The color varies from light-gray to yellowish-brown or buff. Thin plates and beds of friable sandstone appear, especially near the top where in many places there is a zone of thin alternating bands of gray sandy shale and yellow brown sandstone. The thick sandy shale contains carbonaceous streaks but coal beds have not been observed. Fossils are mostly lacking, a few plant remains being found at some outcrops.
The Lane shale is rather thin but it is persistent from eastern Miami County, Kansas, northeastward and northward. It has been recognized in northern Missouri, Iowa and in the Platte Valley. section of Nebraska. The thickness of the shale in Johnson and eastern Miami counties, Kansas, ranges from 16 to 40 feet, the average being about 25 feet. In western Miami and eastern Franklin counties the thickness of the Lane increases to about 100 feet and locally measurements up to 110 feet have been made. To the southwest the Lane merges with the overlying Bonner Springs shale to form the Lane-Bonner Springs shale. This combined unit thins southward to about 75 feet near Iola and about 60 feet in southern Kansas. The Lane-Bonner Springs shale is dark bluish or bluish-gray, clayey to fine silty and is used at several places for manufacture of bricks. It is sparsely fossiliferous or barren of fossils as seen in different places.
WYANDOTTE LIMESTONE, Newell, 1932
1866, †Cave limestone, SWALLOW, G. C., Kan. Geol. Survey, Prel. Rept., pp. 20-21, 75. Describes "bluish-gray and brown jointed limestone with marly partings, on Beaver creek, Sugar creek, and at Lecompton, 15 to 30 feet thick," occurring next below t"Stanton limestone series." Field work has shown that excepting at Lecompton, where the beds belong to a very much higher horizon, this is the Wyandotte limestone, occurring first below the type Stanton limestone, which is now called Plattsburg. †Cave limestone 1867, SWALLOW, G. C., Am. Ass'n Adv. Sci., Proc., vol. 15, p. 68. Same.
1895, †Garnett limestone (part), HAWORTH, E., Am. Jour. Sci., (3), vol. 50, p. 460. Includes beds near Lane, Franklin County, now known to belong in the Wyandotte limestone.
1899, †Parkville shale (part), KEYES, C. R., Am. Geologist, vol. 23, p. 305. Includes beds between top of the Iola [Argentine] and base of Plattsburg. †Parkville shale 1900, KEYES, C. R., Ia. Acad. Sci., Proc., vol. 7, p. 87 Same.
1908, Iola limestone, HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol, 9, p. 98. Refers to Frisbie-Argentine portion of Wyandotte limestone at Kansas City. Iola limestone 1915, HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 28. Same.
1908, †Allen limestone, HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 9, p. 100. Refer under this name to outcrops of Wyandotte limestone near Lane, eastern Franklin County.
1915, Lane shale (part), HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol, and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 28. Includes beds between top of "Iola" [Argentine] and base of Plattsburg. The Farley limestone, here defined, and "lower Lane shale" are now included in the Wyandotte limestone.
1932, *Wyandotte limestone, NEWELL, N. D., Mss., cited by Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 92. Includes beds between the Lane shale below and the Bonner Springs shale above. Contains the following members, named in order upward, Frisbie limestone, Quindaro shale, Argentine limestone, Island Creek shale, and Farley limestone. *Wyandotte limestone (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 58.
Type locality, along Kansas river in southern Wyandotte County, Kansas. Typical exposures in quarry of Lone Star Cement Co., at east edge of Bonner Springs.
The Wyandotte limestone comprises the beds between the top of the Lane shale and the base of the Bonner Springs shale. As has been noted in discussing the Lane shale, the limestone that rests on this shale at Lane is not equivalent to the †Allen [Plattsburg] as supposed by Haworth but is traceable into the "Iola" [Frisbie-Argentine] limestone capping the bluffs at Kansas City. This limestone is found to coalesce with beds named Farley by Hinds and Greene, and accordingly the Wyandotte limestone is regarded as including the Farley member. Additional reasons for recognizing the Wyandotte limestone as a distinct formation are the prominence of these beds in northeastern Kansas and northwestern Missouri, the proof that they are separate from the true Iola below and from the Plattsburg above, and the discovery of typical elements of the sedimentary cycle within the Wyandotte that with some variation duplicate development of these elements in the Iola and Plattsburg.
The Wyandotte limestone consists predominantly of light-colored limestone but it contains two shale members of which the upper one locally attains a thickness of 20 feet or more. The lithologic and faunal characters of the formation will be described more fully in paragraphs devoted to the respective members. As a whole, the formation is readily traceable on the basis of physical characters, and stratigraphic position and because of its influence on topography. It is, however, variable in thickness and in the development of its constituent members in different places. The Wyandotte has a thickness of about 40 feet in Wyandotte and Johnson counties, but is somewhat thinner (20 to 25 feet) in most of Miami and Franklin counties. The formation pinches out rather abruptly southwest of Lane and is not recognized farther south. It has been traced far to the north, however, and is identified in sections measured in southwestern Iowa and along the Platte valley in Nebraska.
The Wyandotte limestone contains the following members, named in upward order: Frisbie limestone, Quindaro shale, Argentine limestone, Island Creek shale, and Farley limestone.
WYANDOTTE LIMESTONE
FRISBIE LIMESTONE MEMBER, Newell, 1932
1908, Iola limestone (part), HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J. (See under Wyandotte limestone.)
1932, *Frisbie limestone member, NEWELL, N. D., Mss., cited by Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 92. *Frisbie limestone member (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 59.
Type locality, Frisbie, center N. side sec. 17, T. 12 S., R. 23 E., in northern Johnson County, Kansas.
The Frisbie limestone member of the Wyandotte limestone is the basal subdivision of the formation. It consists of dark-blue or bluegray dense limestone that differs from succeeding beds in its massive character and where typically developed in the presence of vertical joints. The member is not very fossiliferous but commonly shows thin irregular calcite veinlets that appear to be of organic origin. The thickness of the Frisbie limestone ranges from 1 to 3 feet. It corresponds to the "middle" limestones of the Shawnee limestone formations of the Virgil series, and is homologous to the Middle Creek member of the Swope limestone, the Canville member of the Dennis limestone, and the Paola member of the Iola limestone.
WYANDOTTE LIMESTONE
QUINDARO SHALE MEMBER, Newell, 1932
1908, Iola limestone (part), HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J. (See under Wyandotte limestone.)
1932, *Quindaro shale, NEWELL, N. D., Mss., cited by Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 92. *Quindaro shale (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 59.
Type locality. Named from Quindaro township in northeastern Wyandotte County, Kansas. Typically exposed at Boyn's quarry, NW. cor. sec. 30, T. 10 S., R. 25 E., northeast of Welborn, Kan.
The Quindaro shale member of the Wyandotte limestone lies between the Frisbie limestone member below and the Argentine limestone above. Locally this shale is black, fissile and carbonaceous, as is the normal character of shale overlying dense blue "middle" limestones, but in many exposures the Quindaro consists of yellowish calcareous shale. There are a few outcrops in which the Quindaro member is represented by shaly limestone that grades without sharp demarcation into the limestones above and below. The thickness of the Quindaro shale is only 1 to 2 feet.
WYANDOTTE LIMESTONE
ARGENTINE LIMESTONE MEMBER, Newell, 1932
1895, †Garnett limestone (part), HAWORTH, E. (See under Wyandotte limestone.)
1908, †Allen limestone (part), HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J. (See under Wyandotte limestone.)
1908, Iola limestone (part), HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J. (See under Wyandotte limestone.)
1932, *Argentine limestone, NEWELL, N. D., Mss., cited by Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 92. *Argentine limestone (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 60.
Type locality, Argentine station, Kansas City, Kan. Typically exposed in quarry just south of 26th St. and Metropolitan Ave., Kansas City, Kan.
The Argentine limestone member of the Wyandotte limestone overlies the Quindaro shale member and is overlain by the Island Creek shale member, or where this is absent by the Farley limestone member. As previously noted, the Argentine limestone comprises the main part of the so-called "Iola limestone" of previous reports on the geology of the Kansas City district and in northeastern Kansas and Missouri. It is called the "crusher ledge" at Kansas City.
The Argentine limestone is light bluish-gray in color when fresh and weathers creamy-white, light-buff, or in part grayish-white. The bedding is thin and uneven, many of the layers being distinctly nodular. Very thin wavy partings of clay shale occur between many of the beds. The rock is mostly very fine-grained but there is much crystalline calcite in the form of thin irregular veinlets and small cavity fillings. Fossils are numerous in most places, the fauna consisting chiefly of brachiopods and bryozoans. The Argentine limestone is about 30 feet thick at Kansas City and has an average thickness of 20 feet in Johnson and Miami counties. The limestone disappears a short distance south of Lane in eastern Franklin County but is persistent northward in Missouri. It is identified in sections in Iowa and on the Platte in eastern Nebraska. Because of its thickness and resistance to erosion the Argentine makes a well defined escarpment, but where the Island Creek shale is thin the Argentine and Farley limestones together form an escarpment or a bench on the slope below the outcrop of Lansing limestones.
WYANDOTTE LIMESTONE
ISLAND CREEK SHALE MEMBER, Newell, 1932
1899, †Parkvilie shale (part), KEYES, C. R. (See under Wyandotte limestone.) 1915, Lane shale (part), HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C. (See under Wyandotte limestone.)
1932, *Island Creek shale, NEWELL, N. D., Mss., cited by Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 92. *Island Creek shale (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 60.
Type locality, Island Creek, in quarry at NW cor. sec. 11, T. 10 S., R. 23 E., near Wolcott, Wyandotte County, Kansas.
The Island Creek shale member of the Wyandotte limestone lies between the Argentine limestone below and the Farley limestone above. It corresponds to the lower part of the "Lane shale" as described by Hinds and Greene in northwestern Missouri. At the type locality the Island Creek member consists of 43 feet of bluish to greenish clay shale. The thickness of this shale is quite variable, the maximum being about 40 feet and the minimum a feather edge. The shale is fairly uniform in lithologic character and it is mostly unfossiliferous.
WYANDOTTE LIMESTONE
FARLEY LIMESTONE MEMBER, Hinds and Greene, 1915
1899, †Parkville shale (part), KEYES, C. R. (See under Wyandotte limestone.)
1915, *Farley limestone, HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 29. Classed as a member of the Lane shale. *Farley limestone 1932, NEWELL, N. D., Mss., cited by Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 92. Classed as the uppermost member of the Wyandotte limestone. *Farley limestone (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 60.
Type locality, Farley, Platte County, Missouri. Exposures north of bridge just north of center sec. 34, T. 52 N., R. 35 W., Missouri.
The Farley limestone is classed as the uppermost member of the Wyandotte limestone because in parts of Wyandotte, Leavenworth, Johnson and Miami counties, where the Island Creek shale is very thin or absent, the Farley is very closely associated or is in contact with the Argentine limestone. Also, in many places the Farley exhibits the characters of a "super" limestone, including oolitic beds, fragmental, apparently brecciated limestone, and dense blue, massive to flaggy layers. These types of deposits are found in other formations above the normal light-colored, thin, wavy-bedded "upper" limestones. It must be noted, however, that some of the Farley outcrops contain beds that are not readily classifiable as typical "super" lithology. The variety of kinds of limestone and the variation of the member from place to place, on the other hand, do accord with classification of the Farley as a "super" limestone. Near Farley this member is represented by three beds of blue limestone separated by shale, the thickness of all amounting to about 13 feet. Farther south, in the vicinity of Parkville, Mo., and in part of eastern Wyandotte County, Kansas, the Farley is represented by brownish-gray, slightly ferruginous oolite about 8 feet thick. In central and southeastern Johnson County the Farley comprises about 20 feet of light-gray somewhat thinly bedded fragmental limestone. In southwestern Johnson and northwestern Miami counties the Farley cannot be differentiated clearly from the underlying Argentine limestone.
BONNER SPRINGS SHALE, Newell, 1932
1899, †Parkville shale (part), KEYES, C. R. (See under Wyandotte limestone.)
1904, †Concreto shale (part), ADAMS, G. I. (See under Lane shale.)
1915, Lane shale (part), HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C. (See under Wyandotte limestone and Lane shale.)
1932, *Bonner Springs shale, NEWELL, N. D., Mss., cited by Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 93. *Bonner Springs shale 1932, DUNBAR, C. O., AND CONDRA, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 5, p. 17, table C. *Bonner Springs shale 1933, CONDRA, G. E., AND UPP, J. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Paper 4, p. 15. *Bonner Springs shale (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 67.
Type locality, Lone Star Cement Plant quarry, northeast of Bonner Springs, Kan.
The Bonner Springs shale includes strata between the Wyandotte limestone, below, and the Plattsburg limestone above. It corresponds to the upper part of the so-called "Lane shale" of Hinds and Greene in northwestern Missouri. The formation consists of 10 to 25 feet of gray or buff shale, the lower part of which is sandy and in places grades into soft sandstone. The upper part of the shale consists of olive-green clay shale and, near the top, 1.5 feet or less of maroon clay shale which is persistent in Miami and Johnson counties. The maroon shale is commonly overlain by a thin layer of ocher-yellow or greenish calcareous shale or soft nodular limestone. The sandy beds in the lower part of the Bonner Springs shale contain remains of land plants in some places. Locally, as at De Soto and one half mile west of Bonner Springs, the Bonner Springs shale is absent, apparently due to nondeposition or perhaps to erosion preceding deposition of the Plattsburg, for the latter formation with a shell breccia at the base rests directly on the Farley member. of the Wyandotte limestone. The maximum observed thickness of the Bonner Springs shale is about 45 feet, reported by Newell in township 14 south, range 24 east. South of the point in southeastern Franklin County where the Wyandotte limestone disappears, the Bonner Springs shale rests directly on the Lane shale and since it is not practicable to separate the two lithologically similar units, the part of the section between the Iola and Plattsburg limestones may be designated as Lane-Bonner Springs shale.
LANSING GROUP (Hinds, 1912), Moore, 1932
1887, †Dun limestone, HAY, ROBERT, Kan. Acad. Sci., Trans., vol. 10, p. 7. Named from Dun, west of Neodesha, Wilson County, Kansas. Includes Plattsburg, Vilas, and Stanton formations.
1894, †Garnett limestone, HAWORTH, E., AND KIRK, M. Z., Kan. Univ. Quart., vol. 2, p. 110. Comprises formations now designated Plattsburg limestone, Vilas shale and Stanton limestone. †Garnett limestone 1894, HAWORTH, E., Kan. Univ. Quart., vol. 2, pp. 120, 125. †Garnett limestone 1895, HAWORTH, E., Am. Jour. Sci., (3), vol. 50, p. 460. †Garnett limestone 1903, ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 211, p. 41. States that the Garnett limestone is a synonym of †Carlyle and that both are synonymous with Stanton.
1898, †Pottawatomie formation (part), HAWORTH, E. (See under Bronson group.) Includes strata from base of †Erie [Bronson group] limestone to top of †Garnett [Lansing group] limestone.
1899, Plattsburg limestone, KEYES, C. R., Am. Geologist, vol. 23, p. 305. Includes strata now classed as Plattsburg, Vilas and Stanton.
1900, Stanton limestone, KEYES, C. R., Ia. Acad. Sci., Proc., vol. 7, p. 88. Includes strata now classed as Plattsburg, Vilas and Stanton.
1906, †Wilson formation (part), SCHRADER, F. C., AND HAWORTH, E., see under Kansas City group. Includes strata from base of Chanute shale to top of †Piqua [Stanton] limestone.
1912, Lansing formation, HINDS, H., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 2, p. 7. Includes beds from base of Lane [Island Creek-Bonner Springs] shale to top of Stanton limestone. Lansing formation 1915, HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 155. Same. Lansing formation 1917, MOORE, R. C., AND HAYNES, W. P., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 3, p. 99. Same. Lansing formation 1920, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 6, pt. 2, pp. 37-38. Same.
1932, *Lansing group, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 92. Revised to include beds from base of Plattsburg limestone to top of Stanton limestone. *Lansing group (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 70.
Type locality, Lansing, Leavenworth County, Kansas.
The Lansing group; as redefined by me, includes the strata from the base of the Plattsburg limestone to the top of the Stanton limestone. The Vilas shale, which occurs between these limestones, is mostly rather thin, so that the group is a fairly compact segregation of limestones that stand out as a distinct, widely persistent stratigraphic unit. It makes an escarpment that is readily traced across Kansas. Subsurface studies show that the group is recognizable throughout the eastern and central parts of the state where these rocks are buried, but in western Kansas the Lansing is not clearly separable from underlying Kansas City beds.
The reasons for changing the lower boundary of the Lansing group from the position originally designated, at the top of the limestone that is now called Argentine, are (1) observation that this boundary cannot be traced where the Farley limestone coalesces with the Argentine and where, through absence of the Wyandotte limestone, the Bonner Springs shale lies directly on Lane shale, (2) discovery that supposed faunal distinctions, such as the reported occurrence of Enteletes in Lansing, but not in older beds, do not hold, and (3) conclusion that the lithologic grouping as modified is much more natural. Throughout most of eastern Kansas south of the Kansas river the formerly designated boundary between Kansas City and Lansing beds cannot be followed, but the base of the Plattsburg, on the other hand, can be traced easily. Enteletes and other common "Lansing fossils" have been found in the Argentine limestone. In the Kansas City area, where the Argentine and other limestones, here classed as belonging to the Kansas City group, are relatively prominent, there is not so very evident basis for separating the Plattsburg-Stanton beds as a distinct group, but from Miami County southward the Lansing is set well apart from underlying and overlying beds. Finally, if it is agreed that groups are convenient segregations of strata having generally similar lithologic characters and not artificially defined segments of the stratigraphic column with arbitrarily chosen boundaries) it appears that the lower and upper units of a group consisting dominantly of limestone should be limestones. It is not to be supposed that one or other of these units at the bottom and top of the group is a shale.
The thickness of the Lansing group averages about 75 feet, but in parts of southern Kansas it is more than 150 feet.
PLATTSBURG LIMESTONE, Broadhead, 1865
1865, *Plattsburg limestone, BROADHEAD, G. C., St. Louis Acad. Sci., Trans., vol. 2, p. 317. *Plattsburg limestone 1872, BROADHEAD, G. C., Mo. Geol. Survey, Rept., 1872. *Plattsburg limestone 1884, BROADHEAD, G. C., St. Louis Acad. Sci., Trans., vol. 4, p. 482. Notes typical development at Eudora, Kan., of limestone "called Plattsburg limestone" in the Missouri geological report, 1872. "Sixteen feet above this limestone is everywhere found a gray limestone abounding in Syntrilasma, [Enteletes] hemiplicata." *Plattsburg limestone 1895, BROADHEAD, G. C., Mo. Geol. Survey, vol. 8, p. 378. *Plattsburg limestone 1915, HINDS, HENRY, AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p.29. Notes that the Plattsburg (Broadhead's No. 108) is the lower of two closely associated limestones that together equal Haworth's †"Garnett limestone." Statement that the Plattsburg corresponds to Swallow's †"Cave Rock" limestone in Miami County, Kansas, is believed erroneous, for the latter is apparently the Wyandotte limestone. Statement that the upper limestone equals Swallow's Stanton in Miami County, Kansas, is also erroneous, for Swallow's Stanton is really Plattsburg. *Plattsburg limestone 1917, MOORE, R. C., AND HAYNES, W. P., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 3, p. 99. "Plattsburg limestone member" of "Lansing formation" occurs between Lane shale and Vilas shale. *Plattsburg limestone 1920, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 6, pt. 2, p. 38. *Plattsburg limestone 1932, NEWELL, N. D., Mss., cited by Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 93. Designates members of the Plattsburg limestone, in upward order, Merriam limestone, Hickory Creek shale, and Spring Hill limestone. *Plattsburg limestone (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., AND JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, pp. 70, 181.
1865, Stanton limestone, SWALLOW, G. C., Geol. report of Miami County, Kansas, Kan. Geol. Survey, p. 75. Original definition of Stanton limestone, which field work shows to be the same as Broadhead's Plattsburg.
1894, †Carlyle limestone, HAWORTH, E., AND KIRK, M. Z., Kan. Univ. Quart., vol. 2, pp. 109, 119. "North of Iola about 5 miles a new limestone formation occurs at the little station of Carlyle. This is approximately 75 feet vertically above the Iola limestone. . . . The rock is exposed in great abundance by the roadside just north of Carlyle and consists of relatively thin system composed of different layers, the whole aggregating 8 or 10 feet in thickness at this place. The rock is a compact, buff-colored limestone sufficiently sound to be very durable." †Carlyle limestone 1896, KIRK, M. Z., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, p. 78. Limestone 75 to 100 feet above the Iola along Neosho river. Well exposed at Carlyle, 5 miles, north of Iola, where it is 15 to 20 feet thick. Exposed near Neosho Falls. †Carlyle limestone 1898, HAWORTH, E., footnote in paper by ADAMS, G. I., Kan. Univ. Quart., vol. 3, p. 97. States †Carlyle is now known to be lower member of the †Garnett. †Carlyle limestone 1898, HAWORTH, E., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 3, p. 104. Says †Carlyle is known to be a synonym of †Garnett and has to be abandoned. †Carlyle limestone 1903, ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 211, p. 41. States that the †Carlyle limestone is a synonym of Stanton. Field work shows that the †Carlyle limestone at the type locality is an exact equivalent of the Plattsburg limestone. Adams was correct in considering †Carlyle a synonym of Stanton, inasmuch as the type Stanton is shown to be typical Plattsburg limestone.
1898, †Earlton limestone, ADAMS, G. I., Kan. Univ. Quart., vol. 7, p. 96. Designates limestone that makes prominent escarpment west of Earlton and Chanute. It is said to occur between the "Chanute [Lane-Bonner Springs] shale" below and the Vilas shale above. †Earlton limestone 1898, HAWORTH, E., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 3, pp. 51, 103. Included near the top of the †Thayer shale, below the Iola limestone, which is erroneous. †Earlton limestone 1903, ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 211, p. 39. Notes that Haworth and Piatt (Kan. Univ. Quart., vol. 2, p. 115, 1894) described this limestone at Altoona but confused it with the †Erie [Bronson] limestone. Through miscorrelation the †Earlton has commonly been supposed to be older than the Iola limestone but it is actually younger.
1899, Plattsurg limestone (part), KEYES, C. R., Am. Geologist, vol. 23, p. 305. Refers to prominent limestone at Plattsburg, Parkville, and Waldron, Mo., consisting of two principal limestone units separated by a few feet up to 12 feet of shale, total thickness 35 to 40 feet. The upper limestone is gray and especially marked by "Syntrilasma hemiplicata," the lower limestone being buff. It is clear that Keyes uses Plattsburg for beds here called Plattsburg, Vilas, and Stanton.
1904, †Allen limestone, ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 238, p. 20. "In the vicinity of Carlyle this limestone formation has a thickness of about 25 feet. It thins to the south gradually so that it has a thickness of about 10 to 15 feet along the west border of the [Iola] quadrangle. Its outcrops forms a narrow belt west of Neosho river. A number of irregular areas of this formation occur to the east of Neosho river capping hills and mounds." †Allen limestone 1906, SCHRADER, F. C., AND HAWORTH, E., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 296, p. 13. Use †Allen for a limestone 5 to 70 feet thick between the Vilas shale above and the †Concreto shale below. Classed as a member of the †"Wilson formation." †Allen limestone 1908, HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 9, p. 101. Apply the name to the lower member of the †Garnett limestones. †Allen limestone 1908, SCHRADER, F. C., U. S. Geol. Survey, Geol. Atlas, Folio 159, p. 3. Follows the same usage as Schrader and Haworth, 1906.
Type locality, Plattsburg, Clinton County, Missouri, T. 55 N., R. 35 W.
The Plattsburg limestone overlies the Bonner Springs shale and occurs beneath the Vilas shale. It is the lower of the two associated limestone formations that form most of the Lansing group which is separated by thick shale from the next important limestone above and except in part of northeastern Kansas from the next limestone below. Study of Swallow's description of the type locality of the Stanton limestone and field work in this region shows that the formation now recognized as Plattsburg is identical with the original Stanton. The latter term, introduced in the same year as Plattsburg, has come to be applied to the upper limestone formation of the Lansing group and in this sense is well established by usage.
The Plattsburg shows little variation in lithologic and faunal characters and in most exposures it can be recognized without difficulty. The basal limestone, called the Merriam member, is a blocky blue or gray dense rock that is persistent and distinctive. It is characterized by the common occurrence of large Myalina, Osagia and worm borings. A thin shale, the Hickory Creek member, commonly occurs above this lower limestone. The upper limestone, termed the Spring Hill member, comprises the main part of the formation. It is light bluish-gray, fine-grained and occurs in thin or massive beds. In places oolite occurs at the top. Marine fossils, especially the brachiopods Enteletes, Marginifera and Composita, are common in certain zones. A varied sponge fauna occurs in the Plattsburg throughout much of central and southern Kansas.
The thickness of the Plattsburg limestone ranges from less than 5 feet to more than 100 feet, the average being about 20 feet. A noteworthy feature is the considerable variation of thickness in small distances along certain parts of the outcrop. The formation has been traced from northwestern Missouri to a point near the Oklahoma boundary where it disappears, but the formation apparently reappears farther south in Oklahoma, being represented in the upper part of the Ochelata formation west of Ramona and elsewhere.
PLATTSBURG LIMESTONE
MERRIAM LIMESTONE MEMBER, Newell, 1932
1932, *Merriam limestone, NEWELL, N. D., Mss., cited by Moore, R. C., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 93. Name applied to a thin, dense, blue limestone, 1 to 3 feet thick, locally oolitic, the lowermost member of the Plattsburg formation. *Merriam limestone (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 71.
Type locality, village of Merriam, in quarry at NW. cor. sec. 7, T. 12 S., R. 25 E., in northern Johnson County, Kansas.
The Merriam limestone is the lowermost member of the Plattsburg limestone. In many places it contains two distinct divisions, the lower being a blocky, even drab to light-gray layer that weathers gray or white, and the upper consisting of fine-grained, dense, vertically jointed bluish limestone. The lower limestone is highly fossiliferous at many localities. It contains numerous productids and a few other brachiopods, including in some exposures a zone of Composita at the base. The large flat pelecypod, Myalina ampla, is characteristic of the lower Merriam limestone, as is also the alga Osagia which commonly occurs in sufficient abundance to form an appreciable part of the rock. Locally this part of the Merriam member is oolitic. The thickness of the lower Merriam limestone ranges from a few inches to about 5 feet. The upper part of the Merriam is a typical "middle" limestone that in many places very closely resembles the Paola member of the Iola limestone, but on the whole it is slightly lighter in color and less dense. The bed is mostly poor in fossils but the upper part contains numerous irregularly disposed cylindrical tubes that are commonly filled with yellowish-brown ferruginous clay. These tubes are regarded as worm borings. The upper division of the Merriam limestone member is about 1 foot thick.
PLATTSBURG LIMESTONE
HICKORY CREEK SHALE MEMBER; Newell, 1932
1932, *Hickory Creek shale, NEWELL, N. D., Mss., cited by Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Coni., p. 93. Designates shale one half foot to 40 feet thick, locally, between the Merriam and Spring Hill members of the Plattsburg limestone. *Hickory Creek (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 71.
Type locality, Hickory Creek in eastern Franklin County, Kansas. Typically exposed in roadcuts in SE sec. 1, T. 17 S., R. 20 E.
The Hickory Creek shale member of the Plattsburg limestone lies above the Merriam limestone and beneath the Spring Hill limestone. This shale ranges in thickness from less than an inch, in a few places, to a maximum locally of about 40 feet. Where thin the shale contains a black carbonaceous zone, as is characteristic of the shales that overlie "middle" limestones of the limestone formations of the Missouri series and the Shawnee group of the Virgil series. Where the shale is thick, it is gray or yellowish in color and clayey. Fossils are rare or lacking in the Hickory Creek shale member.
PLATTSBURG LIMESTONE
SPRING HILL LIMESTONE MEMBER, Newell, 1932
1932, *Spring Hill limestone, NEWELL, N. D., Mss., cited by Moore, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 93. Employed for the upper, main part of the Plattsburg limestone. *Spring Hill limestone (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 71.
Type locality, Spring Hill, railroad cut near center E. side sec. 14, T. 15 S., R. 23 E., southern Johnson County, Kansas.
The Spring Hill limestone member of the Plattsburg formation is the uppermost division; It consists in the lower part of thin-bedded bluish-gray, fine-grained brittle limestone with numerous Enteletes and Marginifera, and in the upper part of light-gray oolitic limestone, or granular drab-colored somewhat argillaceous limestone that commonly contains much fragmental fossil material. Abundant echinoid spines and numerous specimens of a robust Composita are found in the upper part of the Spring Hill limestone. The lower division of the Spring Hill member has an average thickness of about 5 feet and the upper division about 7 feet. The thin-bedded portion of the Spring Hill limestone corresponds to the "upper limestone" of various other limestone formations in the Mid-Continent Pennsylvanian section, and the oolitic or fragmental portion represents the "super limestone" of these formations.
VILAS SHALE, Adams, 1898
1898, *Vilas shale, ADAMS, G. I., Kan. Univ. Quart., vol. 7, p. 96. Name applied to shale between †Earlton [Plattsburg] limestones and "Iola [Stanton] limestone" west of Chanute. *Vilas shale 1898, HAWORTH, E., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 3, p. 51. Same. *Vilas shale 1903, ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 211, p. 39. "Shale between †Earlton [Plattsburg] limestone below and the "Iola [Stanton] limestone" above." *Vilas shale 1904, ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 238, p. 20. Refers to the shale between the †Allen [Plattsburg] limestone below and †Piqua [Stanton] limestone above. It has a thickness of 75 feet at Vilas, thinning to 20 feet at the north edge of the Iola quadrangle. *Vilas shale 1906, SCHRADER, F. C., AND HAWORTH, E., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 296, p. 13. Same as Adams, 1904, but the Vilas shale is classed as a member of the †Wilson formation. *Vilas shale 1908, SCHRADER, F. C., U. S. Geol. Survey, Geol. Atlas, Folio 159, p. 3. Same as Schrader and Haworth, 1906. *Vilas shale 1908, HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 9, p. 103. Designate the shale between the †Allen [Plattsburg] and Stanton limestones. *Vilas shale 1915, HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 29. Apply the name to the shale between the Plattsburg and Stanton limestones. Classed as a member of the Lansing formation. *Vilas shale 1920, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 6, pt. 2, p. 39. Same. *Vilas shale (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 75.
Type locality, Vilas, Wilson County, Kansas. Typically exposed in sec. 30, T. 27 S., R. 17 E., and surrounding area.
The Vilas shale is the middle formation of the Lansing group, as redefined. It occurs above the Plattsburg limestone and beneath the Stanton limestone. The Vilas shale is gray to buff, clayey and sandy, and is mostly barren of fossils. Near Kansas river a persistent zone of gray hard ripple-marked sandstone occurs near the top or at the middle. Farther south there is locally a considerable thickness of reddish-brown soft sandstone and sandy shale in the Vilas. North of Kansas river the Vilas shale has an average thickness of about 15 feet but to the south the thickness gradually increases to more than 80 feet.
STANTON LIMESTONE (Swallow, 1865), Haworth and Bennett, 1908
1865, Not Stanton limestone, SWALLOW, G. C., Prelim. Rept., Kan. Geol. Survey, p. 75. Swallow's original Stanton limestone refers to what is now called Plattsburg limestone. Not Stanton limestone 1867, SWALLOW, G. C., Am. Ass'n Adv. Sci., Proc., vol. 15, p. 67. Refers to first prominent limestone [Burlingame] below the "Chocolate limestone" [Tarkio] southwest of Topeka. Not Stanton limestone 1898, BEEDE, J. W., Kan. Acad. Sci., Trans., vol. 15, p. 30. Refers to Burlingame and Wakarusa limestone of present classification. Not Stanton limestone 1900, KEYES, C. R., Ia. Acad. Sci., Proc., vol. 7, p. 88. As used in this paper, "Stanton" is equivalent to Lansing as defined in the present report. Not Stanton limestone 1903, ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 211, p. 41. Notes that Stanton is equivalent to †Carlyle [Plattsburg] limestone and also to †Garnett [Plattsburg-Stanton] limestone.
1894, †Ottawa limestone, HAWORTH, E., Kan. Univ. Quart., vol. 2, pp. 121, 122, 125. Notes that the †Garnett limestone [Plattsburg-Stanton] is in bed of the river at Ottawa, Kan., 35 feet below the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. North of the river is another limestone on the east side of the tracks at about the same level as the railroad. This limestone is the Stanton of modern usage. The name Ottawa is preoccupied by Ottawa gneiss, Selwyn, Canadian Geol. Survey, Rept. for 1877-1878, p. 10a, 1879.
1896, †Eudora limestone, BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, p. 113. Equals Stanton limestone of modern usage at Eudora. †Eudora limestone 1896, HAWORTH, E., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, p. 136.
1904, †Piqua limestone, ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 238, p. 20. Consists of thick-bedded limestone 50 feet thick above the Vilas shale, appearing in the northeast corner of Iola quadrangle. †Piqua limestone 1906, SCHRADER, F. C., AND HAWORTH, E., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 296, p. 12. A limestone 1 to 50 feet thick, classed as the uppermost member of the †Wilson formation in the Independence quadrangle. †Piqua limestone 1908, SCHRADER, F. C., U. S. Geol. Survey, Geol. Atlas, Folio 159, p.3. Same.
1908, Stanton limestone, HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J., Kan. Geol. Survey, vol. 9, p. 104. Apply this name to the upper of the two limestones that comprise the old †Garnett limestone. Stanton limestone 1915, HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 29. Classed as uppermost member of the Lansing formation. Stanton limestone 1917, MOORE, R. C., AND HAYNES, W. P., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 3, p, 100. Same. Stanton limestone 1920, MOORE, R. C.; Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 6, pt. 2, p. 39. Same. Stanton limestone (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., AND JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, pp. 76, 183.
Type locality, Stanton, Miami County, Kansas, but name has been shifted by usage to limestone next above that exposed at Swallow's type locality. Typically exposed in road cuts near SE. cor. sec. 3, T. 13 S., R. 21 E., and adjacent area along Captain Creek.
The Stanton limestone is the uppermost formation of the Lansing group. It overlies the Vilas shale and is succeeded conformably by the Weston shale of the Pedee group. The Stanton limestone forms a fairly prominent escarpment that .is traceable from northeastern Kansas to the southern part of the state. The formation contains five members that are designated in upward order, Captain Creek limestone, Eudora shale, Olathe limestone, Victory Junction shale, and Little Kaw limestone. The thickness of the formation ranges from about 20 feet to more than 100 feet. In northeastern Kansas and in Missouri the formation is fairly uniform in character and thickness, but in parts of east-central and southern Kansas there are great local variations. For example, the thickness of the Stanton near Elk City in Montgomery County is about 100 feet, but within 3 miles to the south the thickness of the formation is less than 10 feet. Near the Oklahoma-Kansas boundary it is difficult to trace the Stanton, but south of Bartlesville, Okla., the formation is thick and readily identified.
STANTON LIMESTONE
CAPTAIN CREEK LIMESTONE MEMBER, Newell, 1936
(?) 1915, Meadow Creek limestone, CONDRA, G. E., AND BENGSTON, N. A., Neb. Acad. Sci., Publ., vol. 9, p. 22. Designate 2.5 to 4 feet of dense, massive limestone outcropping in the Platte Valley west of Meadow Sta., Sarpy County, Nebraska, Classed as a member of the Braddyville [Calhoun-Topeka] formation. This limestone is now thought by Condra to be part of the Stanton limestone.
(?) 1927, Meadow limestone, CONDRA, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 1, p. 51. Same as Meadow Creek limestone. Through erroneous correlation classes it as a limestone member of the Calhoun shale. Meadow limestone 1930, CONDRA, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 3, p. 12. Recognizes that the Meadow and associated beds belong in the Lansing rather than the Shawnee group.
1932, *Captain Creek limestone, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 76.
Type locality, exposures on Captain Creek 2 miles east of Eudora, Kan. Roadcut near SE. cor. sec. 3, T. 13 S., R. 21 E.
The Captain Creek limestone is the lowermost member of the Stanton limestone. It is readily identified in most sections by its distinctive lithologic character and by its occurrence beneath black fissile shale of the Eudora member. The limestone of the Captain. Creek member is dark-gray or blue, sugary or dense, brittle and hard. It is massive or even-bedded and in most places shows prominent vertical joints. Beautifully preserved specimens of the brachiopod, Enteletes pugnoides, are abundant in the Captain Creek limestone throughout most of northeastern Kansas, and a robust Triticites neqlectus occurs commonly on bedding planes of the member. At the top of this limestone in some exposures is a peculiarly brecciated siliceous bed a few inches thick that is mottled pink and blue. The thickness of the Captain Creek limestone is 4.5 to 5.5 feet along Kansas River and to the north, but southward, according to measurements by Newell, it increases to more than 10 feet in parts of Miami County and 40 feet northwest of Independence, Kansas. The dense blue limestone is typical of the "middle limestone" members of limestone formations in the Missouri series and of the Shawnee group in the Virgil series, but the siliceous, brecciated, mottled layer at the top is an element foreign to most "middle" members. It is thought to represent the .7 or "super" phase of the sedimentation cycle which is commonly found above the "upper limestone" members and definitely, but less commonly above "lower limestone" members of the limestone formations. If this is correct the occurrence strengthens the conclusion that each limestone formation like the Stanton, Oread, Deer Creek, and others is compounded of two or more sedimentary cycles.
The Captain Creek limestone is identified throughout northern Kansas and northwestern Missouri, and has been recognized by Condra in the section of the Platte Valley in Nebraska. Although the name has been used in a number of different stratigraphic senses, Condra has apparently intended to designate this limestone by the term Meadow limestone. The Captain Creek member is not differentiated definitely in northern Oklahoma.
STANTON LIMESTONE
EUDORA SHALE MEMBER, Condra, 1930
1930, *Eudora shale, CONDRA, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 3, p. 12. Eudora shale (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., AND JEWETT, J. M., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, pp. 76, 183.
Type locality, road-cut exposure near NE. cor. sec. 4, T. 13 S., R. 21 E., Ph miles northeast and 2 miles east of Eudora, Kan.
The Eudora shale member of the Stanton limestone lies between the Captain Creek limestone below and the Olathe limestone above. It is very constant in northeastern Kansas and northwestern Missouri. The lower part consists of black fissile shale or in some places of dark clay shale with a thin carbonaceous layer. The upper part is greenish-gray to bluish-gray in color, and is soft and clayey. The thickness of the member ranges from one or two feet in some northern exposures to 50 feet in part of Montgomery County, Kansas. The average thickness is about 5 feet. Megascopic fossils are rare or absent in the Eudora shale in northeastern Kansas, but are fairly common in southern Kansas.
STANTON LIMESTONE
OLATHE LIMESTONE MEMBER, Newell, 1936
(?) 1930, Stoner limestone, CONURA, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 3, p. 11. Includes †Louisville limestone, †Kiewitz shale, and "DuBois limestone" as previously designated in the Platte Valley section of Nebraska. Named from Stoner farm, northwest of South Bend, Neb. This limestone is thought to be a part of the Stanton limestone of Kansas. Stoner limestone 1932, DUNBAR, C. O., AND CONDRA, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 5, p. 18, table C. Classed as a member of the Stanton limestone.
(1935) 1936, *Olathe limestone, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 76.
Type locality, quarries at west edge of Olathe, in secs. 34 and 35, T. 13 S., R. 23 E., Johnson County, Kansas.
The Olathe limestone member of the Stanton is the thickest limestone subdivision of the formation. It overlies the Eudora shale and occurs beneath the Victory Junction shale. The Olathe limestone is light bluish-gray to nearly white and commonly weathers very light-gray, creamy-white, or huff. The beds are mostly thin and wavy, with thin shaly partings between the layers. The rock is fine-grained, but in places there is much irregularly distributed crystalline calcite. This member is 11 to about 15 feet thick along the Kansas river and in northeastern Kansas but in parts of southern Kansas, where the Stanton attains a thickness of about 100 feet, the member measures about 50 feet. The lithologic character, thin wavy bedding, large relative thickness and stratigraphic position in the formation are all typical of the "upper limestone" members as seen in other Pennsylvanian limestone formations of Kansas, but the Olathe limestone is less fossiliferous on the average than other "upper limestones." To the north it contains abundant Triticites of the T. irregularis type.
Because of its thickness and therefore its greater resistance to erosion, and because of the. occurrence ill. most places of thick, weak shale above the Stanton, the outcrop of the Olathe limestone is marked by a fairly prominent escarpment. The Little Kaw limestone which occurs a little above the Olathe member is thin and is not generally found at the edge of the Stanton escarpment. The Olathe limestone is quarried at many places. It is traced from northwestern Missouri across Kansas, but is not clearly differentiated from other parts of the Stanton formation in southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma.
The term Stoner limestone, introduced by Condra from exposures in the Platte valley of Nebraska, is possibly applicable to the member of the Stanton that is here called the Olathe limestone. That is not certain, however, because it is not possible to trace the Platte beds southward to northeastern Kansas outcrops. There has been much confusion in the classification and correlation of the Platte valley section, and it seems inadvisable, at least on the basis of present knowledge, to introduce in Kansas such terms as Stoner and other Platte valley units that are thought to belong to the Stanton but are not certainly placed.
STANTON LIMESTONE
VICTORY JUNCTION SHALE MEMBER, Newell, 1936
(1) 1927, Rock Lake shale, CONDRA, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 1, p. 59. Shale above the tLouisburg limestone and below the South Bend limestone in the Platte Valley section of Nebraska. Through erroneous correlation classed as a member of the Scranton shale. Rock Lake shale 1930, CONDRA, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 3, p. 27. Regarded as belonging in the Stanton formation. Rock Lake shale 1932, DUNBAR, C. O., AND CONDRA, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 5, p. 18, table C., Same.
(1935) 1936, *Victory Junction shale, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, pt. 1, p. 76.
Type locality, Victory Junction, west edge of Wyandotte County, Kansas. Exposed in road cut on highway near NW. cor. sec. 6, T. 10 S., R. 23 E., just west of Victory Junction.
The Victory Junction shale member of the Stanton limestone occurs next above the Olathe limestone and beneath the Little Kaw limestone. The contact at the base of the shale in many places is irregular, suggesting a possible disconformity. There is commonly a thin layer of greenish or gray clay shale in the lower part of the member, but most of this unit consists of sandy shale or soft reddish-brown or dark-buff sandstone. The sandstone is generally even-bedded or massive. It is distinguished from overlying sandstone of the Stranger formation by the presence of marine fossils, mostly mollusks, in the Victory Junction beds. The thickness of this member ranges from about 1 foot to 15 feet. The Victory Junction shale is possibly the same as that called Rock Lake shale in Nebraska. This shale contains locally a remarkable assemblage of well preserved land plants of "Permian" aspect, including abundant Walchia, mingled with remains of amphibians; fishes, a scorpion and marine invertebrates. [See Moore, R. C., Elias, M. K., and Newell, N. D., A "Permian" flora from Pennsylvanian rocks of Kansas: Jour. Geology, vol. 44, pp. 1-31, 1936.]
STANTON LIMESTONE
LITTLE KAW LIMESTONE MEMBER, Newell, 1936
(?) 1915, South Bend limestone, CONDRA, G. E., AND BENGSTON, N. A., Neb. Acad. Sci., Publ., vol. 9, p. 23. Limestone 8 to 9 feet thick exposed near South Bend and other localities in the Platte Valley, Neb. Classed as a member of the Braddyville [Calhoun-Topeka] formation. South Bend limestone 1927, CONDRA, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 1, p. 58. Through erroneous correlation classed as a member of the Scranton shale. South Bend limestone 1930, CONDRA, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 3, p. 27. Classed as uppermost member of the Stanton limestone. South Bend limestone 1932, DUNBAR, C. O., AND CONDRA, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 5, p. 18, table C. Same.
(1935) 1936, *Little Kaw limestone, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 77. Upper member of Stanton formation.
Type locality, Little Kaw Creek north of Loring, Leavenworth County, Kansas. Typical road-cut exposures just west of Victory Junction, and at Camp Naish, east of Bonner Springs, Kan.; quarry one fourth of a mile west of the S. E. cor. sec. 26, T. 10 S., R. 23 E.; section west of road; south edge of sec. 8, T. 11 S., R. 23 E.
The Little Kaw limestone is classed as the topmost member of the Stanton limestone. It overlies the Victory Junction shale and occurs conformably beneath the Weston shale. Exposures in the area adjacent to the Kansas River and along the Missouri commonly show one or two beds of dark-gray, fine-grained limestone belonging to this member. The lower part is sandy and in places there is a thin bed of buff sandstone and some sandy shale between the limestone beds. Fossils are most abundant where the member is least sandy. The brachiopod Meekella striatocostata and a fusulinid similar to Triticites moorei are the most common fossils. The thickness of the Little Kaw limestone in northeastern Kansas. is rather constantly about 4 to 5 feet. The member is identified at numerous exposures in northwestern Missouri.
A limestone that is possibly equivalent to the Little Kaw member of the Stanton as here described occurs in the Platte Valley section of southeastern Nebraska. This has been called the South Bend limestone and is now classed by Condra as uppermost member of the Stanton. If the Stanton is correctly identified in Nebraska and if the South Bend corresponds to the Little Kaw, the name South Bend has priority but this is not satisfactorily established. The South Bend limestone clearly represents a cycle of sedimentation that is distinct from that which is comprised mainly of the Stoner limestone, for in places there are definitely identifiable "super" beds at the top of the Stoner, the Rock Lake shale contains a red zone which signifies emergence, and the South Bend contains abundant fusulinids. The Little Kaw limestone is similarly set apart from the underlying Olathe limestone and is believed to represent part of a cyclothem that is distinct from the one containing the Olathe member. This conclusion is supported by the local occurrence of a disconformity at the base of the Victory Junction shale, which is followed by conglomerate, sandstone and near Garnett by the rich land plant shale bed which is followed in turn by the Little Kaw limestone. A peculiar weathering of certain massive layers in the South Bend limestone, which gives rise to a strongly concave smooth face, is seen also in some exposures of the Little Kaw limestone.
PEDEE GROUP, Moore, 1932
Douglas group or formation (part), of authors. See under Douglas group.
1932, *Pedee group, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Soc., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field Conf., p. 93. *Pedee group (1935) 1936, NEWELL, N. D., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 21, p. 79.
Type locality, Pedee Branch in vicinity of Weston, Mo.
The strata occurring between the top of the Stanton limestone and the disconformity that defines the top of the Missouri series are included in the Pedee group. These beds were formerly classed as part of the Douglas group but it is clear that they should be differentiated from the rocks that disconformably overlie them. The Pedee beds are designated as a separate group rather than as an addition to the Lansing group because the latter is a well characterized compact stratigraphic unit consisting mainly of limestone and because the conformable upper boundary of the Lansing group, as previously drawn and here accepted, is a more usable stratigraphic datum in mapping and in subsurface studies than the uneven surface of the post-Missouri disconformity.
The Pedee group contains two formations, the Weston shale below, and the Iatan limestone above. It is theoretically possible, or indeed probable, that in some places where the Iatan limestone is present there is a certain thickness of shale above the Iatan that belongs below the post-Missouri disconformity and therefore should be included in the Pedee group. Such conditions may exist along the Missouri river in the vicinity of Iatan and Weston where a part of the poorly bedded sandy and clayey beds between the top of the Iatan limestone and the base of the Sibley coal possibly belong to the Missouri series. Evidence of the exact position of the boundary between the Missouri and Virgil deposits is lacking here, but inasmuch as the thickness of the zone in which the boundary belongs is only 5 to 20 feet, this uncertainty is not of great importance. Observation of somewhat variable lithologic characters in this zone, its irregular local changes in thickness and at least in some places an unevenness at the top of the Iatan limestone indicates that the disconformity may belong mostly at the top of the Iatan. In any case this boundary is practically the most useful, and accordingly the Pedee group is regarded as including no beds higher than the Iatan limestone. The term †Hardesty shale, which in a classification table published in 1932 was applied to strata above the Iatan that were included in the Pedee group, is therefore abandoned [Moore, R. C., and Condra, G. E., Guidebook, Sixth Ann. Field. Conf., Correlation chart, 1932]. The so-called †Hardesty shale was not properly proposed as a stratigraphic unit, being merely indicated in a chart, and therefore it is a nomen nudum that has no standing.
The Pedee group is about 100 feet thick southeast of St. Joseph, Mo., in Buchanan County, but locally, as throughout much of Platte County, Missouri, and in the Kansas River valley, the Pedee beds have been entirely removed by erosion that preceded deposition of the basal Virgil sandstone [Hinds, H., and Greene, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol, and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 174, 1915]. In southern Kansas the Pedee beds appear to have a thickness of about 200 feet in some places, as just west of Caney. The Pedee group is well represented in east central and southeastern Kansas. The lower part of what has been called the †Buxton formation in the Independence quadrangle belongs to the Pedee group, as does also the upper part of the Ochelata formation in northeastern Oklahoma.
WESTON SHALE, Keyes, 1899
1894. †Le Roy shale (part), HAWORTH, E., AND KIRK, M. Z., Kan. Univ. Quart., vol. 2, p. 110. The term Le Roy was applied to beds between the †Carlyle [Plattsburg (and Stanton?)] limestone and †Burlington [Oread] limestone. †Le Roy shale 1903, ADAMS, G. I., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 211, p. 43. †Le Roy shale 1908, HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 9, p. 105. Applies to †Le Roy to shale between Stanton and †Kickapoo Hatan] limestones, but "Kickapoo" as here used also includes Haskell limestone.
1894, Lawrence shale (part), HAWORTH, E., Kan. Univ. Quart., vol. 2, p. 122. Includes beds between †Ottawa [Stanton] and Oread limestone. Lawrence shale 1895, HAWORTH, E., Am. Jour. Sci., (3), vol. 50, p. 460. Includes beds between †Garnett [Plattsburg-Stanton] and Oread limestones. Lawrence shale 1896, HALL, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, p. 102. Same. Lawrence shale 1896, BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, p. 113. Same. Lawrence shale 1896, HAWORTH, E., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 1, p. 136. Same. Lawrence shale 1900, KEYES, C. R., Ia. Acad. Sci., Proc., vol. 7, p. 90. Classifies Weston shale as lowermost member of the Lawrence.
1898, Not †Weston limestone, GALLAHER, J. A., Mo. Geol. Survey, Bien. Rept., p. 52. Not clearly defined. Apparently refers to what is now called Iatan limestone. †Weston limestone 1900, GALLAHER, J. A., Mo. Geol. Survey, vol. 13, p. 206. Same.
1899, *Weston shale, KEYES, C. R., Am. Geologist, vol. 23, p. 300. Applies name to shale between Stanton and Iatan limestones. *Weston shale 1900, KEYES, C. R., Ia. Acad. Sci., Proc., vol. 7, p. 90. *Weston shale 1915, HINDS, H, AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p. 30. Class Weston as member of the Douglas formation. *Weston shale 1917, MOORE, R. C., AND HAYNES, W. P., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 3, p. 101. Same. *Weston shale 1920, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 6, pt. 2, p.40. Same. *Weston shale 1927, CONDRA, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 1, p. 34. Same.
1906, †Buxton formation (part), SCHRADER, F. C., AND HAWORTH, E., U. S. Geol. Survey, Bull. 296, p. 11. The †Buxton formation includes beds from the top of the †Piqua [Stanton] limestone to the base of the †Painterhood [Oread] limestone. Beds in the shale pits near Caney and Fredonia are Weston. †Buxton formation (part) 1908, SCHRADER, F. C., U. S. Geol. Survey, Geol. Atlas, Folio 159, p. 3. Same.
Type locality, Weston, Platte County, Mo.
The Weston shale includes the beds between the top of the Stanton limestone, below, and the base of the Iatan limestone, above. Where the Iatan is absent, the top of the Weston is marked by the dis conformity at the base of the Virgil series. Here the next beds above the Weston may consist of coarse conglomerate, massive or irregularly bedded sandstone, red shale, or sandy yellowish to bluish shale.
The Weston shale is a fairly uniform dark bluish to bluish-gray marine clay shale that in many places is characterized by the occurrence in it of numerous flattish, elliptical ironstone concretions. Fossils are not very numerous in most parts of the shale, but in places there are thin highly fossiliferous limestone beds that can be traced for several miles. No coal beds or sandstones have been observed in the Weston shale of northern Kansas and northwestern Missouri, but toward the south there are some layers of shaly to even-bedded sandstone and much of the shale is silty to fine sandy in texture. The thickness of the Weston shale ranges from a featheredge to a maximum of about 140 feet. On account of the postMissouri erosion the thickness of the Weston in neighboring sections may be very dissimilar.
IATAN LIMESTONE, Keyes, 1899
1894, †Le Roy shale (part), HAWORTH, E. (See under Weston shale.)
1894, Lawrence shale (part), HAWORTH, E. (See under Weston shale.)
1898, †Weston limestone, GALLAHER, J. A., Mo. Geol. Survey, Bien. Rept., p. 52. Evidently refers to what is now called Iatan limestone, but name is not properly defined. †Weston limestone 1900, GALLAHER, J. A., Mo. Geol. Survey, vol. 13, p. 206. Same.
1899, *Iatan limestone, KEYES, C. R., Am. Geologist, vol. 23, p. 300. Applies name to limestone at foot of bluffs near Iatan, Mo. Occurs next above Weston shale. *Iatan limestone 1900, KEYES, C. R., Ia. Acad. Sci., Proc., vol. 7, p. 90. Classes Iatan limestone as middle member of Lawrence shale, with Weston shale below and †Andrews shale above. *Iatan limestone 1915, HINDS, H., AND GREENE, F. C., Mo. Bur. Geol. and Mines, (2), vol. 13, p, 30. Class Iatan as middle member of Douglas formation, with Weston shale below and Lawrence shale above. *Iatan limestone 1917, MOORE, R. C., AND HAYNES, W. P., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 3, p. 101. Same. *Iatan limestone 1920, MOORE, R. C., Kan. Geol. Survey, Bull. 6, pt. 2, p. 41. Same. *Iatan limestone 1927, CONDRA, G. E., Neb. Geol. Survey, (2), Bull. 1, p. 34. Same.
1908, †Kickapoo limestone, HAWORTH, E., AND BENNETT, J., Kan. Univ. Geol. Survey, vol. 9, p. 106. Synonymous with Iatan which has priority. The village of Kickapoo is on the west side of the Missouri, 5 miles south of Iatan.
Type locality, Iatan, Platte County, Mo., about 10 miles west of north from Leavenworth.
The Iatan limestone conformably overlies the Weston shale and is disconformably overlain by shale of the Stranger formation. As previously noted, however, it is possible that in places some of the shale immediately above the Iatan is conformable on the limestone and really belongs to the Pedee group.
The color of most of the Iatan limestone is light bluish-gray or nearly white, both in fresh and weathered exposures, but parts of the formation are mottled with brown after prolonged weathering. The bedding is indistinct and somewhat uneven, so that the rock appears rough and shelly but very massive. Large blocks separated by joint planes tend to break from the outcrop and creep down steep slopes. The texture of the limestone is very fine and dense, but there are very numerous thin, irregular plates of clear calcite that weather in relief or are differentially etched by weathering. Some of these calcite plates are apparently shell fragments, seen in section, but most of them are too large and irregular in form to be explained in this manner. Nevertheless, they are probably organic, possibly algal, in origin. Numerous nodular fragments of dense limestone are thought to be algal deposits. Brachiopods, bryozoans, crinoid stem fragments and locally small corals are the most common fossils, but in most places fossil remains are not abundant. Fusulinids are numerous at the top of the formation between Weston and Iatan and in the lower half of the Iatan outcrops at St. Joseph. At the latter place the upper bed of the Iatan is a typical "super" limestone, containing Derbya and mollusks and crowded with large Osagia.
The thickness of the Iatan ranges from less than 5 feet to about 22 feet, the maximum being observed a short distance south of Iatan. The formation is extensive in northeastern Kansas and northwestern Missouri, north of Leavenworth, and has been identified along the Platte Valley in Nebraska. It is cut out by the postMissouri disconformity near Leavenworth and southward at least to the vicinity of Baldwin. The limestone that has been called Iatan in country farther south appears to be the Haskell, but it is possible that outcrops representing the true Iatan occur. A limestone that belongs beneath the post-Missouri disconformity and above the Stanton limestone is observed near Caney in southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma.
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Kansas Geological Survey, Geology
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