STRATIGRAPHIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SHORT CREEK OOLITE IN THE LOWER MISSISSIPPIAN SUCCESSION OF NORTHERN ARKANSAS

The Short Creek Oolite, was named by Smith and Siebenthal (1907) from exposures along Short Creek in Cherokee County, Kansas, just west of Joplin, Missouri, as a member of the Lower Mississippian Boone Formation. Subsequent regional field work has identified the presumed regional development of this oolite throughout a number of equivalent sections in Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Arkansas suggesting lateral persistency and a blanket geometry. The Short Creek in the type region was reported by Spreng (1961) to be nucleated on quartz grains, some doubly terminated. Biostratigraphic study of Short Creek articulate brachiopods and conodonts has assigned the oolite to either the top of Osagean, or base of the Meramecan Series, although assignments in both cases do not necessarily reflect direct evidence. Nevertheless, the Short Creek is regarded generally as succeeding the Keokuk Limestone unconformably, and equivalent to the Meramecan Warsaw Formation. Although somewhat arbitrary, its base has been accepted generally as the base of the Meramecan Series, particularly in the Tri-State area, Missouri, Oklahoma and Kansas.

Although the Short Creek Oolite, as a member of the Boone Limestone, has been reported in a number of localities from northern Arkansas, most exposures of the upper Boone, including many new roadcuts, do not contain an oolite. Where seen, the Short Creek interval is massive, unbedded, and exhibits no grading or sorting, suggesting deposition as a grain-flow deposit rather than a shoal environment. If the ooliths exhibit a nucleus, they are consistently crinozoan detritus. Age of this portion of the Arkansas section is equivocal, but available conodont biostratigraphic evidence suggests that the interval is entirely Osagean (Thompson and Fellows, 1970).