Lithostratigraphic Succession and Depositional Dynamics of the Lower Mississippian, Southern Ozarks, Northern Arkansas and Adjacent Areas

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science Volume 70 Article 27 2016 Lithostratigraphic Succession and Depositional Dynamics of the Lower Mississippian, Southern Ozarks, Northern Arkansas and Adjacent Areas F. McFarlin University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/jaas Part of the Stratigraphy Commons Recommended Citation McFarlin, F. (2016) "Lithostratigraphic Succession and Depositional Dynamics of the Lower Mississippian, Southern Ozarks, Northern Arkansas and Adjacent Areas," Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science: Vol. 70 , Article 27. Available at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/jaas/vol70/iss1/27 This article is available for use under the Creative Commons license: Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0). Users are able to read, download, copy, print, distribute, search, link to the full texts of these articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact , . Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science, Vol. 70 [2016], Art. 27 Lithostratigraphic Succession and Depositional Dynamics of the Lower Mississippian, Southern Ozarks, Northern Arkansas and Adjacent Areas F. McFarlin Department of Geosciences, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas Correspondence: Running Title: Lithostratigraphic and Depositional Dynamics of the Lower Mississippian Succession Abstract The Lower Mississippian interval comprises a single, third-order, eustatic cycle subdivided lithostratigraphically into the St. Joe Limestone (Hopkins 1893) and overlying Boone Formation (Branner 1891, Simonds 1891) with type areas in northern Arkansas. Coeval, homotaxial limestones occur in adjacent southwestern Missouri and northeastern Oklahoma, but neither Arkansas name is applied. To eliminate this “state line fault,” Missouri formation names for the St. Joe interval are recognized in Arkansas as members (ascending order): Bachelor, Compton, Northview, Pierson. The Boone interval in Missouri is represented by the (ascending order): Reeds Spring, Elsey, Burlington-Keokuk undifferentiated, but utilization of those names in Arkansas is problematic. Chert development and characteristics associated with the Boone Formation in northern Arkansas have not been applied to the equivalent succession in Missouri. Consequently, in northern Arkansas, the Boone Formation is subdivided into informal lower and upper members based on chert development: lower with black to gray, penecontemporaneous chert; upper with white to light gray, later diagenetic chert. In adjacent northeastern Oklahoma, the nomenclature is a mixture of the Arkansas and Missouri names, but chert development is not used lithostratigraphically. The St. Joe Limestone rests unconformably on the Chattanooga Shale (Upper Devonian-Lower Mississippian) or older units marking the initial transgression of the Kaskaskian II Cycle (Vail et al. 1977). Thin-bedded, St. Joe crinozoan packstones represent bioclastic sediment and carbonate mud transported from its origin on the Burlington Platform (now Missouri), and down the adjacent northern Arkansas ramp in a lobate manner. Distal limestones are condensed and replaced by shale beyond the ramp. A brief drop in sea level represented by the terrigenous Northview Member, was followed by continued transgression through Pierson deposition, reaching maximum flooding without a break in the lower Boone (=Reeds Spring) represented by calcisiltites and penecontemporaneous chert. Highstand and regression are recorded in the upper Boone as rapidly deposited crinoidal packstones and grainstones with later diagenetic chert replacement. Introduction The Lower Mississippian succession is the thickest post-Ordovician, pre-Middle Pennsylvanian interval deposited across the tri-state area of northern Arkansas, southern Missouri, and northeastern Missouri. Lithostratigraphic nomenclature for this predominantly limestone succession has been applied inconsistently, while chert development, typical of the upper portion of the interval, has been ignored for the most part. In Arkansas, the oldest valid names applied to these strata are the St. Joe Limestone (Hopkins 1893) and overlying Boone Formation (Branner 1891, Simonds 1891) with type areas in northern Arkansas. The St. Joe Limestone rests unconformably on the Chattanooga Shale (Upper Devonian-Lower Mississippian) or older units marking initial transgression. The component carbonates were all produced on the Burlington Platform (now mostly Missouri) (Lane, 1978), and transported down the adjacent northern Arkansas ramp in a lobate manner. Initial deposition was condensed, followed by maximum flooding that occurred in the lower Boone Formation followed by highstand and regression recorded in the upper Boone as the rate of deposition increased. Geologic Setting The tri-state region of the southern Ozarks includes portions of northwestern Arkansas, southwestern Missouri, and northeastern Oklahoma exposing Paleozoic strata at the surface. This area includes portions of three broader geologic provinces: the Ozark Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science, Vol. 70, 2016 161 Published by Arkansas Academy of Science, 2016 161 Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science, Vol. 70 [2016], Art. 27 F. McFarlin Dome and Arkoma Basin of northwestern Arkansas, and the Cherokee Platform in northeastern Oklahoma (Fig. 1). The south flank of the Ozark Dome comprises three plateau surfaces: Salem, Springfield and Boston Mountains, capped by Lower Ordovician, Lower Mississippian and Middle Pennsylvanian strata respectively (Fig. 1). The Ozark Dome is a broad, asymmetrical, cratonic uplift cored by Precambrian granite and rhyolite exposed in the St. Francois Mountains region of southeastern Missouri (Fig. 1). The Paleozoic sedimentary record surrounding the core is dominated by thick carbonate intervals with subordinate terrigenous clastics punctuated by unconformities reflecting occasional domal uplifts. The Arkoma Basin forms the southern margin of the Ozark Dome as a foreland basin that formed in response to the Ouachita Orogeny beginning in the Middle Pennsylvanian. The western margin of the Ozark Dome is continuous with the Cherokee Platform in eastern Oklahoma that reflects a cratonic setting with a transgressiveregressive history of deposition by epeiric seas, but preserves little evidence of Ozark Dome diastrophism. Kinderhookian Series, and Kaskaskia II – Osagean through the upper Chesterian Series. Subsequent usage has restricted the Kaskaskia I to the Devonian, and Kaskaskia II to the Mississippian (Vail et al. 1977; Ross and Ross 1987). The maximum flooding events of the first and second (...truncated)