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Oolitic shoaling of the Salem Limestone on Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri
Eldredge, Mike
Eldredge, Mike
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[Fort Worth, Tex.] : Texas Christian University,
Date
2014
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Abstract
The Salem Limestone in southeastern Missouri is a Middle Mississippian shallowing-upward sequence deposited in the Illinois Basin. Oolitic shoals and other grainstone facies are common throughout the Salem. The high-purity calcium carbonate zones within the Salem Limestone are exploited for lime production by the Lhoist North America in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. Defining the thickness and lateral extents of these shoals, mapping the changes in thickness, and understanding their deposition and diagenesis is accomplished by core drilling, conducting a petrographic study, and compiling the results into a sequence stratigraphic model. Seven cores were drilled on the southwestern area of the Lhoist North America property. The cores were analyzed in 60-cm. intervals by X-ray fluorescence to define zones suitable for mining and lime production, and were examined and described to create a correlation diagram. The correlation diagram shows that in one of the cores the shoaling lithofacies thicken and the non-chemical zones thin. The thickness trends in this and adjacent cores are related to the paleotopography of the shoals, wave and tidal action, and the onlapping of transgressive deposits. Shoaling zones were investigated for evidence of wave ravinement that could have eroded way this zone. As an alternate hypothesis the shoals, if either barrier or fringing, could have created a topographic high that would have prevented the deposition of zone 6 in this area. A sequence stratigraphic model that explains the origin and predicts the distribution of oolitic grainstone facies in the Salem Limestone at the LNA quarry at Ste. Genevieve is proposed in this thesis.
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Geological Sciences