Starrs Cave Limestone

Lithostratigraphy: Mammoth Cave Limestone Megagroup >>North Hill Group >>Starrs Cave Limestone
Chronostratigraphy: Paleozoic Erathem >>Mississippian Subsystem >>Kinderhookian Series
Allostratigraphy: Kaskaskia Sequence

Primary source

Willman, H. B., Elwood Atherton, T. C. Buschbach, Charles Collinson, John C. Frye, M. E. Hopkins, Jerry A. Lineback, and Jack A. Simon, 1975, Handbook of Illinois Stratigraphy: Illinois State Geological Survey Bulletin 95, 261 p.

Contributing author(s)

Elwood Atherton, Charles Collinson, and Jerry A. Lineback

Name

Original description

Starrs Cave Limestone (Collinson, in Workman and Gillette, 1956, p. 31).

Derivation

Named for Starrs Cave on the Flint River near Burlington, Iowa.

Other names

History/background

Type section

Type location

The type section of the Starrs Cave Limestone, Starrs Cave on the Flint River near Burlington, Iowa, consists of 2.7-3.5 feet of oolitic, very light gray limestone containing many brachiopods and corals (NW NW 19, 70N-2W). Laudon (1931) referred to this unit as the Schellwienella Zone.

Type author(s)

Type status

Reference section

Reference location

Reference author(s)

Reference status

Stratigraphic relationships

The Starrs Cave Limestone is the uppermost formation in the North Hill Group. It conformably overlies the Prospect Hill Siltstone and is unconformably overlain by the Burlington Limestone.

Extent and thickness

In Illinois the Starrs Cave occurs only in western Hancock County (fig. M-9), where it is 2-12 feet thick but is not exposed.

Fig. M-9 -- Thickness of Chouteau Limestone and areal extent of formations of the North Hill Group (after Buschback, 1952; Workman and Gillete, 1956).

Lithology

The Starrs Cave is a buff to light brownish gray, coarsely oolitic, locally dolomitic limestone.

Core(s)

Photograph(s)

Contacts

Well log characteristics

Fossils

The Starrs Cave has an abundant macrofauna dominated by brachiopds.

Age and correlation

The Starrs Cave is correlated with the Chouteau Limestone (Collinson, 1961).

Environments of deposition

Economic importance

Remarks

References

COLLINSON, CHARLES, 1961, Kinderhookian Series in the Mississippi Valley, in Northeastern Missouri and west-central Illinois: Kansas Geological Society Guidebook, 26th Annual Field Conference, Missouri Geological Survey Report of Investigations 27, p. 100-109; Illinois State Geological Survey Reprint 1961-U.
LAUDON, L. R., 1931, Stratigraphy of the Kinderhook Series of Iowa: Iowa Geological Survey, v. 35, p. 333-451.
WORKMAN, L. E., and TRACEY GILLETTE, 1956, Subsurface stratigraphy of the Kinderhook Series in Illinois: Illinois State Geological Survey Report of Investigations 189, 46 p.

ISGS Codes

Stratigraphic Code	Geo Unit Designation
5450	--