Stratigraphy and depositional environments; Krebs Formation in southeastern Kansas

The Krebs Formation (Middle Pennsylvanian-Desmoinesian) forms the lower portion of the Cherokee Group in the Cherokee basin of southeastern Kansas. The Krebs Formation near its outcrop in Cherokee and Crawford Counties consists of 78% shale and mudstone, 18% sandstone and siltstone, 3% coal, and 1 % hmestone, comprising a total thickness of 120 to 220 ft (37 to 67 m). Integration of data from continuous cores, outcrops, and geophysical logs provides a detailed stratigraphic framework and facilitates interpretation of depositional environments. Coal beds and associated seat-rock units, some having an areal extent of several thousand square miles, provide excellent stratigraphic marker beds for correlation of discontinuous reservoir sandstones. Radioactive dark-gray shale units and argillaceous limestone units often overhe coal beds and may be equally widespread. Net-sandstone isoUth maps reveal the presence of a lobate deltaic complex in southwestern Missouri, characterized by both stacking and offset of major sandstone bodies. Coal beds commonly cap upwardcoarsening, mud-dominated sequences consisting of dark-gray shale with occasional argillaceous limestones overlain by lenticular-bedded shale or wavy-bedded siltstones. This vertical transition of lithofacies is interpreted to result from the progradational infilling of large interdistributary bays. Coarsening-upward sandstone sequences-consisting of lenticular-bedded shale grading upward into wavy-bedded siltstone, flaser-bedded sandstone, and rippled or cross-bedded sandstone-represent distributary mouth-bar or crevasse-splay deposits. Finingupward sequences-composed of a basal scour surface overlain by mud-clast conglomerates, large-scale cross-bedded sandstone, and rippled or flaser-bedded sandstone-are interpreted to be channel-fill or point-bar deposits.