Fusulinacean biostratigraphy of the Virgilian Stage (Upper Pennsylvanian) in Kansas

Fusulinacean foraminifera have been described from several localities and horizons within the Upper Pennsylvanian and Lower Permian of the North American midcontinent (Beede, 1916; Dunbar and Condra, 1927; Skinner, 1931; Newell, 1934; Newell and Keroher, 1937; Merchant and Keroher, 1939; Dunbar and Henbest, 1942; Burma, 1942; Thompson, 1954, 1957; Thompson et al., 1956; Douglass, 1962; King, 1988; Sanderson and Verville, 1988), but surprisingly, a comprehensive account of fusulinacean biostratigraphy of the stratotype of the Upper Pennsylvanian Virgilian Stage has never been published. This report summarizes fusulinacean biostratigraphic data from the Virgilian section in the stratotype region of southeastern Kansas. The publication of this dataset is particularly important because of the current efforts to standardize global Pennsylvanian chronostratigraphy (Metcalfe, 1997), and related efforts and debates concerning the definition and correlation of stages in the Upper Pennsylvanian and Lower Permian succession of North America.