The Geology of Wilson's Creek National Battlefield, Missouri

Wilson's Creek National Battlefield lies about 16 km (10 mi) southwest of Springfield, in Christian and Greene Counties in southwestern Missouri. Beneath its fields is a landscape built entirely of limestone. This summary draws on the National Park Service's Geodiversity Atlas, which gathers what the NPS Geologic Resources Inventory knows about each park's rocks, sediments, landforms, fossils, soils and the processes that shape them.

The battlefield

First authorized as Wilson's Creek Battlefield National Park, the site was renamed and redesignated as a national battlefield on December 16, 1970. It covers nearly 958 hectares (2,368 acres) and commemorates the Battle of Wilson's Creek, fought on August 10, 1861 — the second major battle of the Civil War and the first major battle west of the Mississippi River. It ended in a Confederate victory and showed that the Union would badly need reinforcements to hold Missouri.

The park preserves the original battleground, a 7.9-km (4.9-mi) historical tour road, the restored 1852 Ray House, Bloody Hill, and the Trans-Mississippi museum and library, with one of the finest collections of Civil War–era objects in the Trans-Mississippi West.

A battle reenactment at Wilson's Creek. Image from the National Park Service's page.

What lies underneath

The battlefield sits in the Springfield Plateau section of the Ozark Plateau, a region underlain mostly by Mississippian and Pennsylvanian sedimentary rocks. The park's own geology is entirely Mississippian carbonate rock:

• Keokuk and Burlington Limestones, mapped together, form most of the bedrock.
• The Elsey Formation, also limestone, is mapped along Wilsons Creek, Schuyler Creek and Terrell Creek.
• The Reeds Spring Formation, the oldest rock in the park, appears at its southern tip near the mouth of Terrell Creek.

A major structural feature, the northwest–southeast Sac River–Battlefield Fault, runs beneath the park's northeastern boundary.

The battlefield is part of the Ouachita and Ozark Plateaus Physiographic Province and shares its geologic history and characteristic formations with a much larger region. A Soil Resources Inventory has been completed for the park and is available through the NPS DataStore.

The John Ray House. Image from the National Park Service's page.

Sources

• National Park Service, "NPS Geodiversity Atlas—Wilson's Creek National Battlefield, Missouri": https://www.nps.gov/articles/nps-geodiversity-atlas-wilson-s-creek-national-battlefield-missouri.htm