Kevin Shelton

Kevin Shelton
Emeritus Professor
Bio

Dr. Shelton’s recent and ongoing research addresses basic scientific questions regarding transport and deposition of metals in a wide variety of hydrothermal systems.  In many cases, economic geologists perform detailed studies of individual ore deposits and extrapolate their results regionally, without ever looking at the large volumes of unmineralized rocks through which the ore fluids flowed.  To provide a context within which to place studies of individual ore deposits/ore districts, Dr. Shelton and his students use geochemical and stable isotopic tools to

  • define fluid source regions,
  • identify fluid flow pathways,
  • reconstruct fluid-rock reactions along pathways, and
  • determine mechanisms of ore precipitation, with the goal of developing predictive models for ore deposit formation.

Dr. Shelton applies stable isotope geochemistry to a wide variety of problems, many of which involve sedimentology and diagenesis of Paleozoic carbonate rocks. Kevin’s interests are eclectic and over the years have ranged from studies of Cretaceous ammonoids to gold formation in Archean greenstone belts. With the recent arrivals of Jim Schiffbauer and John Huntley at MU, he has rekindled a decades-long fascination with the Upper Cambrian rocks of Missouri. Together they hope to understand the global and local contributions to carbon isotope signals preserved in these rocks in order to determine what effects the processes leading to C isotope variability had on biota.

Research Focus

Economic Geology, Stable Isotope Geochemistry

Dr. Shelton’s recent and ongoing research addresses basic scientific questions regarding transport and deposition of metals in a wide variety of hydrothermal systems.  

Teaching

GEOL 1400 Gems and Gemstones

GEOL 3250 Mineralogy with Laboratory

GEOL 4700/7700 Economic Geology

GEOL 8550 Stable Isotope Geochemistry

 

Selected Publications

In Press

Mohammadi, S.*, Gregg, J.M., Shelton, K.L., Appold, M.S., Puckette, J.O., 2016, Influence of late diagenetic fluids on Mississippian carbonate rocks on the Cherokee – Ozark Platform, NE Oklahoma, NW Arkansas, SW Missouri, and SE Kansas: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Memoir (in press).

Shelton, K.L., Smith A.*, Hill, L.*, and Falck, H., 2016, Ore Petrography, fluid inclusion and stable isotope studies of gold and base-metal sulphide mineralization in a northern portion of the Yellowknife greenstone belt: Northwest Territories Geological Survey Open File Report (in press).

2016

Cavender, B.D.*, Shelton, K.L., Schiffbauer, J.D., 2016, An atypical orebody in the Brushy Creek mine, Viburnum Trend MVT district, Missouri, USA: Early Cu-(Ni-Co)-Zn-rich ores at the Lamotte Sandstone/Bonneterre Dolomite contact: Economic Geology, v. 111, p. 259-269.

Selly, T.L.*, J.W. Huntley, K.L. Shelton, J.D. Schiffbauer. 2016. Ichnofossil record of selective predation by Cambrian trilobites. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 444:28-38.

2015

Gregg, J.M., Gentry, N.E.*, and Shelton, K.L., 2015, Petrology and geochemistry of MVT deposits in the Southwest Davis Zinc Field, Arbuckle Mountains, Oklahoma, U.S.A.:  Journal of the Oklahoma City Geological Society, v. 66, p. 28-41.

Hendry, J.P., Gregg, J.M., Shelton, K.L., Somerville, I.D., and Crowley, S.F., 2015, Origin, characteristics and distribution of fault- and fracture-related dolomitisation: Insights from Lower Carboniferous carbonates, Isle of Man, UK: Sedimentology, v. 62, p. 717-752.