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Womble Shale

Open-knowledge reference entry

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ48971452
Source-derived summary

The Womble Shale is a Middle Ordovician geologic formation in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma. First described in 1892, this unit was not named until 1909 by Albert Homer Purdue in his study of the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas, where he named this unit as part of the upper Ouachita Shale and the Stringtown Shale. In 1918, U.S. Geological Survey geologist, Hugh Dinsmore Miser, replaced Purdue's nomenclature with the Womble Shale. Miser assigned the town of Womble (now called Norman) in Montgomery County, Arkansas as the type locality. As of 2017, a reference section for this unit has yet to be designated.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Womble Shale” is open-knowledge reference entry. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Womble, Shale and Open-knowledge, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1892, 1909, 1918, 2017—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Womble, Shale and Open-knowledge is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “open-knowledge reference entry” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q48971452. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1892, 1909, 1918 and 2017.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Womble Shale”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Womble Shale primary sources, Womble Shale archive and Womble research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Womble Shale”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Womble Shale” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.