Arbuckles, Oauchitas, and Witchita Mountains

The purpose of this paper is to inform. Most of the paper is cited correctly, though some areas are not. I wrote this paper using between 15-25 books, articles, and guide books. The Information is cited to best of my abilities after going back and rereading my sources for citation. The citations of this paper will be as close and i can. Most of my work for this project was for my learning purpose and i continued that trend into this paper. Be gentle but critical. Thanks.



According to Ham (1969), the geologic history of the Arbuckle mountains is primarily located int he Early Paleozoic carbonates and Late Paleozoic clastics. Partial of these deposits are located on a craton of Precambrian igneous basement.During the late Cambrian the area was beginning to subside into a deep trough where many thousands of feet of Upper Cambrian and Ordovician sediments deposited. Sediments of Silurian, Devonian, and Lower Mississippian rocks filled this trough and contains many unconformities (Pashuck 1972). The Pennsylvanian and Late Mississippian sediments prove the creation of another geosyncline which was primarily filled with clastic sediments. Since the Pennsylvanian and Mississippian time, the area has been weathered and eroded to the environment presently. (Pashuck, 1972)

The generalized stratigraphic column of the arbuckle region is in ascending order. The Timbered hills group consists of the Honey Creek Formation and Regan Formation. (Fredrickson, 1948; Hicks, 1956) The Regan Sandstone is about 350 feet thick and sits on the Colbert Rhyolite Porphyry and shows the basal deposits of a transgressing sea that had moved over the igneous weathered surface, this produced a topographic relief of several hundred feet. The Reagon Sandstone varies in thickness and is Upper Cambrian in age. (Lanier, 1972) The formation grades upward towards a coarse-grained, gray to light-brown sandstone, and the upper part of the formation being a massive, glauconitic, greenish-black sandstone (Hicks, 1956). The contact between the Honey Creek and Reagan is gradational, trilobites are evident in the transition. The Honey Creek Formation is the limestone unit overlying the Reagon Sandstone. The formation is approximate 110 feet thick in the Arbuckles and is late Cambrian in age. (Lanier, 1972) The limestone beds consists of coarsely crystalline, gray to grayish-green, glauconitic limestone, this limestone readily weathers into fragments of calcite crystals. Most of the Arbuckles' Honey Creek is Limestone, although in the Wichita Mountains, sandstone sequences occur int he lower beds where the Reagan Sandstone comes in contact with the Honey Creek Formation. (Lanier, 1972)

The next group is the Arbuckle. The arbuckle group consists mainly of beds of limestone, calcareous shale, sandstone, and some dolomite in the lower part (Easterling 1969). The thickness of the beds range from very thin to massive. Alternating resistant and nonresistant beds, dipping at high angles, account for the characteristic "tombstone topography: of the Arbuckle Mountains. Ham claims that there are numerous fossils to be found at the horizons, consisting of trilobites, brachiopods, mollusks, pelmatozoans, sponges, and graptolites. The depositional environment has been distinquished to that of a rapidly subsiding, shallow water marine environment, as apparent in the relatively low energy environment of micrites to the higher energy environment of intrasparites.

The Simpson group is from the Middle Ordovician. The Simpson strata has been traced to the central interior of states such as Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio. The Simpson group contains Joins, Oil Creek, McLish, Tulip Creek, and Bromide Formations in ascending order. (Harris, 1957) The Joins Formation is 294 feet thick, weathers more easily than the Arbuckle limestone and consists of limestones and shales, with several types of conglomerates. (Harris, 1957) The Oil Creek Formation is 747 feet thick and is divided into basal sandstone and inter-bedded shales and limestones, with some limestones being highly fossiliferous. Oil Creek is one of the major oil producing sandstones in the area. (Cleaver, 1972) The McLish Formation is also a divided formation of 400-foot upper layer of shale with interbedded limestone and 75-foot thick basal sandstone, the limestone is thought to be of shallow water depositional environment due to the numerous worm borings. (Cleaver, 1972) The tulip Formation is divided into a shales upper section of 200 feet and a lower 175-foot thick basal sandstone. There is a brief hiatus between the Tulip Formation and the Bromide Formation that is the most pronounced of all unconformities in the Simpson Group. The Tulip Formation is most well know as divided into the 120-foot thick Pooleville Member of massive limestone with abundant Brachiopods and the 300-foot thick Mountain Lake member that is mainly shale. The underlying Tulip Creek Formation is the disconformable contact with the Bromide Formation. (Cleaver 1972)

The Viola and Sylvan Formations follow varying in the thickness from 500-750 feet. The Viola Formation consisting of and upper light-gray to buff, finely crystalline, thin-bedded limestone and interbedded charts and a lower formation composed of gray, massive, coarsely crystalline limestones (Altenbaumer 1972). Through out the Viola's deposition, the depth of water was decreasing while the depositional energy was increasing, therefore the characteristic upper and lower divisions. The Sylvan Shale is Upper Ordovician in age is and poorly exposed. The thickness in the Arbuckle Mountains vary from 60 to 210 feet, owing the blame to the flowage of the soft shale during later folding. The lower Sylvan is brownish-black, carbonaceous slightly dolomitic shale while the upper i mostly greenish-gray, fine textured, and slightly calcareous (Altenbaumer 1972).

The Hunton Group of the Arbuckles is Silurian to Devonian in age, its limestone is typically a thin formation. The deposition was during a time span when there were two uplifts followed by erosion. The group contains many oolites, nodoles of chert and glauconite, and thin beds of fissile shales (Green 1972).

The Sycamore Limestone and Caney Shale is Mississippian in age. Its consists of slate blue, weathers tan to yellowish brown, hard, silty to sandy limestone with inter beds of calcareous shales ranging from thin partings to lentils up to 30 feet thick, it occurs only in the southwestern portion of the Arbuckles.(Haney 1972)

The Pennsylvanian Conglomerates contain four massive conglomerates that occur int he Arbuckle Mountains. The conglomerates in ascending order are Franks, Deese, Collings ranch, and Vanoss. (Ham 1954) The Hunton Anticline is on the northeast flank of te Arbuckles and was developed in the early Desmoinesian and emerged into late Virgilian. The conglomerate material surrounding the anticline, mostly collected in grabens and synclines, are previously marine deposited areas. During the Desmoinesian time, the Franks conglomerate was deposited into the Franks Graben, located between the Hunton Anticline and the Lawrence Uplift (morgan, 1924). The Franks and Deese Conglomerates were maybe mainly derived from the erosion of the Hunton-Arbuckle formations, both conglomerates being tightly folded, overturned, and faulted in late Pennsylanian. (Sturdivant 1972) the Colling Ranch Conglomerate and Vanoss conglomerates were formed by the time around the Arbuckle orogeny, uplifting material and supplying the deposited materials around the Arbuckles.. the Collings Ranch Conglomerate is boulder conglomerate, mainly composed of upper and middle Arbuckle limestone. While no granitic fragments are found in the Collings Ranch, there is some found in the Vanoss, meaning Vanoss must be younger than Collings Ranch.

The four Pennslvanian can be divided into an older group consisting of Franks and Deese and the younger group consisting of Collings Ranch and Vanoss. (Ham 1954) Each of these divided by composition and conglomerate material. (Figure) pg 35 brown book



The field trip studied the 17,000 square miles of the outcrops of the Wichita Mountains and Arbucle Mountains. Most of the cover of the Arbuckle and Wichita Mountains has a cover of Pennsylvanian and permian sedimentary rocks of generally southward-dipping Cretaceous sediments. (Ham, field book) These sediments are from the Gulf Coastal plain and are generally low dip. Some basement outcrops of the Wichitas cover a 400 square mile area, Arbuckles is lesser around 150 square miles. These basins can probably reach depths of 40,000 feet. One of the field trip's greatest importance was the basement-rock geology of the high-angle reverse faults of the Arbuckle-Wichita Region. Interpretation of intrusive relations and lithologic changes were also well coverd on the field excursion.



The comparison of Rocks between the Wichita Province and Easter Arbuckle Province brings together many similarities with few differences. These comparisons were made by Ham at the first annual meeting of the South-Central Section of the Geological Society of America, Inc.



The granitic rocks of the Wichita province were granites ranging 525 m.y., the feldspar is perthite with plagioclase being less than 5 percent with little or no microcline; the Arbuckle granitic rocks have two feldspar granites, microcline ubiquitous with plgioclase. The Wichita granitic rocks (WGR) contianed micrographic quartz-perthie intergrowths. Riebeckite-aegirite is local in small amounts, the granites are locally cataclastic. Wichita granite rocks are Epizonal, Eastern Arbuckle Granitic Rocks are Mesozonal, the riebeckite-aegirite is unknown, the straining of large quartz grains is moderate to pronounced and have a local slight gneissic structure, cataclastic features, and incipient metamorphism. (Ham, 1967)



The gabbroic rocks of Wichita Province are gabbros, troctolite, and anorthosite; the Diorite which is approx. 535 million years old,contains pyroxene and reddish-brown biotite, with related rocks of large gabbro intrusions. The gabbroic rocks of the Eastern Arbuckle province are unknow, but hey....the diorite, being 1,200 million years old, contains hornblende and olive-green biotite; the Diorite is in granite as dikes and sills and is locally schistose. (Ham, 1967)



Now for the Volcanic rocks of the two provinces. The volcanic rocks of the Witchitas is Carlton Rhyolite group, and the flows of 525 million years are pyroclastic, these are flows and tuffs of Navajoe Mountain Basalt-Spilite group; while the Arbuckles have rare dikes of rhyolite porphyry which resemble Carlton rhyolite, the type of rock is unknown. (Ham, 1967)



The last comparison that Ham mentioned is the Metamorphic rocks. Wichita Metamorphic rocks are Tillman Metasdimentary group and are biotite graywackes, there are hornfels and biotite schists at granite contacts. The Arbuckle metamorphic rock typs are unknown, but there is evidence of Hornblende-biotite schist inclusions in granite. (Ham, 1967)



The precambrian time rocks was hanging out with eastern Arbuckle coarse biotite-plagioclase-microcline granites of 2 ages (1,050 m.y. and 1,350 m.y.) with subsurface hornblend diorite sills (1,200 m.y.) into the older granite. After this came a major unconformity. In the late precambrian or early cambrian the tillman metasedimentary group with low-grade meta-graywacke, argillite, quartzite, and bedded chert in subsurface was very apparent, is probably atleast 15,000 feet.The middle cambrian brought about the Navajoe Mountain basalt-Spilite Group and Raggedy Mountain Gabbro group. These groups were followed by another unconformity. In Late Cambrian the extrusive and metasedimentary carlton rhyolite group was teame up with the Intrusive Wichita Granite group. An unconformity followed this time and late cambrian sediments were deposited over this time. The late cambrian sediments being the Reagan Sandstone, Honey Creek Limestone, and lower part of the Arbuckle group.





The Wichita Formations are composed of igneous rock hills, gabbroic rocks, granites, and rhyolites that are being exhumed from a cover of Permian Red Shales. Rhyloites are widely distributed on the subsurface of southern oklahoma. The Wichitas are the youngest major body of the Noth American Craton. The Wichitas are not structurally part of the cratonic body basement but are part of a thick stratified sequence deposited during the early stages of formation of the Anadarko basin, the deepest geologically, and the most persistant basin of the craton. Rocks of Wichita province are unique in development of North America.



The formation of the Wichtas began around when the land from North Texas to North of present Wichita Mountains, sank forming a basin that filled with the Cambrian Sea Water. The bay that resulted, was filed with mud and sand carried in by numerous rivers and streams. The filler material was later compressed into shale and sandstone by the weight of the overlying sediments. After the deposition of the sediments, hot molten rock at a very great depth below the surface of the Wichita area, which was forced upward intot he overlying sediments, turning the sandstone into "quartzite" by intense heat and pressure. Some of the molten rock poured intot he bay and formed a quickly cooled, slowly forming dark grey to black igneous rock know as gabbroo. There are several outcrops of gabbroo int he Wichita Refuge. Some of the molten rock poored out again onto the surface covering the basalts and gabbros, creating Rhyolite, these rocks are more typically deposited on land rather water, telling us the sea had receided before the deposition. After the formed Rhylotie, the land began to sink from "shifting and settling". The Wichita Mountains were forme about 300 milion years ago during he Pennsylvanian period, the mountains are probably highger than the ones now.The incredible uplift that produced these mountains were simultaneaous with large folds and faults. Erosion has probably stripped off the upper layers during the Permian time and producing the releif we see today in the field along with the deposited material in the flats. Red Soft Shale was one of the types of deposits in the area. Granite is a premier rock of this refuges of gravel. These erosion events were apparent 250 million years ago and ar still alike today, the erosion has slowed due to sediment burial in the moutains. (Fisher 1977; Ham 1962)







The orogenic movements in the Ouachita system, thick sequences of Mississppian (and maybe early Pennsylvanian), show powereful orogenic movements throughout the course of the geosyncline in Mississippian and early Pennsylvanian time. The eastern frontal Ouachita Mountains comprise an east-west trending structural belt about 15 miles wide which is characterized by major thrust faults, narrow, commonly overturned folds and areas of chaotic structure. The fault planes are poorly exposed but generally appear to dip from 45 degrees- 65 degrees to the south and likely decrease in dip somewhat with depth. The region is bordered by moderatly deformed rocks of the Arkansas Valley (Arkoma Basin) on the north and the intensively folded and faulted rocks of the Benton-Broken Bow uplift in the South. Lithic rock units that are exposed int he region are assigned from the Paleozoic Stanley SHale, Jackfork Sandstone, Johns Valley Shale, and Atoka Formation.(Cline and Shelborne, 1959)

Mississippian age Stnaley Shale is typically 10,000 feet in thickness and is a dominant rock unit inthe Oachita Mountains. The regional oucrops compose of a silty, grey-to-black shale, with gray siliceous shale and thin subgreywacke snadstone. These outcrops are just mostly exposed due probably to the overiding thrust plates. The dominant rock exposures in the area is the Jackfork Sandstone. The lower sections not exposed due to faulting. In the West-Polaski County line the lower jackfork sandstone is exposed as light brown, quartzitic sandstone with intervals of grey shale, ranging of 1200 feet in thickness. The middle unit, consisting of silty, micaceous, reddish-grey to gray shale, and containing numerous dense fine-grained discontinuous intervals and masses of quartzitic sandstone; ranging of about 3500 feet in thickness. These exposures of the jackfork usually show well developed cleavage and are intensively folded.The upper jackfork exposures, ranging 2800 feet in thickness, compose of fine-grained, light-gray to grayish brown quartzitic sandstone and gray-black shale. The depositional environments features of this section indicate turbidity currents and mass sediment flow. Paleontologic data indicates that the upper portions of the middle jackfork are Pennsylvanian (Morrowan) (Gordon and Stone). Gordon and Stone also suggest that the lowermost portions of the lower Jackfork are possibly Mississippian (Chesterian).

The Johns Valley Shale and Atoka Formation overlie the Jackfork Sandstone in the frontal Ouachita Mountains. The Johns Valley shale, typically clay shale with small concretions is not present in the area and thought to be because out overriding thrust plates. The Johns Valley Shale is about 1500 feet in thickness in Western Arkansas. The Atoka Formation is divided into three mappable units (lower, middle, and upper). The lower unit is exposed in many outcrops and consists of occasionally massive bedded, silty, micaceous sandstone and silty, black shale in nearly equal proportions. The depositional environments of this formations indicate turbidity current origin. The lower Atoka likely is extreme upper Morrowan.(Cline and Shelborne, 1959, 175-205p)



The Ouachita Montains have a stratigraphy and structural deelopment unlike the Arbuckles. The Ouachitas contain four major lithostratigraphic units, (a) Late Cambrian - early Devonian Marine sediments, mostly carbonates (b) Late Devonian - Mississppian dark shales (c) Pennsylvanian dark shales, sandstones, thin marine limestones and local conglomerates (d) Perminan Red Shales, sandstones, and halite-0gypsum evaporties. The thickest of those Paleozoic units is greatest on the Southern Oklahoma geosyncline and least on the cratonic marine. (Cline and Shelborne, 1959, 175-205p)



The groups of the Oauchitas are in ascending order. The Timbered Hills Group contain exposures of granites, feldspathic and normally glauconitic sequence of Franconian age, craton-wide submergence permitted widespread deposition of Late Cambrian Sandstones(Reagon Sandstone). The Arbuckle group contains no stratigraphic discontinuity, embraces shallow water marine deposition, richly fossiliferous and contain trilobites, brachiopods, mullusks, pelmatozoans, sponges, and towards the top, graptolites. The Arbuckle group consists of interbedded thin carbonate mudstones, interclasts calcarnites, oolitic calcarenites, stromatolites, and laminated dolomites or dolomitic limestone. The craton is similar limestone mostly dolomitized. The simpson group is cleanly washed sand from middle Ordivician in large volumn,greenish grey-shale is present, limestones of skeletal calcarenites or algal-mat carbonates, its upper formation contains well sorted, well rounded and frosted quartz grains, excellent petroleum resevoirs.