BENNISON, ALLAN
Geological
Consultant, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Abstract: Pennsylvanian History of the Chautauqua Arch, Oklahoma and Kansas
The Chautauqua Arch experienced maximum uplift during Late Devonian Acadian movements and again, much later, during ,the Pennsylvanian. The Chautauqua Arch was episodically uplifted and eroded during the Pennsylvanian, a phase commonly omitted on many Pennsylvanian tectonic maps. This arch separates the northern ramp of the Arkoma Basin in southeastern Kansas and closely straddles the northeastern Oklahoma and Kansas border. These later uplifts coincide with tectonic movements of the evolving Ouachita Mountains and Ozark Uplift. Consequently, the Lower to Middle Pennsylvanian sedimentary pile along the Chautauqua Arch is about half the thickness of this interval in the Kansas Cherokee Basin and one fifth or less of a similar chronological interval in the Oklahoma Arkoma Basin.
Numerous Lower Pennsylvanian beds of northeastern
Oklahoma are missing over this arch. Middle Pennsylvanian unconformities
in southern Montgomery and Labette Counties result in complete absence
of the Hepler Sandstone, the Lost Branch Formation, the Canville and Stark
Shale Members of the Dennis
Limestone, the Cherryvale Shale, the Corbin
City Limestone of the Drum Limestone, and the Dewey Limestone. In addition,
much thinning of other stratigraphic units exists over the arch including
the Iola, Plattsburg and Stanton Limestones. In contrast thick silty to
sandy sediments of the Bandera and Chanute Shales were deposited during
brief periods of deltaic accumulation.
The Chautauqua Arch may be considered as a Pennsylvanian forebulge that separates the Arkoma foredeep basin and northward adjoining foreslope from the Cherokee backbulge basin.
AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90921©1999 AAPG Mid-Continent Section Meeting, Wichita, Kansas