Carboniferous Submarine Basin

Coleman Jr., J. L., 2000, Carboniferous Submarine Basin development of the Ouachita mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma, in A. H. Bouma and C. G. Stone, eds., Fine-grained turbidite systems, AAPG Memoir 72/SEPM Special Publication 68, p. 21–32.

Chapter 3
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Carboniferous Submarine Basin Development of the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma
J. L. Coleman, Jr.
BP Amoco Houston,Texas, U.S.A.

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ABSTRACT The Paleozoic stratigraphic succession of the Ouachita Basin is dominated by deepwater siliciclastics, carbonates, and chert. Within the Carboniferous, the Stanley fan complex is a thick shale interval, with upper and lower sandstone sections, that was deposited during an overall sea level highstand. The overlying Jackfork Formation is predominantly a sandstone section,with no shelf equivalent. The Johns Valley Formation, a unit of turbidite sandstone, shales, and unusual boulder beds, overlies the Jackfork. The 6100-m-thick Atoka Formation succeeds the Johns Valley. This thick sandstone and shale interval is divisible into a central basin (or axial) fan complex, a series of slope (or intraslope basin) fans, and thick shelf margin deltaic complex.

INTRODUCTIONThe Carboniferous stratigraphic succession of the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma is a 10,000+-m interval of deepwater siliciclastic and cherty sedimentary rocks deposited during foreland basin subsidence immediately prior to late Carboniferous (late Pennsylvanian) thrust fault and fold deformation of the Ouachita Orogeny. This thick sequence is highly representative of foreland basindeepwater detrital fill. Because sedimentation took place in an evolving structural basin and as a result of continentcontinent collision in the vicinity of the paleoequator, examination of this succession enables a review of controlling factors in deepwater deposition.

THE OUACHITA BASIN
The Ouachita Basin lies immediately marginal to and south of the generally undeformed Paleozoiccontinental shelf of mid-continent United States. It extends from the Black Warrior Basin of Mississippi
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on the east to the Ardmore-Anadarko Basin of Oklahoma on the southwest (Figure 1). Its true southern extent is unknown; however, post-Ouachita orogenic, Paleozoic-age sedimentary rocks are known from the subsurface of northwestern Louisiana and eastern Texas (Nicholas and Waddell, 1989). LateCambrian to Carboniferous deepwater sedimentary rocks dominate the Ouachita Basin. Volumetrically, siliciclastics of the Carboniferous Stanley, Jackfork, John Valley, and Atoka Formations make up more than 80% of this interval (Roberts, 1982). Welldocumented shelf biostratigraphic and paleoenvironmental indicators help constrain age and depositional environment interpretations of the basinalsedimentary rocks (e.g., Gordon, 1970; Lane and Straka, 1974; Sutherland and Manger, 1977; Gordon and Stone, 1977; Sutherland and Manger, 1979; Groves, 1983; Miller et al., 1989). Prior to thrusting, uplift, and erosion, cumulative stratigraphic thicknesses of deepwater sedimentary rocks in the Ouachita Basin probably exceeded 17,000 m (Roberts, 1982). Of this, as much as 14,250 m have been attributed tothe Carboniferous section (Arbenz, 1989).

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Coleman

Figure 1—Location map of study area, showing Ouachita orogenic trend, adjacent foreland basins, and associated basement uplifts.

The deepwater Ouachita Basin formed during the middle(?) Cambrian as southern North America and an as-yet unidentified continental mass rifted apart. This block retreated only partially from North America,leaving an intervening deepwater basin, but was still capable of providing a southern sediment source for the Ouachita Basin deepwater Paleozoic strata. During the Paleozoic an extensive carbonate bank developed on the southern margin of North America, with minor punctuations of siliciclastic sedimentation from the interior of North America. For most of its duration, the Ouachita Basin was...