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South-Central Section - 43rd Annual Meeting (16-17 March 2009)

Paper No. 1
Presentation Time: 1:30 PM

THE EAGLES BLUFF SHALE: A NEW UPPER DEVONIAN BLACK SHALE FORMATION IN THE OZARK UPLIFT OF NORTHEASTERN OKLAHOMA, NORTHWESTERN ARKANSAS, AND SOUTHWESTERN MISSOURI


BOARDMAN II, Darwin R.1, PUCKETTE, James O.1, WATNEY, W. Lynn2, ÇEMEN, Ibrahim3, CRUSE, Anna M.4 and HURST, Daniel D.5, (1)Boone Pickens School of Geology, Oklahoma State University, 105 Noble Research Center, Stillwater, OK 74078, (2)Kansas Geological Survey, Univ of Kansas, 1930 Constant Avenue, Lawrence, KS 66047, (3)Department of Geological Sciences, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, (4)School of Geology, Oklahoma State University, 105 Noble Research Center, Stillwater, OK 74078-3031, (5)El Paso, 9494 Humble Westfield Road, Humble, TX 77338, Jim.Puckette@okstate.edu

The “Chattanooga Shale,” which crops out in the southwestern Missouri, northwestern Arkansas, and northeastern Oklahoma Ozark Uplift region, represents a high shelf black shale facies that grades into the Woodford Shale and is unrelated to the Chattanooga Shale sensu-stricto of the southern Appalachian Basin. The Ozark units are not physically continuous with those of the Appalachian Basin based on surface as well as subsurface mapping. Additionally, the type region of the Chattanooga Shale contains a subequal amount of Frasnian as well as Famennian Devonian strata contrasted to the Ozark “Chattanooga,” which is virtually all Famennian.

We propose the name Eagles Bluff Shale to represent the Ozark Uplift “Chattanooga Shale,” which has also been referred to as the Noel Shale of Missouri and the Eureka Shale of northwestern Arkansas. The previous nomenclature has long been discarded in favor of the Chattanooga Shale. The type section for the proposed Eagles Bluff Shale is along a major roadcut on Highway 10 northeast of Tahlequah, Oklahoma in which both the lower (Ordovician) as well as upper (Carboniferous) contacts are exposed. Additionally, just south of that section a principle reference section occurs at No Head Hollow in roadcuts along the same highway. We also show a cross section from outcrops in northeastern Oklahoma, northwestern Arkansas (Belle Vista), and southwestern Missouri (Jane) as well as subsurface cross sections that demonstrate spectral gamma ray correlation across the Arkoma Basin.

The Eagles Bluff Shale differs from the Woodford Shale in several significant ways. The Eagles Bluff Shale is much thinner (10-20 meters), lacks nonskeletal phosphate, and lacks significant chert beds. A transitional facies occurs in the northeastern Arbuckle Mountains in which the Woodford Shale(80-90 meters) contains non-skeletal phosphate, but contains no radiolarian-bearing cherts.

Session No. 8

T6. Shale Reservoirs—Giant Hydrocarbon Resources for the 21st Century II
Monday, 16 March 2009: 1:30 PM-3:30 PM
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 41, No. 2, p.12
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