GEOMORPHOLOGY AND SOIL STRATIGRAPHY OF FARRA CANYON, CENTRAL OKLAHOMA

During the Pleistocene epoch in central Oklahoma, tributaries to the Washita and Canadian rivers deeply incised sandstone bedrock to form steep, north-south trending canyons. Findings from an interdisciplinary research project conducted in the 1960s at a Clovis mammoth kill site in one such canyon (Leonhardy 1966) established the promise they hold for reconstructing the terminal Pleistocene and Holocene Southern Rolling Plains environment. Research in other canyons in the region have shown that alluvial fills with multiple buried soils and buried tree stumps dating to the late Pleistocene and mid-late Holocene are frequently contained in the valleys. During summer 2010, the alluvial terraces of Farra Canyon, southern Blaine County, Oklahoma, were mapped for the first time to determine the nature of fill contained in the canyon. Terrace geomorphology resembles descriptions from other canyons in the region (Nials 1977; Lintz & Hall 1983), and the soil stratigraphy exhibits four buried soils, including a basal deposit that could be analogous to the lower Domebo formation (Albritton 1966). Initial results indicate that study of buried soils and stratigraphic units preserved in Farra Canyon holds great promise for reconstructing the late Quaternary paleoenvironment of the Southern Rolling Plains, a region whose paleoclimatic history remains unclear.