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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 67 (1983)

Issue: 3. (March)

First Page: 417

Last Page: 417

Title: Lacustrine and Paludine Facies: Cretaceous Baum Limestone, South-Central Oklahoma: ABSTRACT

Author(s): E'Lesha D. Balkan, R. Douglas Elmore

Article Type: Meeting abstract

Abstract:

The Lower Cretaceous Baum Limestone in the Arbuckle Mountains of south-central Oklahoma was deposited in lacustrine and paludine settings near the Cretaceous shoreline. The unit rests unconformably on folded Pennsylvanian rocks and is overlain by and grades into the Paluxy Formation, a sandstone deposit with numerous Ophiomorpha burrows. The lacustrine lithofacies include the following: (1) massive micrite containing charophyte fragments and ostracodes; (2) intraformational conglomerate composed of rounded micrite clasts in a micritic matrix; (3) rounded peloids and coated peloids; (4) laminated micrite; and (5) conglomerate composed of clasts derived from Paleozoic rocks within a micritic matrix. Disintegration of charophytes that grew in the littoral zone of the lake pr duced the massive micrite. Intraformational conglomerates and peloids represent reworking of massive micrite whereas the other conglomerates represent fluvial influx. The coated peloids and laminated micrite probably formed as a result of algal activity in the shallow margins of the lake.

Features found within the paludine facies include: (1) brecciated micritic limestone that probably formed as a result of shrinking and swelling due to an oscillating phreatic water table; (2) subspherical nodules of micrite (peds) separated by red shale (plasma) that represent pedogenic alteration of exposed lacustrine mud; and (3) subcylindrical columns composed of micritic limestone representing root-casts. These paludine features formed as a result of pedogenic processes in a marsh that rimmed the shallow lake where the lacustrine facies accumulated.

The lacustrine and paludine facies are not grouped into sequences similar to those reported from some modern and ancient lacustrine carbonate deposits, but alternate in an apparently random pattern. Comparison with modern carbonate-dominated lacustrine systems indicates that the facies in the Baum Limestone have no precise counterparts, although they are most similar to facies in temperate-region marl lakes.

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