Abstract

The Marietta Basin is located in southern Oklahoma, between the Muenster Arch on the southwest and Criner Hills Uplift on the northeast, extending from Love County, Oklahoma, southeastward through Cooke and Grayson counties, Texas, the deepest part being known as the Gordonville Trough.

The folded and faulted buried ridge on which the Southeast Marietta Field is located trends more southward than the present basin axis, dividing the basin. The thickest sections of Atoka and older sediments possibly were deposited north of the ridge.

The Gordonville Trough developed in late Mississippian or early Pennsylvanian times from a gentle downwarp into a deep, relatively narrow trough with steep, often faulted sides. It grew progressively as it received up to 5000 feet or more sediments of Atoka, Morrow, and possibly Springer (Goddard?) age.

The Atoka and Morrow boundaries are indefinite with present knowledge. Some geologists place the top of the Atoka at the base of the Davis Sand (Grayson County). The author has placed the top at an oolictic limestone (Lester?) midway between the Baker and Davis sands. (Westheimer believes the “Micaceous Sand” in the Ardmore Basin Dornick Hills correlates with the micaceous Harthshorne Sandstone of the Arkoma Basin and the David Sand of Grayson County. The sand correlated as Davis or “Micaceous” in the southeast Marietta Field is several hundred feet higher stratigraphically than the Davis Sand of Grayson County.)

A thick section of pre-Atokan appears northward as well as eastward from the mid-basin ridge. This is believed to be mostly Morrowan-Lower Dornick Hills, Springer (Goddard?) and Caney. (The boundaries are indefinite and based on electrical log characteristics, guided by early sample work. Qualified determinations are necessary on later wells.)

Post-Atokan Dornick Hills likewise thickens eastward and northward in Grayson County, conversely thinning and disappearing southwestward against the lower faulted margin of the Muenster Uplift. The same components may be noted in the Des Moines or Strawn (Deesc), although the thickening here may be more related to the development of the present Gordonville Trough by foundering and filling during erosional destruction of the Ouachita Mountains.

More intense folding and thrust faulting, even deep within the basin, badly complicates structures and obscures stratigraphy due to loss of section. This loss of section is not due to non-deposition.