The Woodbine Formation (Upper Cretaceous) in northeast Texas is a sequence of terrigenous clastic rocks derived largely from Paleozoic sedimentary and mildly metamorphosed sedimentary rocks exposed in the Ouachita Mountains of southern Oklahoma and Arkansas and deposited in a complex of nearshore environments along the margins of a broadly subsiding basin. On the basis of a regional outcrop and subsurface investigation in which external geometry of framework sands was integrated with observations of lithology, sedimentary structures, fossil occurrence, and bounding relationships, 2 principal depositional systems are recognized in Woodbine rocks--a fluvial system and a highly destructive delta system.

The tributary-channel facies and the highly meandering channel facies, both components of the fluvial system represented by massive sand and gravel bodies of the lower Woodbine (Dexter) lithosome, are dominant north and northeast of a line from Dallas to Tyler. On the south and southwest, the highly destructive delta system is persistent throughout the entire section. The 4 component facies of the delta system includes: progradational distributary-mouth bar facies; coastal-barrier sand facies, developed either lateral to or basinward of the distributary mouth; prodelta mud facies; and embayment-strandplain facies, developed laterally adjacent to principal deltaic facies.

Following or near the end of deposition of Woodbine rocks and before their transgression by Eagle Ford Shale, emergence of the Sabine uplift resulted in erosion of Woodbine material and its redeposition along the margins of the uplift in a lithosome designated the "Harris Sand."

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