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Atoka and Pushmataha Counties lie along the westernmost exposure of the Ouachita facies in southeast Oklahoma. Eight gas wells have been completed in this isolated exploration area, and six exploratory tests are in the drilling or completion stage. Seven of the completed wells are productive from the Mississippian Stanley sands, and produce at low daily rates. In mid-summer of 1980, a gas well was completed from the Arkansas Novaculite of Early Mississippian-Devonian-Silurian age, and from the Bigfork Chert of Ordovician age. Although a production history is not available on this well, an extensive lease play has resulted, and increased exploratory drilling has begun. The Novaculite-Bigfork production appears to be primarily fracture controlled, but will deliver gas at commercial rate . Only five tests in this general area were ever drilled deep enough to penetrate the Novaculite and/or Bigfork in the past, with three reporting commercial flows of gas, but owing to being in an isolated area with no gas pipeline, exploration has at a lull since the late 1950s. With the new drilling technology known today, the greatly improved stimulation methods, and adequate gas market conditions, this area will provide new exploratory targets in the 1980s

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