Stratigraphy and Structure of a South-Trending Structural High, Northern Arkoma Basin, Arkansas

The Arkoma Basin is a Carboniferous peripheral foreland basin in southeastern Oklahoma and west-central Arkansas. The formation of the Arkoma Basin is a result of a collision between the North American Plate and the Sabine Terrane. To the north of the basin, there is a structural high that extends southward from the Arkoma Shelf into the basin. This structure is in contrast with the prevailing east-trending strike of structures in the northern margin of the basin and is poorly defined. This paper examined the structure of the salient with stratigraphic and structural cross sections. Across the study area, two NS structural cross sections, three EW cross sections and one EW stratigraphic cross sections were constructed. Strata in the cross sections were divided into three intervals: Morrow I, Atoka I and Atoka II. Analysis of the five structural cross sections certified the existence of the structural high and defined the orientation and magnitude of the structural high. Examination of these three intervals in the stratigraphic cross section revealed no stratigraphic variation in thickness, so the structural high existed after middle Atokan time. The Arkoma Basin subsided at sometime after deposition of the Atoka II unit in northwest Arkansas.