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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

Oklahoma City Geological Society

Abstract


The Shale Shaker Digest X, Volumes XXX-XXXII (1979-1982)
Pages 268-285

Deposition of the Bromide Formation, Arbuckle Mountains, Oklahoma: Ontogeny of an Ancient Carbonate Shelf

Mark W. Longman

ABSTRACT

The Middle Ordovican Bromide Formation was deposited in a shallow storm-dominated epeiric sea in the Southern Oklahoma Aulacogen. A low-lying desert bordered much of the aulacogen and provided a source of well-rounded quartz sand. During a period of tectonic stability this sand was worked by wind and waves to all but the deepest parts of the basin and deposited in a variety of shoreface environments that now represent the base of the Bromide Formation.

Eventually, transgression caused by local subsidence drowned the borderlands cutting off the supply of sand, and the shales and limestones of the Middle Bromide (upper Mountain Lake Member) were deposited in transition zone, inner shelf, and shallow basinal environments. These sediments accumulated on a broad ramp, but the ramp gradually evolved into a carbonate shelf with a small echinoderm-dominated shelf-edge buildup.

Following deposition of the shelf-edge buildup, rapid transgression inferred to have been caused by a rise in eustatic sea level cut off the supply of virtually all terrigenous sediments. Subsidence ceased and carbonate-producing organisms flourished. Their remains began filling the basin and the offlapping (regressive) limestone of the upper Bromide (Pooleville Member) was deposited until the entire platform became broad, nearly featureless, hot, semi-arid sabkha.

Study of this relatively simple transgressive-regressive cycle reveals characteristics of deposition late in an aulacogen's history, the stages in the development of a carbonate shelf from a terrigenous ramp, and approximate paleo-water depths present during deposition of the various lithofacies in the Bromide Formation.


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