UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

Harold L. Ickes, Secretary

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 

W. C. Mendenhall, Director

Bulletin 874 B

GEOLOGY AND FUEL RESOURCES

OF THE

SOUTHERN PART OF THE OKLAHOMA 

COAL FIELD

PART 2. THE LEHIGH DISTRICT 

COAL, ATOKA, AND PITTSBURG COUNTIES

BY 

M. M. KNECHTEL

UNITED STATES

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

WASHINGTON : 1937

Forsaleby the Superintendent of Documents, Washington, D. C. -------- Price 20 cents
NOTE

The Geological Survey, in 1930, 1931, 1933, and 1934, conducted an investigation of the geology and coal resources of the portion of the southeastern Oklahoma coal field extending northeastward from Coalga,te to McAlester and 

thence eastward through Wilburton and Howe to the Oklahoma-Arkansas State 

line. The geologists have prepared separate reports on the areas for which 

they were responsible. However, as these areas are adjacent and form a real 

unit both geographically and geologically, the four reports are issued as parts 

of a single bulletin covering this portion of the southeastern Oklahoma coal 

field. No edition of the consolidated volume will be published, but the four 

parts can be bound together if desired, 

ii
CONTENTS

	Paw 

Abstract-----.. _-_-_____-_---_-__-___--_---_--___----_--..- 91

Introduction_________________________-______--_.----__--_-_--_-_ 92

Location_________-_-_____--___-- --_-------_----_--_-------- . 92

Routes of travel-___-_---_________--_------__---_-_----------- 92

Industry .-._..__.____________.__-------- ._-._ 93

Land forms and drainage.-.------------------------------------ 93

Vegetation._______________________-_____---___---_-_-______-- 94

Climate__________.____._______.-__-___-_-___-_--____---_-_- 94

Present investigation.________.._.___-____---___-__---_-__----- 94

Previous publications._____.__________-_______-_-___---_____-_- 95

Stratigraphy....____.._____.___._____._-_---__-_--_-_--_-_-.-_-_-. 96

Exposed rocks_____________--_____--_-_-___-_____-_-__-__--__- 96

Character. ___________________-__---_---_----____-----__-- 96

Carboniferous system..--__-___-__-------_-_-_--__--_-----_ 98

Pennsylvanian series...-------------------------------- 98

Formations of Pottsville age--___-_____-_-_-_-__-.__ 98

Springer formation_____-_-__----_-_-_____-_--. 98

Wapanucka limestone.________________________ 99

Atoka formation.____--___--___-_-_-__________ 100

Formations of Allegheny age.______--_______._-_-__ 101

Hartshorne sandstone.-----------.------------- 102

McAlester shale._-_.-__-_-__--_--_-_-.___--_ 103

Savanna sandstone.-___-_---------_---__--_--- 105

Boggy shale-.-----------------------------.-- 106

Thurman sandstone---_---_-_---_-_---------__ 107

Quaternary (?) system____._____-_-_----__-_-___-_-_---____ 108

Gerty sand (Pleistocene?)..---.------..-.-.----_----- 108

Quaternary system.-_-___-_-_-_-_-_-_--__---_-_---_---_-__ 108

Recent alluvium_______._.___________-________-_-----_ 108

Unexposed rocks._____________________________________________ 108

Cambrian to Carboniferous systems-_____-__-._____--__--.__ 108

Pre-Pennsylvanian rocks.__-_-__-_-_--_---__-__------_- 108

Pennsylvanian rocks._______--__-___-___-_____-_-______ 124

Origin of the Pennsylvanian rocks--__-----------_---_-_---_--___ 124

Structure-_______________________________________________________ 126

General features.____-_______-_____-_____-___-_-___________--. 126

Centrahoma dome..___________________----_----_______-__-_-__ 128

Ashland anticline.___________-____---_-_----_-_-_-_-___.__-_-- 128

Savanna anticline_-__-_-_-____-____-_-------_-__-----_____-___ 129

Coalgate anticline.._____-__________-_-_--____-_-___-__-_______ 129

Hunton anticline.._________________-_-_-_-_-_-____-___-__.____ 129

Wardville syncline_______---_-_____-_-___-_-_-________-_-_____ 129

Lehigh syncline.--_-_____-__--__.__---_-_-_____-___-_-_____-_- 130

PhiUips fault.___.._._....__...___.-_._____-.____._._. _._._. 130

Olney and Clarita faults. ______________________________________ 130

Minor faults__-_____________.___.-_--__-___-__-______.__.__. 131

Origin of the faults and folds__.._._______-____-_.___-__________ 131

ill
IV CONTENTS

	Page 

Economic geology.________________________________________________ 134

Coal. __-__-____-__-__-__________________-.-_.-_._____ 134

Occurrence _______________________________________________ 134

Quality...._______.____. ___...____.._______.__._.__.____ 136

Mining.__.___._.._______________________________________ 139

Oil possibilities_______________________________________________ 140

Natural gas__________________________________________________ 144

Index._________________________________________________________ 147

ILLUSTRATIONS

Page 

PLATE 11. Geologic map of the Lehigh district, Coal, Atoka, and Pittsburg Counties, Okla____-___--__--__---_--_----__-_-_Inpocket

FIGURE 6. Diagram showing relation of Lehigh district to six 30-minute

quadrangles in southern Oklahoma ______________________ 95

7. Map showing areal distribution of rock exposures in portions

of Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas.-----_-------__-_--_. 123
GEOLOGY AND FUEL RESOURCES OF THE SOUTHERN PART 

OF THE OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

PART 2. THE LEHIGH DISTRICT, COAL, ATOKA, AND 

PITTSBURG COUNTIES

By M. M. KNECHTEL

ABSTRACT

The rocks exposed in the Lehigh district, in the Arkansas-Oklahoma coal 

basin, aggregate at least 5,000 feet in thickness. All are of Pennsylvanian 

age, except scattered thin Pleistocene (?) and Recent deposits. Rocks of 

Pottsville age crop out extensively in the southwestern part of the district 

and include the Springer formation, Wapanucka limestone, and Atoka formation. The Pottsville rocks are overlain in the northeastern part by formations 

of Allegheny age, including the Hartshorne sandstone, McAlester shale, Savanna 

sandstone, Boggy shale, and Thin-man sandstone. All the Pennsylvania!! formations younger than the Wapanucka limestone are composed chiefly of shale 

containing rather widely spaced beds of sandstone that is generally fine grained 

in the western part of the area but contains varying quantities of chert pebbles 

in the eastern part. The pebbles were apparently derived from a land mass 

that lay to the east or southeast in late Pottsville and Allegheny time, and 

this land mass is believed to have been the source of much of the sediment 

that was deposited in this part of the coal basin in post-Pottsville Pennsylvanian 

time. Two wells within the area mapped have penetrated rocks of Mississippian, Devonian, Silurian, and Ordoviciau age. It is inferred from the records 

of these wells and from the geology of neighboring areas that the Arbuckle 

Mountain sequence of pre-Pennsylvanian rocks underlies the Pennsylvania!! 

formations in all parts of the Lehigh district, though exposures of the dissimilar pre-Pennsylvauian rock sequence of the Ouachita Mountains occur in 

Black Knob Ridge of the Ouachita Mountains, a few nn'les to the east.

The Lehigh district lies in a belt of folded Paleozoic rocks extending from 

the Arbuckle Mountains northeastward adjacent to the northwestern frontal 

margin of the Ouachita Mountains. The structural axes within this belt 

trend northeastward, and the folding is therefore believed to be due to the 

same forces, directed northwestward, that caused extensive overthrustiiig in 

the Ouachita region in late Pennsylvanian time. The effects of forces acting 

from the direction of the Arbuckle Mountains, however, are apparent in the 

southwestern part of the district, where the oldest exposed rocks crop out, 

having been tilted northeastward in Pennsylvania)! time.

Folds related to the northwestward thrusting are the Ashland, Savanna, 

and Coalgate anticlines. The origin of the Centrahorna dome is less clear. 

The structure of the Hunton anticline, which is faulted on both flanks, is 

similar in many respects to that of the other anticlines of the area, which are 

flat-topped and steep-sided. It may be essentially an anticline of their general 

type that has been more deeply eroded than the others.

91
92 SOUTHERN PART OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

An unconformity probably exists at the base of the Hartshorne sandstone, 

and one of less extent has been observed at the base of the Savanna sandstone. 

An unconformity within the Boggy shale has been reported immediately to 

the west but has not been recognized in the Lehigh district.

Two valuable coal beds, the Lower Hartshorne and Lehigh beds, occur in 

the Lehigh district in the Hartshorne sandstone and McAlester shale, respectively. Both beds have been mined, but the Lehigh bed has yielded much more 

coal than the Lower Hartshorne bed. These coal beds are separated by about 

1,200 feet of beds and range in thickness from about 3 feet 4 inches to about 

5 feet. The coal of the Lehigh bed is classified as high-volatile bituminous.

Wells have been drilled for oil and gas in several parts of the district, and 

gas has been struck, but not marketed, in the Ashland, Coalgate, and Centrahoma anticlines. Nearly all the wells penetrate only the Atoka and younger 

formations, reaching depths ranging from 3,300 to 3,380 feet. One dry hole on 

the Coalgate anticline, however, finished in the Atoka beds at a depth of 7,890 

feet, and two dry holes in the western part of the district were completed in 

the Simpson formation (Ordovician) at depths of 5,146 and 7,126 feet. Most 

of the gas that has been found issues from the Hartshorne sandstone, but 

some was found in sandy layers in the McAlester shale and a little in the 

Savanna sandstone. No oil has been discovered to date, but the pre-Pennsylvanian rocks underlying the area have not been adequately tested by the drill.

INTRODUCTION

Location. The area covered by this report (pi. 11, in pocket) comprises about 400 square miles in Atoka, Coal, and Pittsburg Counties, in southeastern Oklahoma. For convenience it is referred to as 

the Lehigh district, from the town of Lehigh, in the southern part of 

the district, which has a population of about 500. The largest town 

in the district is Coalgate, which has a population of about 2,000. 

The district was formerly a part of the Government reservation set 

aside for the Choctaw Nation, one of the Five Civilized Tribes, 

which in 1907 became part of the newly established State of Oklahoma. Interest in the geology of this part of Oklahoma has been 

stimulated by the discovery, in the summer of 1934, of the Fitts oil 

field, 12 miles west of the Lehigh district, and in 1935 of the Jesse 

oil field, about. 61/2 miles west of the district.

Routes of travel. All parts of the Lehigh district are easily 

reached by automobile. State Highway 19 (U. S. Highway 75), 

which is paved, leads from Coalgate and Lehigh southeastward to 

Atoka and northwestward to a point 3!/2 miles northwest of Coalgate. At that point U. S. Highway 75 branches northward as a 

graveled road leading to Calvin and State Highway 19 continues 

northwestward to Ada. There are also good graveled roads from 

Coalgate and Lehigh westward to Wapanucka and northeastward to 

Kiowa. The villages and farming communities in the area are connected with these principal routes and with each other by numerous 

roads and 'trails. The Oklahoma City-Ada-Atoka Kailway extends 

northwestward from Atoka through Coalgate to Ada, and the Chi-
LEHIGH DISTRICT 93

cago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway extends northeastward from 

Wapanucka through Coalgate to Hartshorne.

Industry. The inhabitants of the district are mainly engaged 

in farming and in stock and poultry raising. Their chief crops are 

corn, oats, cotton, potatoes, and hay; cattle, hogs, horses, mules, 

and chickens are raised extensively. Coal mining was formerly a 

major industry and in 1913, the year of maximum output, 889,299 

tons was produced. Drilling for oil has been carried on sporadically for many years, and mineral rights on much of the area have been 

leased. Leasing has been especially active since the recent discoveries of oil in areas immediately west of the district.

Land forms and drainage. The Lehigh district lies in the Arkansas Valley section of the Ouachita physiographic province, adjacent to the northwest front of the Ouachita Mountains and northeast of the Arbuckle Mountains. The total relief of the Lehigh 

district is a little more than 350 feet. The highest point, as shown 

by 50-foot contours on the Atoka topographic map, is in the SE^ 

sec. 19, T. 1 S., R. 10 E., where the highest contour is 900 feet above 

sea level; the lowest is on Muddy Boggy Creek near the northeast 

corner of sec. 4, T. 2 S., R. 11 E., where the altitude lies between 500 

and 550 feet. Most of the district is hilly, owing to dissection of the 

surface by numerous watercourses. The two largest streams, Muddy 

Boggy and Clear Boggy Creeks, generally flow throughout the year, 

carrying little water during dry weather but frequently overflowing their banks after heavy rains. The smaller streams, tributary 

to these two principal watercourses, are dry except in wet weather.

The surface configuration of the Lehigh district is largely the 

result of the action of streams on rocks that differ greatly in their 

capacity for resistance to erosion. For that reason the topographic 

forms are intimately related in origin to the geologic structure and 

stratigraphy. The landscape in much of the district, consequently, 

is marked by numerous parallel ridges along the upturned, truncated 

edges of the hard sandstone, conglomerate, and limestone beds. The 

ridges are separated by relatively broad valleys that have been 

eroded in the intervening soft shales. Each ridge has been dissected in places by streams, and at many such places the ridge-forming rocks are concealed locally by alluvial deposits. As the ridges 

in general afford the best outcrops of rock to be found in the area, 

the ridge-forming sandstone beds, more than any other rocks, are 

utilized by the geologist as horizon markers in mapping the structure and rock strata. The ridges are in general coincident with the 

narrow belts of sandstone outcrops that are mapped on plate 11. 

Where the beds are steeply inclined the ridges are closely spaced, 

narrow, and more or less sharp-crested; where the rocks dip gently, 

the ridges are broader and more widely spaced. Over much of
94 SOUTHERN PART OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

the northwestern part of the district the nearly horizontal sandstone beds form broad flat-topped hills, or mesas.

Vegetation. The ridges and the higher areas in general support 

heavy growths of oak, hickory, elm, hackberry, persimmon, and 

sumac. The valley lands, though largely cleared for cultivation, 

include many areas covered with thickets of oak, wild plum, willow, 

and cottonwood. There are also areas of natural prairie, the most 

extensive of which is the broad shale area in which Coalgate and 

Cottonwood are situated.

Climate. There is no meteorologic station within the Lehigh district, but climatic records are kept at McAlester, 15 miles northeast 

of the district; at Ada, 15 miles northwest; and at Durant, 25 miles 

south. Data on temperature and precipitation at those points are 

given in the following table:

Noivnal monthly and annual mean precipitation and temperature at MoAlester,

Ada, and Durant, Okla.

April.........................

July......... ..-.-....._.

Length of record (years)... ...

Precipitation (inches)

McAlester

2.19 

2.12 

3.15 

4.61 

6.14 

4.47 

3.23 

3.56 

3.40 

3.02 

2.72 

2.61

42.70

38

Ada

2.66 

1.52 

2.59 

4.23 

5.61 

4.41 

. 2.32 

3.36 

3.41 

3.82 

2.32 

2.12

37.89

28

Durant

2.22 

2.08 

2.90 

3.63 

5.35 

3.75 

3.39 

3.14 

2.89 

4.32 

2.42 

2.64

39. 73

33

Temperature (°F.)

McAlester

40.6 

44.6 

54.0 

62.1 

69.4 

78.2 

83.3 

82.2 

76.0 

63.3 

53.0 

42.6

64.2

32

Ada

39.8 

44.2 

53.0 

61.2 

68.5 

76.3 

82.3 

81.9 

74.9 

64.3 

52.3 

42.3

63.4

28

Durant

41.1 

45.2 

54.7 

62.7 

70.8 

78.7 

82.0 

82.7 

76.5 

64.5 

53.7 

43.4

66.5

33

Present investigation. The greater part of the present investigation of the geology, coal resources, and oil and gas possibilities of 

the Lehigh district was carried on in the late summer and the autumn of 1934 with funds allotted to the United States Geological 

Survey by the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works. 

Geologic field studies covering about 300 square miles were made at 

that time by the writer, assisted by C. B. Anderson, R. M. Hart, 

and W. Christian. In the course of an earlier investigation by the 

Geological Survey a tract of about 100 square miles in the northeastern part of the area to be described, adjacent to the McAlester 

district, had been mapped during parts of September and October 

1931 by T. A. Hendricks, assisted by C. B. Read, R. M. Hart, and

T. L. Metcall. Tke locations ol the coal beds, mines, and pPOSpfiflt 

pits in most of the area were mapped by T. A. Hendricks and C. B. 

Read in November and December 1933.
LEHIGH DISTRICT 95

For the purpose of geologic mapping, stadia traverses carryingaltitudes were run with plane table and alidade to all parts of the 

area. The accuracy of the traverses was frequently checked, as 

most of the roads have been laid out along the section and halfsection lines that were surveyed by the United States Geological 

Survey in 1895-96. The iron-post benchmarks that were set at

FIGURE 6. Diagram showing relation of Lehigh district (shaded) to six 30-ininute 

quadrangles in southern Oklahoma.

all township corners at that time remained intact in sufficient number in 1934 to provide good vertical control, though several of them 

have been uprooted in road-building operations.

Previous publications. The first detailed geologic investigation 

of the Lehigh district was conducted by Taff,1 who named and described the formations above the Atoka formation. Taff's report 

was accompanied by descriptions of collections of fossil plants from 

the area, by David White, and a chapter on the invertebrate fossils, 

by G. H. Girty. The most complete account of the geology, containing descriptions of the Atoka and older formations, as well as 

the younger formations, was given in later reports by Taff.2 (See 

fig. 6.) A still later report by Taff 3 is accompanied by a map on

1 Taff, J. A., Geology of the McAlester-Lehigh coal field, Indian Territory: U. S. Qeol. 

Survey 19th Ann. Kept., pt. 3, pp. 429-593, 1899.

2 Taff, J. A., U. S. Geol Survey Geol. Atlas, Coalgate folio (no. 74), 1901; Atoka folio 

(no. 79), 1902.

8 Taff, J. A., Description of unleased segregated coal lands in the Lehigh-Ardmore districts, Choctaw and Chicknsaw Nations, Indian Territory : 61st Cong., 2d sess., S. Doc. 

390, pp. 329-359, pi. 10, 1910. 

81909 37 2
96 SOUTHERN PART OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

which are shown the locations of diamond-drill holes put down to 

determine the depths of the valuable coal beds at several points in 

the Lehigh district. Very little information on the geology of the 

Lehigh district has appeared in the geologic literature of Oklahoma 

since the results of Taff's work were issued, and the only new geologic maps of any part of the area that have since been published 

are a structure map of part of the Coalgate anticline that is included 

in a brief paper by Clawson,4 and a preliminary edition of the 

geologic map giving the results of the present investigation,5 which, 

with some later revision, is included in the present report as plate 11. 

The west boundary of the Lehigh district lies 6 miles east of the 

Stonewall and Tishomingo quadrangles, the geology of which has 

been described by Morgan 6 and Taff,7 respectively. The McAlester 

district, which has been described by Hendricks,8 adjoins the Lehigh 

district on the northeast. A general account of the stratigraphy of 

the Arkansas-Oklahoma coal basin, in which the Lehigh district 

lies, is given in a paper by Hendricks, Dane, and Knechtel.8a

STRATIGRAPHY

Most of the information here presented on the geology of the 

Lehigh district has been gained from studies of the outcropping 

rocks and of the rocks penetrated by wells that have been drilled 

within the district. Some inferences, however, are of necessity drawn 

from the rocks of surrounding regions, and this is especially true 

of the rocks older than Pennsylvanian, for the reason that none of 

these crop out within the district, and because they had been reached 

by the drill in only two wells at the time of writing of the report.

EXPOSED ROCKS 

CHARACTER

The rocks exposed in the Lehigh district are of sedimentary origin 

and aggregate at least 5,000 feet in thickness. (See columnar section, 

pi. 11.) All of them are Pennsylvanian (Pottsville and Allegheny) 

in age except the scattered Pleistocene (?) and Recent deposits.

* Clawson, W. W., Jr., Oil and gas geology of Coal and Pittsburg Counties: Oklahoma 

Geol. Survey Bull. 40-JJ, pp. 14-15, 1928.

5 Knechtel, M. M., Hendricks, T. A., Read, C. B., Anderson, C. B., Hart, R. M., Christian, 

W., ana Metcalf, T. L., Geologic map of the Lehigh district, Coal, Atoka, and Pittsburg 

Counties, Okla. (preliminary ed.), U. S. Geol. Survey, 1934.

6 Morgan, G. D., Geology of the Stonewall quadrangle, Okla.: Bur. Geology Bull. 2, 

pp. 63-70. 1924.

7 Taff, J. A., U. S. Geol. Survey Geol. Atlas, Tishomingo folio (no. 98), 1903.

8 Hendricks. T. A., Geology and fuel resources of the southern part of the Oklahoma 

coal field; Part 1, The McAlester district, Pittsburg, Atoka, and Latimer Counties: 

U. S. Geol. Survey Bull. 874-A (in press).

8a Hendricks, T. A., Dane, C. H., and Knechtel, M. M., Stratigraphy of ArkansasOklahoma coal basin: Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., vol. 20, no. 10, pp. 1342- 

1356, October 1936.
LEHIGH DISTRICT 97

The .rocks of Pottsville age include the Springer formation, 

Wapanucka limestone, and Atoka formation. These formations crop 

out in the Ouachita Mountains and underlie the rocks of Allegheny 

age in the Arkansas-Oklahoma coal basin, of which the Lehigh 

district is a part. The formations of Allegheny age are the Hartshorne sandstone, McAlester shale, Savanna sandstone, Boggy shale, 

and Thurman sandstone. These units form the most extensively 

exposed sequence of rocks in the coal basin.

In the formations exposed in the Lehigh district alternations of 

marine and continental deposits commonly occur, and many strata 

of continental origin merge laterally into marine strata. The formations younger than the Wapanucka limestone, which include nearly 

all the rocks exposed in the district, are made up predominantly of 

shale, in which relatively thin sandstone layers are intercalated, 

generally at widely spaced stratigraphic intervals. The Wapanucka 

limestone crops out prominently in the western part of T. 1 S., R. 9 E., 

but the known limestone beds elsewhere exposed in the district are 

confined to the Savanna sandstone and Boggy shale, are more or 

less impure, and are apparently merely locally developed phases of 

extensive sandstone beds. At any rate, they appear to grade laterally 

into sandstone within short distances along all their outcrops that 

were noted during the present investigation. Two valuable coal 

beds, one in the Hartshorne sandstone and the other in the McAlester 

shale, have been extensively mined in the vicinity of Coalgate and 

Lehigh. Two thin, valueless coal beds are also present in the 

McAlester shale.

In the Lehigh district all the iPennsylvanian rock formations 

younger than the Wapanucka limestone include sandstone beds that 

are conglomeratic in the eastern part of the district but contain little 

or no coarse material in the western part. The pebbles in the conglomerates are chiefly angular to subangular fragments of chert, the 

origin and significance of which are briefly discussed on pages 125-126.

Many minor unconformities occur locally in the Pennsylvanian 

rocks exposed in the Lehigh district, but the only unconformity that 

is suspected to extend over any great part of the area is that at the 

base of the Hartshorne sandstone. The upper boundary of that 

formation is marked by a coal zone, and the great variation in thickness of the formation from place to place may or may not be due to 

an unconformable relation with the underlying Atoka formation. 

Morgan 9 reports that the Hartshorne and McAlester formations 

overlap the Atoka, Wapanucka, and his so-called Caney (Springer) 

beds in the Stonewall quadrangle.

8 Morgan, G. D., Geology of the Stonewall quadrangle, Okla.: Bur. Geology Bull. 

2, pp. 63-70, 1924.
98 SOUTHERN PART OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEM

PENNSYLVANTAN SERIES 

FORMATIONS OF POTTSVILLE AGE

The oldest rocks that crop out in the Lehigh district, about 500 

feet of poorly exposed strata underlying the Wapanucka limestone 

adjacent to the west line of T. 1 S., R. 9 E., are mainly dark shale 

and are assigned to the Springer formation.

The rocks that immediately underlie the Wapanucka limestone 

north of the Arbuckle Mountains were formerly classified as a portion of the Caney shale,10 but in recent years rocks equivalent to the 

Springer formation (Pennsylvania!!), which overlies the Caney 

shale (Mississippian) in the Ardmore Basin, have been recognized 

north of the Arbuckle Mountains 1X and in the Ti Valley-Choctaw 

belt in the Ouachita Mountains.12 They have there been assigned to 

the Springer formation, the Caney shale being thus restricted to a 

shale unit of Mississippian age. The poorly exposed rocks below the 

Wapanucka limestone at the west side of the Lehigh district are 

therefore likewise assigned to the Springer in this report, though 

Taff mapped them as Caney shale. The base of the Springer formation was not recognized in mapping the outcrops in the western part 

of T. 1 S., R. 9 E. The Carter Oil Co.'s well at Centrahoma, in sec. 

34, T. 2 N., R. 9 E. (see pp. 109-122), penetrated 910 feet of rocks, in 

large part if not entirely assignable to the Springer formation, overlying 210 feet of shales that were assigned to the restricted Caney shale 

(Mississippian). Probably the Springer formation makes up a large 

part of the section of 1,220 feet of rocks drilled between depths of 

2,670 feet and 3,890 feet in the Amerada Petroleum Corporation's 

well in the SW^NW^SE^ sec. 28, T. 1 S.. R. 9 E., about 2 miles 

south of Olney. (See log, p. 122.) Taff 13 estimated the unrestricted 

Caney shale (including both the Mississippian unit and the Springer 

formation) to be 1,600 feet thick in the Atoka and Tishomingo quadrangles. Morgan,14 however, states that the average thickness of the 

unrestricted Caney in the Stonewall quadrangle "is thought to be 

nearer 800 feet."

10 Taff, J. A., U. S. Geol. Survey Geol. Atlas, Atoka folio (no. 79), 1902.

11 Harlton, B. EL, Carboniferous stratigraphy of the Ouachitas, with special study of: 

the Bendian: Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., vol. 18, no. 8, pp. 1020-1021, August 

1934.

12 Miser, H. D., Carboniferous rocks of the Ouachita Mountains: Am. Assoc. Petroleum 

Geologists Bull, vol. 18, no. 8, pp. 977-978, August 1934.

18 Taff, J. A,, U. S. Geol. Survey Geol. Atlas, Atoka folio (no. 79), p. 4, 1902 ; Tishomingo 

folio (no. 98), p. 5, 1903.

14 Morgan, G. D., Geology of the Stonewall quadrangle, Okla.: Bur. of Geology Bull 2, 

p. 53, 1924.
LEHIGH DISTRICT 991

WAPANU0KA LIMESTONE

The Wapanucka limestone crops out in the western part of 

T. 1 S., R. 9 E., as a prominent arcuate ridge, convex toward the 

east. The outcrop is cut off by the Clarita fault at the north end of 

the arc, near the west line of sec. 6, and by the Ohiey fault at the 

south end, in sec. 24, T. 1 S., R. 8 E. The ridge is largely covered by 

soil and A^egetation and has a rather even top from end to end. 

As no stream has cut through it, no continuous exposure of more 

than a few feet of strata is offered. The exposures consist mainly 

of bluish-gray a,nd yellowish-gray limestone, oolitic near the top and 

very fossiliferous in some of the beds near the base. Wallis,15 who 

made a regional study of the Wapanucka limestone, gives the following section of the formation:

Seotion of Wapanucka limestone along line between sees. 7 and 8, T. 1 S.,

R. 9 E.

Feet

Oolite ____________________________________ 15 

Blue fossiliferous limestone ________________ 100

Chert and brown sandstone_____________________ 10

Total ________________________________ 125

The Carter Oil Co.'s well at Centrahoina, in sec. 34, T. 2 N., R. 9 E., 

penetrated at least 175 feet of Wapanucka. limestone at 4,335 to 

4,510 feet below the surface. (See log, p. 113.) The Amerada Petroleum Corporation's well in the SW^NW^SE^ sec. 28, T. 1 S., 

R. 9 E., about 2 miles south of Olney, passed through 140 feet of 

beds classified as Wapanucka limestone in the log (p. 122).

Harlton,10 on paleontologic grounds, classifies as "basal Wapanucka" the equivalent of the upper part of the Springer that occurs north of the Arbuclde Mountains. Harlton's "middle Wapanucka" is TafF's Wapanucka limestone as mapped in the Atoka folio, 

and Harlton's "upper Wapanucka" is the basal part of Taff's Atoka 

formation as mapped in the Atoka folio. R. C. Moore, as cited by 

Thompson,17 states that "the lower part of the beds classed as Atoka 

in Coal County, Okla., are of Morrow age. The lithologic, faunal, 

and stratigraphic relationships of these beds indicate that they 

should be allied with the Wapanucka rather than Atoka deposits."

Notwithstanding the fact, however, that rocks above and below the 

limestone unit in T. 1 S., R. 9 E., are reported to be similar to it 

in faunal content, the name "Wapanucka" is retained in the present 

report for this limestone unit as it was mapped by Taff in the Atoka 

folio.

1C Wallis, B. !<., Geology and economic value of the Wapanucka limestone of Oklahoma : 

Oklahoma Geol. Survey Bull. 23, p. 49. 1915.

"Harlton, B. H., op. cit, flg. 1, p. 1020.

"Thompson, M. L., Fusullnids from the lower Pennsylvanian Atoka and Boggy formations of Oklahoma: Jour. Paleontology, vol. 9, no. 4, p. 292, June 1935.
100 SOUTHERN PART OF. OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

The Atoka formation is composed chiefly of shale, in general poorly 

exposed, in which are intercalated at widely spaced intervals 

fairly well-exposed sandstone members that are conspicuous in the 

landscape because of their ridge-forming habit. The sandstones are 

fine-grained in the western part of the Lehigh district but contain 

chert pebbles in varying quantities in the eastern part. The outcropping edges of these sandstone layers are represented on plate 11.

The Atoka formation is extensively exposed in the southern part 

t)f the Lehigh district and undoubtedly occurs below the surface of 

the district everywhere north of its outcrop. It is exposed in a broad 

area on the north flank and the axial portion of the Hunton anticline 

and extends eastward along the margin of the district on the south 

side of the Lehigh syncline. Its base lies along the foot of the 

conspicuous ridge of Wapanucka limestone near the west line of the 

district. However, though the base of the Atoka formation and that 

of the overlying Hartshorne sandstone have been mapped in the 

Lehigh district, the full thickness of the Atoka formation there is 

not accurately known. The displacement of the Atoka beds on the 

Olney fault, in T. 1 S., R. 9 E., is unknown, and the Atoka may 

also be faulted in the neighborhood of Clear Boggy Creek in the 

north half of T. 1 S., R. 9 E. The Hartshorne sandstone, moreover, 

probably overlaps the upper Atoka beds in the Lehigh district, as it 

does in the Stonewall quadrangle, farther west, where Morgan 18 

estimates that the exposed section of the Atoka is nowhere more 

than 800 feet thick. These circumstances defeat any attempt at 

accurate estimate of the total thickness of the Atoka formation in 

this area, though significant thicknesses may be determined from the 

map or are recorded in the logs of wells. In a dry hole that was 

begun in the McAlester shale in sec. 10, T. 1 N., R. 11 E., about 6,000 

feet of Atoka rocks were penetrated in an unsuccessful attempt to 

reach the Wapanucka limestone. However, many geologists believe 

that this x drilled thickness is not reliable as a basis for an estimate 

of the true stratigraphic thickness of the Atoka and are inclined to 

suspect the presence of some unknown structural condition, such as 

possible duplication of strata in the hole by faulting, as responsible 

for the apparently abnormally great thickness encountered in this 

well. The Amerada Petroleum Corporation's well in the SW^

NW1/4SE1/4 sec. 28, T. 1 S., R. 9 E., which probably started considerably below the base of tke Hartskorne, penetrated 2,480 feet of Atoka 

beds. Another drilled hole, which was begun in the NE% sec. 7, 

T. 2 S., R. 10 E., at a point 1,100 feet, by computation, below the

18 Morgan, G. D., Geology of the Stonewall quadrangle, Okla.: Bur. Geology Bull. 

2, pp. 63-64, 1924.
LEHIGH DISTRICT 101

Atoka-Hartshorne contact, finished in the Atoka formation at a 

depth of 1,850 feet. The thickness of the Atoka is therefore probably 

at least 3,000 feet in that vicinity. The Carter Oil Co.'s well at 

Centrahoma, in sec. 34, T. 2 N., R. 9 E., showed 2,500 feet of the 

Atoka overlying the Wapanucka limestone. On the north side of 

the Hunton anticline, in the southwestern part of the Lehigh district, the thickness of Atoka rocks present in the area of poor exposures that lies between the outcrops of Wapanucka limestone and 

Hartshorne sandstone may be only 1,200 feet, or possibly even 

less.

David White, as cited by Miser,19 states that "the Atoka formation, on the basis of plants obtained in the vicinity of Atoka, Okla., 

is upper Pottsville", and in a further statement by White 20 the Atoka 

is regarded as "for the most part at least, post-Morrow in age." As 

stated in the preceding section, however, some geologists and paleontologists consider that the basal Atoka beds exposed in the western 

part of the Lehigh district are of Morrow age.

FORMATIONS OF ALLEGHENY AGE

The Pennsylvanian rocks of the Lehigh district that are younger 

than the Atoka formation have been divided by Taff into five formations of rather uniform lithologic character, the section as a whole 

being largely composed of shale in which sandstone occurs at more 

or less widely spaced stratigraphic intervals, as shown on plate 11. 

These formations are differentiated mainly on the basis of the proportions of sandstone to shale in each. The Hartshorne sandstone, 

which is the oldest, is overlain by the McAlester shale, followed in 

turn by the Savanna sandstone, Boggy shale, and Thurman sandstone. All these units except the Thurman sandstone were traced 

from the McAlester district northward by Wilson,21 who states that 

they thin in that direction and are represented in the lower part of 

the Cherokee shale of northeastern Oklahoma. White 22 and Bead 23 

report that the floras of the Hartshorne sandstone, McAlester shale, 

Savanna sandstone, and Boggy shale indicate that those formations 

are of basal Allegheny age.

10 Miser, H. D., Carboniferous rocks of Ouachita Mountains: Am. Assoc. Petroleum 

Geologists Bull., vol. 18, no. 8, p. 979, August 1934.

20 White, David, Age of Jackfork and Stnnley formations of Ouachita gposyncline, Arkansas and Oklahoma, as indicated by plants : Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., vol. 

18, no. 8, p. 1016, August 1934.

21 Wilson, C. W.. Jr.. Age and correlation of Pennsylvanian surface formations and of oil 

and gas sands of Muskogee County, Okla.: Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., vol. 19, 

no. 4. pp. 503-520. April 1935.

22 White, David, U. S. Geol. Survey 19th Ann. Rept, pt. 3, pp. 457-534, pis. 67-68, 1899. 

Collier, A. J., White, David, and Girty, G. H., The Arkansas coal field: U. S. Geol. Survey 

Bull. 326, pp. 24-31, 1907.

23 Hendricks, T. A., and Read, C. B., Correlations of Pennsylvanian strata in Arkansas and 

Oklahoma coal fields : Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., vol. 18, no. 8, pp. 1055-56, 

August 1934.
102 SOUTHERN PART OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

Like the sandstones in the Atoka formation, the sandstones of 

Allegheny age are generally fine-grained in the western part of the 

Lehigh district but in the eastern part contain varying quantities 

of chert pebbles that are locally so abundant as to form conglomerate. Much of the chert occurs as pebbles less than a quarter of an 

inch in diameter, but some an inch or more in diameter have been 

noted.

The Hartshorne sandstone forms the base of the coal-bearing portion of the Pennsylvania!! rock sequence of the coal basin. The 

uppermost known coal occurs in the basal portion of the Boggy, 

shale in the McAlester district, to the northeast, but in the Lehigh 

district no beds of coal are known to occur in rocks younger than the 

McAlester shale. The several coal beds are described elsewhere in 

this report.

HAKTSHOKNB SANDSTONE

The Hartshorne sandstone crops out in a narroAv belt on the south 

side of the Lehigh syncline and extends northwestward from T. 2 S.r 

K. 11 E., to T. 1 N., R. 9 E.; it presumably occurs below the surface in 

the areas north and northeast of its outcrop. The Hartshorne overlies 

the Atoka formation with an apparently irregular contact that may 

represent an erosional unconformity of sufficient magnitude to account for the extraordinary westward thinning of the exposed section 

of the Atoka which is apparent in the Lehigh district and which 

was explained b}^ Morgan 24 as due to overlap of the Hartshorne on 

the lower part of the Atoka. Though the upper part of the Hartshorne carries much shale and an extensive coal bed about 25 feet 

below the top, signifying rather uniform conditions of deposition 

over a large area in late Hartshorne time, the thickness and lithologic 

character of the formation as a whole are extremely variable. The 

thickness ranges from less than 80 feet to about 500 feet. From 

sec. 33 to sec. 29, T. 1 S-, R. 10 E., the thickness increases from about 

80 feet to nearly 500 feet within a distance of 2 miles northwestward along the strike. Farther northwest it decreases rather irregularly, and in the extreme western part of the district the formation 

is probably less than 100 feet thick. Morgan 25 states that the Hartshorne is about 100 feet thick in the Stonewall quadrangle, and 

Hendricks 26 gives 168 to 300 feet as the thickness in the McAlester

district. The variations in thickness of the Hartshorne are accompanied by variations in litkology, especially in the lower part of

24 Morgan, G, D., Geology of the Stonewall Quadrangle, Okk. . Bur. Geology Bun. 2,

p. 64, 1924. 

25 Idem, p. 66.

28 Hendricks, T. A., Geology and fuel resources of the southern part of the Oklahoma coal 

field; Part 1, The McAlester district, Pittsburg, Atoka, and Latimer Counties: U. S. 

Geol. Survey Bull. 874-A (in press).
«..'." : : LEHIGH DISTRICT 103

the-formation. Where the formation is thin it is made up largely 

of thin-bedded bluish-gray shale and fine-grained light-gray to 

yellow sandstone; 'the thickest sections are composed mainly of 

massive hard white to gray, somewhat coarse-grained sandstone. In 

the extreme southeastern part of the district and to a less degree in 

the western part the Hartshorne contains angular to subangular 

fragments of chert, some of which are a quarter of an inch and more 

in diameter.

Hendricks 27 has suggested that the variations in thickness and 

lithology of the Hartshorne may be due to submarine deposition of 

the coarser and thicker facies in channels extending seaward from 

the mouths of streams along a shore line that lay to the southeast 

in Hartshorne time, while the thinner and finer-grained facies were 

accumulating in the submarine interchannel areas.

A ridge supported by steeply inclined beds of -sandstone containing angular fragments of chert lies immediately south of the fault 

near the south line of sec. 30, T. 1 N., R. 9 E. These beds are 

tentatively assigned to the Hartshorne because of their lithologic 

resemblance to the beds that crop out on the prominent ridge of 

Hartshorne sandstone about 3 miles to the southeast.

M'ALESTER SHALE

. The'McAlester shale overlies the Hartshorne sandstone.conform:- 

ably and crops out in three separate areas in the Lehigh district. 

The largest is an elongated area that may be divided into two 

structural segments. One of these segments extends 12 miles northeastward from the Phillips fault as a broad belt of rocks of the upper 

part of the formation extending through Coalgate and Cottonwood. 

The other segment, a broad belt of gently dipping rocks, including 

both the base and top of the formation and extending from the 

neighborhood of Phillips through "Lehigh; turns northeastward in 

a broad curve in the northwestern part of T. 2 S., R. 11 E., and 

narrows greatly on the steeply upturned southeast "limb of the Lehigh 

syncline north of Atoka. Outcrops of McAlester shale occur also in 

an area of about 3 square miles in the axial portion of the Ashland 

anticline in T. 3 N., Rs. 11 and 12 E., and in a small area southwest 

of Clear Boggy Creek, in the southwestern part of T.-.I N., R. 9 E. 

The McAlester shale probably occurs below the surface everywhere 

in the Lehigh district except in the extreme southern and southwestern parts, where older formations crop out;

27 Hendricks, T. A., Geology and mineral resources of the western part of the Arkansas coal field: U. S. Geol. Survey Bull. 847-E (in press).

81909 37 3
104 SOUTHERN PART. OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

A thickness of about 1,650 feet of McAlester shale is .exposed in 

the central part of T. 1 S., R. 10 E., near the town of Lehigh. 

About 1,000 feet of McAlester beds crop out on the south limb of 

the Coalgate anticline in sees. 10 and 15, T. 1 N., R. 11 E., between 

the Savanna-McAlester contact and a well in which three coal beds, 

were encountered at depths of .563, 680, and 725 feet. The coal 

at 725 feet is assumed .to be the Lower Hartshorne coal; that at 680 

feet, the Upper Hartshorne coal, which forms the base of the Me-; 

Alester, shale; The thickness of the McAlester in that vicinity, is 

therefore probably somewhat less'than 1,680 feet, the drilled thick> 

ness being greater than the true thickness, owing to dip. A similar] 

measurement involving the outcropping Savanna-McAlester contact 

and a well drilled in the NEi/4 sec. 19, T. 3 N., R. 12 E., indicates 

a thickness of about 1,150 feet of McAlester shale in that neighborhood. The Carter Oil Co.'s weir in sec. 34, T. 2 N., R. 9 E., : at 

Centrahoma, passed through 930 feet of rocks directly underlain 

by the Atoka formation, overlain "by Savanna sandstone, and assigned by the company's geologists to the McAlester shale. It is 

understood, however, that the Hartshorne was either unrecognizable 

or absent in the cuttings but may be present in the coal-bearing 

basal 100 feet of the section designated McAlester in the well log 

(pp. 110-111). According to Morgan,2 * the McAlester shale is slightly 

more than 1,000 feet thick at the west line of the Coalgate quadrangle. 

A pronounced northwestward thinning of the formation in the Lehigh district is therefore indicated. Hendricks 29 states that the 

normal thickness of the McAlester shale in the McAlester district 

is 1,904 to 2,420 feet, but that on the Savanna anticline south of 

the town of Savanna the McAlester ranges from Ij500 to 2,800 feet 

in thickness at localities only 1 mile 'apart. These apparently abnormal thicknesses are explained by tlendricks as due to horizontal 

squeezing of the shale.

The McAlester shale of the Lehigh district is composed mainly of 

blue and black shale but includes four prominent and persistent 

ridge-forming sandstones, two additional sandstones in the extreme 

southeastern part of the district, one valuable coal bed, and two 

thin coal beds of no value. The coal beds are described elsewhere 

in this report. The sandstones are mostly buff and are fine-grained 

6V6rVWherO except in the extreme southeastern part of the district, 

where they contain much coarse debris, iMillly Of Cheitj the fragments of which are angular to suban^ular and measure in places 

half an inch or more in diameter.

88 Morgan, G. D., Geologf of the Stonewall quadrangle, Okla,: Bur. Geology Bllll. 2| 

p. 67, 1924. ' ' ' '' -'' :.....:.- . . 

20 Hendricks, T. A., op. cit. (Bull. 874-A).
LEHIGH DISTRICT 105

As indicated by rather abundant fossil remains of plants, invertebrates, and fish teeth, the McAlester shale of the Lehigh district 

includes both marine and continental members.

Difficulties are encountered in mapping the McAlester shale in 

the western part of the Lehigh district, owing to (1) the fault that 

extend^ southeastward through sees. 30 and 32, T. 1 N., K. 9 E., 

dropping the formations on its northeast .side against older beds 

lying south of it, and (2) the broad belt of alluvium along Clear 

Boggy and Leader Creeks, under which a part of the succession is 

concealed.

An outcrop of the Hartshorne sandstone is represented on Taff's 

map of the Coalgate quadrangle 80 , as extending from the NW^ 

sec. 30, T. 1 N., R. 9 E., southeastward to the S1/^ sec. 33, where it 

is shown as cut off by a hypothetical northwestward-trending fault 

along Clear Boggy Creek that drops the beds on its northeast side. 

A different interpretation of the geology of this neighborhood has 

resulted from the discovery during the present investigation that 

(he coal bed pitching northeastward in a small mine near the center 

of sec. 30, where Taff shows the Hartshorne sandstone, is in reality 

the Lehigh coal bed and not the Hartshorne coal bed, as he had 

evidently supposed. The present identification of the coal bed is 

based on the occurrence in the mine of a fossiliferous limy layer 

that characteristically forms part of the roof of the Lehigh bed. 

The rocks here mapped by Taff as the Hartshorne sandstone therefore belong in the upper part of the McAlester shale.

SAVANNA SANDSTONE

The Savanna sandstone in the Lehigh district is made up of 

several groups of sandstone and shale beds. The sandstones are 

more prominently exposed than the shales, though probably thinner 

in the aggregate. Locally the Savanna contains a few thin lenses 

of highly fossiliferous blue-gray marine limestone. Near the middle 

in the western part of the area there is a thin bed of calcareous 

sandstone that weathers dark brown and is locally supplanted by 

impure limestone containing abundant marine fossils. This bed was 

utilized as a valuable key in mapping the obscure relations along 

the Phillips fault in sees. 1, 2, and 3, T. 1 S., R. 9 E., as they are 

shown on plate 11. The proportion of sandstone to shale increases 

eastward within the district, as does also the grain size of the sandstones. Most of the beds in the southeastern part of the area contain 

abundant subangular fragments of chert and locally include some 

fragments that measure as much as a quarter of an inch in diameter; 

farther north and west the sandstones are mostly fine-grained,

30 Tnff, J. A., U. S. Geol. Survey Geol. Atlas, Coalgato folio (no. 74), 1901. --
106 SOUTHERN PART OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

though some beds contain coarse cherty material in the belt of Savanna along the northwest flank of the Coalgate anticline.

Hendricks S1 states that thfr Savanna saridstone : rests unconf ormably, but without marked angular discordance, on the McAlester 

shale in the McAlester district and -describes 'an exposure in the 

Lehigh district, at the center of sec; J>yT-.'1 N;, R. 12 E., which 

exhibits an unconformable contact between Savanna and McAlester. 

Other than this no evidence of unconformity has been observed at 

this contact within the Lehigh district', -' . " " >

A belt of Savanna sandstone extends from the west boundary of 

the district southeastward for a few "miles, then northeastward to 

the southern part of T. 2 N., R. 12 E., where it bends back around 

the northeastward-plunging nose of the Coalgate anticline south of 

Wardville, to follow a south westward course to .the vicinity of Coalgate, turning southeastward there and continuing' for about 8 miles 

as a belt paralleling the course of Muddy 'Boggy Creek. A second 

belt of Savanna sandstone surrounds the area 6f- McAlester shale 

on the Ashland anticline in T. 3 : N., Rs. li und.12 E., and occupies 

the saddle between the Ashland and Savanna ;anticlines.

The Savanna sandstone beds of the Lehigh district contain fairly 

abundant fossil plants and marine invertebrates and therefore include both continental and marine deposits. - " : :

The Savanna sandstone, as mapped on plate 11, ranges in thickness 

from 1,400 to 1,600 feet at several localities on the outcrop, but no 

progressive regional change in thickness is revealed by the scattered 

rough measurements available. Like the rest of the coal-bearing 

Pennsylvanian formations of the Arkansas-Oklahoma coal basin, 

however, the Savanna probably thins gradually northwestward. 

Morgan 32 reports that the Savanna is 1,300 feet thick in the extreme 

southeastern part of the Stonewall quadrangle but thins westward 

toward the center of that quadrangle. Hendricks 33 states that the 

Savanna sandstone of the McAlester district normally ranges in 

.thickness from 1,120 to 1,325 feet in measured sections but that 

abnormal thicknesses as great as 2,500 feet and as low as 500 feet 

occur locally. He explains these abnormal thicknesses as due to 

tectonic squeezing.

BOGGY SHALE

The Boggy shale, by far the most extensively exposed formation 

in the Lehigh district, crops out in a broad tract of land in the Lehigh syncline east of Muddy Boggy Creek, in Tps. 1 N. and 1 §., 

R. 11 E., and occupies almost all of the area northwest of a line

81 Hendricks. T. A., op. Cit. (Bull. 874-A).

82 Morgan, G. D., Geology of the Stonewall quadrangle, Okla.: Bur. Geology Bull. 2, 

p. 74, 1924.

83 Hendricks, T. A., op. cit. (Bull. 874-A).
LEHIGH DISTRICT 107

through Coalgate, Cottonwood, and Wardville. It has been removed 

by erosion from a small area south of Ashland and from a broad area 

in the southern part of the district, in which Centrahoma, Cottonwood, Coalgate, Lehigh, and Olney are situated. It is concealed beneath the Thurman sandstone in a portion of the north half of TV 

3 N., R. 11 E.

The Boggy shale consists largely of blue and gray shale but contains a number of widely spaced brown and gray irregular-bedded 

sandstones and locally a few thin lenses of highly fossiliferous bluegray marine limestone. At many places the shale is mottled purple, 

red, and gray. Most of the Boggy sandstone beds exposed in the 

southeastern part of the district contain abundant chert pebbles.

The Boggy shale, as indicated by plant and invertebrate fossilsy 

includes both marine and continental deposits. The top of the 

Boggy crops out in the Lehigh district only in the northern part of 

T. 3 N., R. 11 E., where estimates of the thickness exposed between 

the top and base, obtained from meager data, range from 1,250 to 

1,500 feet. Morgan 3 * states that the Boggy is about 1,500 feet thick 

on the east side of the Stonewall quadrangle. Hendricks 35 gives 

2,850 feet as the thickness of the Boggy in the southeastern part of 

T. 4 N., R. 13 E., in the McAlester district. '

Clawson 36 comments on the somewhat abrupt change in attitude 

on the flanks of the Coalgate anticline between gently dipping 

Boggy beds and the underlying steeply inclined Savanna beds and 

suggests that the less disturbed beds were deposited on an erosion 

plane that had been developed on intensely folded rocks. An unconformity exists near the base of the Boggy in the Stonewall quadrangle 37 and may extend eastward into the Lehigh district. Its 

continuation into this area has not been demonstrated, however, and 

the changes in dip referred to are represented by structure contours 

on plate 11 as if theyjvere altogether the result of folding in postBoggy time. In areas underlain by gently inclined strata of the 

Boggy shale the configuration of the datum horizon as interpreted 

on the map can therefore be valid only under the assumption that the 

unconformity near the base of the Boggy is absent in those areas.

THUBMAN SANDSTONE

The Thurman sandstone crops out in the northern part of T. 3 

N., R. 11 E., where it consists of brown sandstone, shale, and chert 

conglomerate. According to Taff 88 the proportion of shale in the

M Morgan, G. D., op. clt., p. 78. 

88 Hendricks, T. A., op. cit. (Bull. 874-A).

88 Clawson, W. W., Jr., Oil and gas geology of Coal and Pittsburg Counties: Oklahoma 

Geol. Survey Bull. 40-JJ, pp. 14-15, 1928. 

w Morgan, G. D., op. cit, pp. 77-80. 

48 Taff, J. A., U. S. Geol. Survey Geol. Atlas, Coalgate folio (no. 74), p. 4, 1901.
108 SOUTHERN PART OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

formation increases westward. Taff states that the Thurman sandstone is about 250 feet thick at the northeast corner of the Coalgate 

quadrangle but is only 80 feet thick in the western part of the quadrangle. The thickness of the Thurman in the Lehigh district is 

therefore probably intermediate between these extremes. Hendricks 39 estimates that the Thurman is about 200 feet thick in the 

McAlester district.

QUATERNARY (?) SYSTEM

GERTY SAND (PLEISTOCENE?)

In the northern part of T. 3 N., R. 11 E., and the northwestern part 

of T. 3 N., R. 12 E., deposits of fine sand and silt of Pleistocene (?) 

age rest unconformably on the Pennsylvanian rocks, forming benches 

above the present stream valleys. These deposits, known as the 

Gerty sand, are believed to be related to a former course of the Canadian River. Deposits of gravel that are possibly of the same age 

as the Gerty sand occur in three areas north of Clear Boggy Creek, 

near the west line of T. 1 N., R. 9 E.

RECENT ALLUVIUM

The beds of streams in all parts of the Lehigh district are underlain by deposits of Recent alluvium, mainly composed of silt and fine 

sand.

UNEXPOSED ROCKS 

CAMBRIAN TO CARBONIFEROUS SYSTEMS

PRE-PENNSYLVANIAN KOCKS

Though no rocks older than the Springer formation (Pennsylvanian) are exposed in the Lehigh district, a well drilled to a depth

of 7,126 feet at Centrahoma, in the northwestern part of the district, 

and another well 5,416 feet deep, 2 miles south of Olney, in the southwestern part, penetrate Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Mississippian, and Pennsylvanian rocks. The following sample log of the 

well at Centrahoma, prepared by D. L. Hyatt, is published through 

the courtesy of the Carter Oil Co. It is given in full because 

of the information it affords on the pre-Pennsylvanian rocks through

which the well passes. The classification of the rocks into formations has been made by the present writer.

T. A., op. tit. (Bull. 874-A).
LEHIGH DISTRICT 109

Loy of John Thompson No. 1 well, center of &</_ sec. 3.'t , T. 2 N., R. !) E., at 

CentrahonM, Coal County, Olda.

[Owned by Carter Oil Co. Altitude above sea level at mouth of well, 099 feet. Samples 

from 250 to 7,126 feet examined by D. L. I-Iyatt. Drilling begun June 7, 1935; 

completed Feb. 2, 1936]

 Feet

Missing.... __----_-----------------_---_-------_ 0-250

Savanna' sandstone:

Sandstone, white, coarse, free.---------------- 250-330 .

Sand, coarse; free.............______:-_-__--- 330-350

Shale, gray, some red; some sandstone, coarse

and medium.----------.------------------ 350-370

Shale, green gray and red; sandstone, fine,

cemented......_....___...__...._..._...._ 370-390

Shale, green gray, some brown; some sandstone, fine and coarse-_J_--_----__--_------ 390-480

Shale, green gray, some brown; sandstone, fine,*

cemented, some micaceous...__________-_.__ 480-540

Shale, gray, some "micaceous, fine, sandy; some

sandstone, medium and coarse._____________ 540-560

Shale, gray, micaceous, sandy; some sandstone,

fine and medium._________________________ 560-600

Sand, fine to medium, cemented, some shaly.... 600-620

Shale, gray, dark gray, micaceous, sandy.------ 620-640

Shale, gray and dark, micaceous, some sandy;

some sandstone, fine, cemented, micaceous;

a little conglomeratic sand....._.___.______- 640-660

Shale, gray and dark, micaceous, some sandy;

some sandstone, fine, cemented, micaceous;

a little conglomeratic sand _________________ 660-680

Shale, gray, micaceous, sandy; some sandstone,

gray, medium, cemented._________________'_ 680-700

 Missing__:_______.___ ______________________ 700-712

Shale, dark gray, some green gray, some sandy;

some sandstone, fine to medium _____________ 712-720

Shale, gray-, green gray, some sandy; some brown

shale; some sandstone, fine to medium.-----. 720-730

Shale, green gray, some sandy.......:_________ 730-740

Sandstone, white, fine to medium; trace of gas

stain.-...___.---_.....-.........___._._.. 740-760

Sand, fine to medium, some shaly; some con- 

' glomerate..-----;----------_-----.-.----.- 760-770

Shale, blue gray, some green gray, trace of

brown________________________________ 770-780

Shale, blue gray, some sandy..---..___________ ' 780-790

Shale, dark gray, finely micaceous; trace of

sand; some green-gray sandy shale___-._--_- 

Sand, gray, medium, slightly calcareous; trace

of mica; shaly:_'______________________

Shale, gray; sandy; some sandstone, gray, fine

to medium_____________________________ 850-860

Shale, green gray.---_l-----l-'----._._----_-_ 860-890

* Shale,' green "gray, sa'ridy to micaceous. _"_ ____::_ 890-900
110 SOUTHERN PART OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

Log of JoJin Thompson No. 1 well, center of Sy2 sec. 84, T. 2 N., R. 9 E., at 

Centrahoma, Coal County, Okla,. ^-Continued

MeAlester shale and Hartshorne sandstone: - ; ' - Feet ' 

Shale, gray, micaceous, finely sandy; some grden- - :

gray shale_--_________________________''_-!' ' 900-980

Shale, dark, finely micaceous.___---________ __ 980-990

Shale, dark, micaceous; trace coal_____________ 990-1, 000

Shale, dark, micaceous, some finely sandy;

trace of lignite.-.._______._______.___..._ 1,.000-1, 040

Shale, dark, micaceous; trace of coal _ _________ 1,040-1,050

Shale, dark, micaceous, some sandy; trace of calcitic shaly lime________________________ 1, 050-1, 070

Shale, gray to dark, micaceous, sandy..______ 1,070-1,080

Sand, fine, micaceous, shaly; some micaceous

shale--_______-__-----__-_------_-------- 1, 080-1, 110

Sand, fine, some shaly_____-___----______ ._ ._ 1, 110-1, 125

Sand, fine, micaceous, shaly; some dark micaceous shale.-__----_-.---__----------_---- 1, 125-1, 135

Shale, black, micaceous; trace of sand_________ 1, 135-1, 150

Shale, black, micaceous, sandy; a little sandstone, medium calcareous, shaly-_.__________ 1, 150-1, 170

Shale, black, micaceous; trace of sand....-.__-- 1, 170-1, 210

Shale, dark, micaceous; a little sandstone, fine,

micaceous, shaly_________..-._____-_______ 1, 210-1, 220

Shale, gray, micaceous, highly sandy; a little

fine sand-.________---____-_-l---_-_-____- 1, 220-1, 240

Shale, gray to dark, micaceous, sandy.________ 1, 240-1, 330

Shale, dark, micaceous, sandy; some sandstone,

fine, micaceous, shaly.___._________________ 1,330-1,360

Shale, gray and dark; micaceous, sand-________ 1, 360-1, 370

Shale, black, micaceous, some sandy_._-_._____ 1, 370-1, 430

Shale, dark, micaceous, some green gray.______ 1, 430-1, 450

Shale, dark, micaceous; trace of sand_________ 1, 450-1, 510

Shale, black, micaceous, carbonaceous.________ 1, 510-1, 520

Shale, gray to black, micaceous, finely sandy____ 1, 520-1, 540

Shale, gray, dark, micaceous; trace of fine sandstone-____-______-_______________________ 1, 540-1, 550

Shale, black, gray black, slightly gritty, some

highly micaceous________________________ 1, 550-1, 600

Shale, gray black; trace of sandstone, fine and

medium..____________________________ 1, 600-1, 610

Shale, gray to black; trace of sand.__________ 1, 610-1, 625

.Sandstone, white, coarse, cherty, conglomeratic;

show of gas; light oil stain________________ 1, 625-1, 650

Core: 1,631-1,641 feet, 1 foot recovery; sand,

coarse, cherty; show of gas; light oil stain;

steel-line correction, 1,641 = 1,647 feet. 

Shale, gray black, black; trace of sand_ _______ 1, 650-1, 730

Shale, gray black, micaceous, slightly sandy. 1, 730-1, 740 

Shale, gray black, slightly sandy, some micaceous; some sandstone, gray, fine, micaceous,

slmly________l:_____________:.___________ .1, 740-1, 750
LEHIGH DISTEICT 111

Log of John Thompson No. 1 well, center of Sy2 sec. 34, T. 2 N., R. 9 E., at

Centrahoma, Coal Count1}/, Okla. Continued 

McAlester shale and Hartshone sandstone Con. Feet

Sand, gray, fine to medium, some shaly; trace of 

lignite; trace of coal; some shale, black to gray, 

slightly micaceous-_______-_-_-_--_-_-_____ 1, 750-1, 800

Shale, gray to black, micaceous, sandy; a little 

green-gray shale; some sandstone, fine ,to 

medium, micaceous______----_--_________ 1, 800-1, 820

Shale, gray, micaceous, sandy; some black sand; 

gray shale; a little shaly sand____________ 1,820-1,830

Atoka formation:

Shale, dark gray, micaceous, some sandy; some

black and gray shale.._.___-__-_____... 1, 830-1, 850

Shale, gray to black, slightly micaceous and

sandy___.____.____-___._-__-.___.__.__ 1,850-1,900

Shale, black, sandy, slightly micaceous, earbonaceous__---_---__L----------_---------- 1, 900-1, 970

Shale, black, slightly micaceous, sandy, carbonaceous; some gray shale.__.---__-___-_____ 1, 970-2, 020

Shale, greenish gray, sandy, micaceous; some

black shale_--_-_----_------------______ 2, 020-2, 070

Shale, black, some greenish gray, sandy, micaceous-..-_-...._._.----_-----.__-.. _ 2, 070-2, 110

Shale, green gray, very sandy; some black shale;

a little sandstone, green gray, medium shaly __ 2, 110-2, 130

Shale, green gray, highly sandy; a little greenishgray shaly sand___..___....___..___ 2, 130-2, 170

Shale, green gray, sandy, slightly micaceous;

some black shale..--__-__-_-_-__--________ 2,170-2, 260

Shale, black, some gray; black and gray, slightly

sandy lime__----___----_------------_____ 2, 260-2, 510

Shale, gray, sandy, some black.______________ 2, 510-2, 530

Shale, black, some gray black, some sandy..... 2, 530-2, 630

Shale, black, some gray, sandy______________ 2, 630-2, 660

Shale, black gray, slightly sandy and micaceous. 2, 660-3, 220

Core: 3,111-3,114 feet, 4 inches recovery; sandstone, gray, coarse, quartzitic; shale streaks.

Shale, gray black to black; traces of siderite__ 3, 220-3, 310

Shale, gray black, slightly sandy; traces of siderite. 3, 310-3, 380

Sand, medium to coarse, calcareous__________ 3, 380^3, 381

Core: 2 feet recovery, shale, black, dip 2°-30 __- 3, 381-3, 385

Shale, gray black to black, slightly sandy._____ 3, 385-3, 450

Shale, black, some micaceous, trace of black, 

slickensided______--___-_-_---__----_--___ 3,450-3,510

Shale, black; trace of sand, coarse, calcareous_ 3, 510-3, 520

Shale, black, some sandy,, white, coarse, calcareous. _-._________--___...__ 3, 520-3, 530

Shale, black, some micaceous; trace of sand;

trace of black slickensided shale___________ 3, 530-3, 570

Shale, black, carbonaceous; trace of slickensided. 3, 570-3, 590

Shale, black, gray black; trace of sand; some 

black slickensided shale__._-----__-______ 3, 590-3, 640

81909-^36 I
112 SOUTHERN PAKE-; OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

Log.of John Thompson No. 1 well, center of S% sec. 34, T. 2 N:, R. 9 E., at

Centrahoma, Coal County, Okla. Continued. 

Atokft formation Continued. . . Feet 

Shale, gray black, slightly sandy; some black

shale; trace of siderite.____________________ 3, 640-3, 670

Shale, gray black, to .black, slightly .sandy; trace

of sandstone, medium, calcareous.__________ 3, 670^3, 690

Shale, black, gray black; trace of sand_________ 3> 690-3, 710

Shale, black, gray black; trace of sand; trace of

sandstone, fine, calcareous________________ 3,710-3, 735

Shale, black, gray black, slightly sandy; a little

lime, brown, fine crystalline; a little calcareous

sand___-----_--_--_-------------'-_----__- 3, 735-3, 740

Core: 5 feet recovery; shale, black, with thin sand

streaks; dip 30 -_---_----------__--------- 3, 740-3, 747

Shale, black, gray black, slightly sandy; trace of

sandstone, .fine, calcareous; traces of lime,

brown, fine' crystalline ____.____-_'___.__-___ 3, 740-3, 790

Shale, black, gray black, slightly sandy.___-.-_ 3,790-3,810 

Shale, black, some gray, sandy; trace of sandstone, coarse, calcareous_______---_____---_ 3, 810-3, 820

Sand, coarse, quartzitic, calcareous, broken;

trace of brown crystalline liiriel-_ _ ___ _ 3, 820-r3, 835 

. Shale, dark gray to black, slightly sandy.--..-- 3, 835-3, 850 

Shale, black, some gray, slightly sandy; trace of ;

calcareous sand; trace of siderite -_ __ .__ 3,850-3,890 

Shale, gray, soft, some dark; trace of siderite. __ 3, 890-4,'020 

Shale, dark, some gray, slightly sandy; trace of:

siderite; trace.of sandstone, medium calcareous, .

quartzitic---_--_-----------_-_ --------- 4, 020^4, 090

Shale, black, some dark gray; trace of ;siderite__ 4, 090^-4,.110 

Shale, dark; trace of siderite and quartzitic sand.; 4, 110^4, 120 

Shale, dark, some ..gray,, slightly: sandy; trace of .; ' . "'

siderite--____ ___ ___^ __ I _________:_. 4, 120-4,. 160

Shale, dark gray-to black; trace of sand; a little. .

.lime, brown, crystalline, very sandy. ___ 4, 160-4, 180 

Shale, dark gray to black, slightly sandy; trace

of calcareous sand and brown crystalline sandy

lime; trace of siderite- __ ________ .. _ ___ __-- 4, 180-4, 220

Shale, dark gray to black; trace of lime, brown, . :

crystalline, sandy_______ _____________.___^L 4, 22O 4, 240

Sand, white, coarse, quartzitic, calcareous, 

' , broken___--___-_--------_---__-_ 4,240-4,250

Shale, dark gray to black; a little sandstone,

medium.to coarse, calcareous,.quartzitic_____ 4, 250 4, 260 

Shale, dark.gray to black; trace of lime, brown,

crystalline, sandy, sideritic_____-_ ________ 4, 260-4, 280

Shale, dark gray to.".black.;. a little sandstone,

medium, calcareous, sideritic ___ ___________ 4, 280-4, 300

Sand, gray, medium to coarse, quartzitic, calcareous.--.-.: ------_----_- _----.---- 4,300-4,301

Core: 6 inches recovery, black shale and siderite- 4,301-4, 306 

Shale, gray to. dark; trace of sandstone, medium

calcareous..._ _ _ - - - ___ 4r306^'4; 335 '
.. . LEHIGH DISTRICT 113;

Log of John Thompson No. 1 well, center, of S.% sec. 34, T. 2 N., R. 9 -E., at 

Centrahoma, Coal County, Okla. Continued

Wapanucka limestone: Feet

Lime, brown, crystalline, sandy; trace of cherty 

and glauconitic conglomerate._______-_.___- 4, 335-4, 340

Core: Full recovery; lime, brown, fine to medium, crystalline, some sandy; trace of chert 

and glauconite; show of! gas; spotted, oil 

stained--....--..-..-----------.-------.- 4,340-4, 341)4

Core: No recovery._________________________ 4,342-4,343

Lime, brown and gray, crystalline, slightly sandy,

and conglomerate.-___-_----_----------..- 4, 340-4, 347

Lime, brown, crystalline, slightly conglomeratic,

fossiliferous, oolitic.____________'___________ 4, 347-4, 351

Core: 3 feet recovery, lime, brown and gray, 

crystalline, fossiliferous, slightly conglomeratic, 

and glauconitic; trace of oolite.-___________ 4, 351-4, 358

Lime, brown and gray, crystalline, fossiliferous,

' some oolitic.---- --------------.----.-.- 4,351-4,400

Lime, brown, crystalline, very oolitic; some oil

stain.___________________________________ 4, 400-4, 510

Springer formation:

Shale,; black, micaceous; some lime, brown,

crystalline, oolitic.________________---_.-___ 4, 510-4, 530

Shale, black, micaceous; trace of lime, brown, 

crystalline (drag?)...__'___________ 11 _..-_: . 4, 530-4, 590

Shale, black;.some lime, brown, crystalline.__.- 4, 590-4; 610

Shale, black, micaceous______________________ 4, 610-4, 620

Shale, black; some brown crystalline limestone.- 4, 620-4, 630

Shale, black, micaceous; some dark gray, soft...- 4, 630-4, 670

Shale, black, micaceous; trace of .black slick- .,.. - 

shale; some gray, soft shale._ ___--.. -___-_- 4, 670-4, 715

Shale, black, micaceous; trace of gray, soft..... 4, 715-4, 730

Shale, black, micaceous; some gray, soft; trace of . 

sand, glauconitic-_-____-_-____-_ -_-- __--_- 4, 730-4, 755

Shale, gray, soft, and black, micaceous; trace of . . 

em bedded sand and glauconite, traces of fossils. 4, 755-4, 770

Shale, dark gray, soft, some black, micaceous.-- 4, 770-4, 800

Shale, dark gray, some black, micaceous.; some - : , 

sand, gray, fine to medium, calcareous, glauconitic------------------------------.--.- 4, 800-4, 805

Shale, dark gray to black, some sandy, glauconitic; trace of sand, gray, calcareous, glauconitic; trace of limestone, brown, crystalline, 

sandy, glauconitic. _______________________ 4,805-4,815

Core: 5 feet recovery; black shale;. not able to

determine dip......._-.-._._..._-.-_.-___ 4, 815r4, 822

Shale, black, micaceous, some dark gray, soft, 

trace of sand, glauconitic; trace of black slick 

shale_-_-___________________'_____________ 4,822-4,860

Lime, blue, sandy, shaly, glauconitic; some shale,

black._--___-_-____J_J_______.._!___'_._. 4, 860-4, 905
114 SOUTHEKN PART OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

Log of JoJm Thompson No, 1 well, center of S% sec. 34, T. 2 N., R. 9 E., at

Centrahoma, Coal County, Ofcto.-^-Continued 

Springer formation Continued. Feet

Core: 4 feet recovery; lime, blue, blue gray, 

shaly, sandy, glauconitic; black glauconitic 

shale streaks; dips 7° to 15° (most of the dips 

are 13°)__..___..__._____.____.______._.__ 4, 897-4, 902

Core: 7 feet recovery; sandstone, medium to 

coarse, calcareous, glauconitic, soft in lower 

part, with shale streaks; light show of gas; 

small show of oil; dip 13°; black lignitic shale 

streaks.___________........._._... 4, 905-4, 913

Core: 5}_ feet recovery; top 4 feet sand, gray, 

medium, calcareous, glauconitic, lignitic 

streaks; smell of oil; 1%-feet of shale, gray to 

black, sandy, glauconitic, dip 13° to 15°_____ 4, 915-4, 922

Shale, black, micaceous; some sand, gray, medium, calcareous, glauconitic _________________ 4, 922-4, 935

At 4,930 feet ran sand tester with wall packer; no 

show, no shut-off.

Core: 5% feet recovery; sand, gray, medium, 

calcareous, glauconitic; black shale streaks, 

dip 14°; light oil stain, good odor; show of gas__ 4, 935-4, 944

Core: 2}_ feet recovery; top 6 inches black shale, 

bottom 2 feet sandstone, gray, medium, glauconitic, calcareous, light stain, fair odor______ 4, 944-4, 952

Core: 8 feet recovery; top 4 inches sand, gray, 

medium, light stain, fair odor; bottom 7 feet 

8 inches shale, black, sandy, glauconitic, with 

shells of gray medium sand_________________ 4, 952-4, 961

 Core: 9 feet recovery; top 7 feet shale, black, 

sandy, glauconitic, dip 14°; bottom 2 feet 

sandstone, gray, medium, glauconitic, oilstained, fair odor.________----__--_-_-.___ 4, 961-4, 975

Steel-line correction, 4,975=4,981 feet.

Core: 6 feet recovery; sand, gray, coarse, shaly, 

glauconitic, slightly lignitic; light oil stain, 

show of gas; ran sand tester with cone packer 

at 4,981 feet; good shut-off, no show___.-_ 4, 981-4, 992

Core: 7%. feet recovery; top 2X2 feet shale, black, 

sandy, glauconitic; brown crystalline limestone

breaks; bottom 5 feet sandstone gray, coarse,

glauconitic, slightly marly; fair light oil stain,

good odor; show of gas___________________ 4, 992-5, 001

Core: 6}_ feet recovery; shale, dark, very sandy,

glauconitic; some thin sand lenges; botiODl

1 foot black shale_ ________________________ 5, 001-5, 010

Core:. 8 feet recovery; top 1% feet sandstone, 

gray, coarse, shaly, glauconitic; light smell of

oil; bottom 6 inches sandstone, gray, coarse;

good stain and light odor.____-----_-------- 5,010-5,020

Shale, black, slightly sandy; some sandstone,

medium shaly, glauconitic ________ ____ 5, 001-5, 020

Shale, black, sandy, glauconitic___.__---__._ 5,020-5,140
LEHIGH DISTRICT 115

Log of JoJm Thompson ??o. 1 well, center of. £% sec. 34, T. 2 N., R. 9 E., at

Centrafioma, Coal County, Okla. Continued 

Springer formation Continued. Feet

Shale, black, slightly sandy__'___._-_________ 5, 140-5, 280

Shale, black; trace of limestone, brown, black,

dolomitic____--_-_____--__-__-___-_--_-. 5, 280-5, 290

Shale, black, trace of sand; traces of black

dolomitic limestone, trace of siderite._______ 5, 290-5, 425

Caney shale (top uncertainly placed):

Shale, black, brown black; trace of siderite_____ 5, 425-5, 480

Shale, black, some sandy, gritty, micaceous.-.. 5, 480-5, 495

Limestone, gray, gritty, micaceous.____-----__ 5, 495-5, 500

Shale, black; a little limestone, gray, gritty, 

micaceous__-______-._______._____________ 5, 500-5, 630

Shale, brown, dark brown, cherty; some glauconiticlimestone.___________________________ 5, 630-5, 635

Woodford chert (?):

Shale, dark brown and some black; trace of 

siderite..-.._--_-----_-___.__-----.--_--- 5, 635-5, 683

Core: 3 feet recovery; shale, brown, poorly developed spores; dip 15°._____-__------_-- 5, 683-5, 689

Shale, black, some brown; trace of siderite------ 5, 690-5, 735

Hunton limestone:

Core: 1 foot recovery; shale, brown and black; 

poorly developed spores_.__.__----___-___ 5, 735-5, 739

Steel-line correction, 5,772=5,752 feet.

Limestone, grayish white, coarse and fine crystalline........... .'........... ..-, - 5, 735-5, 755

Core: 5 feet recovery; limestone, gray, coarse 

crystalline, some fine crystalline, highly fractured and veined; .light show of gas; light 

smell of oil--__-_------__...---__-_-__ 5, 755-5, 765

Core: 3 feet recovery; limestone, blue gray, fine 

granular crystalline, some fracturing, dip not 

determined; show .of gas; smell of oil, no staining (Haragan shale)___..-__-_-_--------- 5,765-5,774

Limestone, gray, granular, crystalline________ 5, 774-5, 781

Core: 6>_ feet recovery; limestone, blue, fine 

granular, crystalline, some fracturing._.._-__ 5, 781-5, 788

Limestone, gray, fine granular._______________ 5, 788-5, 855

Limestone, white and pink, coarse crystalline

(Chimney Hill limestone) _____.---____-- _ 5, 855-5, 858,

Core: 3 feet recovery; top, limestone, white and 

pink, coarse crystalline; base, limestone, 

white, crystalline; trace of glauconite__-.__ 5, 858-5, 869"

Core: 1 foot recovery; limestone, gray, crystalline, cherty---____-.-__.__._..._____._ 5, 869-5, 871

Core: 1 foot recovery; limestone, gray, crystalline, cherty; trace of glauconite; spotty light 

oil stain .-_. i ._.__ 5, 871-5, 873
116 SOUTHERN PART OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

Log of John Thompson No. 1 well, center'of 'Sy^'sec. 34, T. 2 N., R. 9 E., tit

Centrahoina, Coal County, O7c/a. Continued 

Hunton limestone Continued. \ feet 

Core: 8 feet recovery; top, 6 inches limestone, 

gray, crystalline, glauconitic, show of oil; 

middle, 5% feet limestone, gray, crystalline, 

oolitic, dark oil stain along fractures, .some 

joint planes;'basal, 2 feet shale, green, 'green 

gray, dip 15° at epnt;a:ct- _ _..-_. J _"..'.______._ 5," 873-5, 883

Sylvan shale:

Core: Shale; green, green gray, dip 15° at contact. --_------_-_---______-___---,. 5, 881-5, 883

Shale, green grJy__ __- __ _-__ _ 5, 883-5, 970 

Viola limestone:"

Limestone, gray and pink mottled, coarse crystal-. 

 "-line:--. --- ----------------- 5,970-5,985

Limestone, white, coarse crystalline, trace of

dark burnt stain_____ --___ __- _ .5, 985-6, 030

Limestone, gray, coarse .crystalline, some fine 

crystalline, slightly sandy; trace of dark stain; 

smell of gas in cuttings. ..................^ 6, 030-6, 046

Core: 4 feet recovery; lime, brown, medium and 

coarse crystalline, slightly sandy; some spotty 

dark oil stain, smell of oil, show of gas. _______ 6, 046-6, 056

Lime, brown and gray, crystalline, slightly sandy; 

trace of dark oil stain, smell of gas.---------- 6, 056-6, 063

Core: 2 feet recovery; lime, brown, fine crystalline, some coarse crystalline;.trace of dark oil 

stain, smell of oil________'________________ 6,'063-6, 073

Limestone, brown, fine and medium crystalline;

trace of dark oil stain; trace of asphalt - 6,073-6,075 

' Limestone, brown and gray, .fine crystalline;

trace of dark stain.__________l_____-_._-.. 6, 075-6, 090

Limestone, brown and gray, crystalline, cherty;

trace of dark stain; smell of oiHn wet cuttings- 6,090-6,095 

Limestone, brown arrd gray, crystalline; trace of 

: dark stain.--------. ------- 6, 095-6, 120

. Limestone, gray, medium to coarse crystalline; a

little black shale----.-----..------------- 6, 120-6, 125

Limestone, gray, medium and coarse crystalline;

trac.e of dark asphaltic oil stain_ _ _ - . 6,125-6,130 

Limestone, grayish white,"coarse crystalline 6, 130-6, 140 

Limestone,' .grayish white, coarse crystalline;

small oii sliow_ ___ - ________ -____--__ G, 140-6, 145

Limestone, brown, crystalline, slightly argillacepus and sandy, oil-stained; good odor __ 6,145-6, 155

 Core: 2}£ fccrb recovery; ~t>op~, limestone, torown,

crystalline;'sparse, soft, slightly TOllaceoilS, '

sandy, oil-stained, good odor; base, limestone,

' ''" brown, fine "crysteUffie',"Oil-staiKe'd', 'fair odor,__ .6, 150-6, 155

Core; 3 feet recovery; limestone, brown, fine

crystalline, some medium crystalline; spotty 

brown oil stain; smell of oil; small show of gas, 

dip 30°---------------------------------- 6, 155-6, 160
LEHIGH DISTRICT . 117

y Log of John Thompson No.. 1 well, center, of S^.seo. 84, T. 2 N., R. 9-E.t 'at

Centrahoma, Coal County, Okla. Continued 

Viola limestone Continued. Feet 

Limestone, brown and gray, fine crystalline, 

. slightly sandy; some coarse crystalline; oilstained; fair odorof oil----..-----.-------- 6, 160-6, 180

Limestone, brown and. gray, crystalline, dolomitic; trace of asphalt; a little shale, black, 

calcareous_ _--_______.___._ ____._.__._._. 6,180-6,190

Limestone, brown, black-brown, medium, some 

fine to dense crystalline, dolomitic; trace of 

asphalt; some shale, black, calcareous; trace . 

of chert...._____________________________ :6, 190-6, 205

Limestone, brown, brown black, fine crystalline, 

dolomitic, some gray, coarse crystalline; trace 

of asphalt; some shale, black, calcareous.-^- 6, 205-6, 215

Limestone, black, finely crystalline, dolomitic; 

trace of asphalt; some shale, black, calcareous________-_ ______________________ 6, 215f 6, 220

Limestone, brown,-dense.--_______-._________ 6, 220-6, 225

Siiiipson group (Bromide formation .of Decker):

Limestone, grayish white, dense; some brown,

dense_-___-_----__----_----i_____-____---. 6, 225-6, 230

Limestone, gray, medium to coarse crystalline; 

some gray and brown, dense; bailed down, had 

125-feet 38° gravity oil in hole......________ 6, 230-6, 235

Core: 1 foot recovery; limestone, gray, coarse 

crystalline;. spotty stain; light show of gas, 

smell of oil__-_-__---_------_---__--.-^-_- 6, 235-6, 244

Limestone, gray, and brown, coarse crystalline; 

trace of embedded rounded sand__--_--_i-_- 6, 244-6, 250

Limestone, gray and brown, coarse crystalline; 

trace of embedded coarse sand; smell of oil in 

wet cuttings; trace of gray-white dense limestone'--___---____--__--_______----------- 6, 250-6, 255

Limestone, gray, coarse crystalline; some embedded coarse sand__-___-____--_-__--__--_ 6, 255-6, 260

Limestone, gray, coarse crystalline; some dark 

brown, granular, dolomitic; trace of embedded 

sand_--__---.---_____---___-___---_-__---_ 6, 260-6, 265

Limestone, gray, fine granular, dolomitic; some 

embedded sand; some brown and gray dense 

limestone-------.------..---.---.-------- 6, 265-6, 270

Limestone, brown and gray, crystalline; some

embedded sand; some brown, dense...-.----^ 6, 270-6, 280

Dolomite, gray, fine granular; trace of sand; 

trace of brown dense limestone______________ 6, 280-6, 290

« Dolomite, gray, fine granular, slightly sandy;

 a little sandstone, coarse, calcareous---.----- 6, 290-6, 305

Limestone,-brown and gray, fine granular,-crystalline, dolomitic, sandy--__--___-__-___-_._- 6, 305-6, 310

Limestone, gray, green gray, crystalline, dolo- . . 

. . mitic-.________________________________ 6, 310-6, 315
118 .SOUTHERN PART ..OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

Log of John Tlwmpvon'No. 1 well; center:of 8% sec. 34, T. 2:N., R. 9 E.,;&t

Centrahoma, Coal County, Okla. Gontinued 

Simpson group (Bromide formation of Decker) Gon. Fact 

Limestone, gray, crystalline, sandy, slightly, 

oolitic-..,---------- -----------.---..-- 6, 315-6, 320

' Limestone, gray,. crystalline, dolomitic, slightly

sandy and shaly_-__._.__.__.....___._._ _> 6, 325-6, 335

Limestone, gray, crystalline, dolomitic, sandy.. 6,335-6,340 

: Limestone, gray, medium and coarse, crystalline,

sandy-..---.-------------:- ----------- 6, 340-6, 345

Limestone, gray, crystalline, slightly sandy and

dolomitic;'shale, dark green.___ __________ __ 6, 345-6, 350

' .Dolomite, gray, fine granular, crystalline; trace

of sand; trace of green shale. 6,350-6,355

Dolomite and dolomitic limestone, gray, granular, 

sandy.. --- -------.- --- 6,355-6,360

Limestone, brown, dense; some brown dolomite,

gray, fine granular, slightly sandy___ _ _ 6, 360-6, 370

 Dolomite, gray, fine granular, slightly sandy... 6,370-6,375 

Dolomite and dolomitic limestone, gray, slightly

sandy; some limestone, brown, dense.._-._-- 6,375-6,390 

Limestone, brown, dense.____________________ 6, 390-6, 395

1 -: ; Dolomite, brown, some green, fine granular, 

crystalline; trace of green shale; trace of 

white sandy limestone_:___ -_---___ __ _ 6, 395-6, 400

 'I Limestone, brown, dense; some gray dolomitic;

trace of sandstone, medium, calcareous 6, 400-6, 405 

Limestone, brown, dense, trace of gray, dense. 6, 405-6, 410 

Dolomite, gray, fine granular; smell of oil; a

little limestone, brown, dense . 6, 410-6, 415

Dolomite, gray, fine granular; trace of brown

dense lime______-_-___-_-_--_____ _-___- 6, 415-6, 420

Dolomite, brown, fine granular; sand; slight stain

and smell of oil-.--.-.. . _ _ 6,420-6,425 

Limestone, gray, medium crystalline, sandy (5

percent of sand)___ .. ...... .. . 6, 425-6, 430

Limestone, gray, crystalline, sandy and shaly,

dolomitic; trace of brown dense limestone.... 6, 430-6, 435 

Limestone, gray, crystalline, sandy (10 percent

sand); some brown dense limestone_._.____-_ 6, 435 6, 440 

Limestone, brown, dense; trace of gray, dense.. 6, 440-6, 460

Limestone, gray, dense; some dolomite, gray,

fine granular, slightly sandy__________ .____ 6,460-6,465

Sandstone, coarse, dolomitic, tight; light oil stain; 

gasoline odor.____________________________ 6,465-6,467

Core: 4 feet recovery; sandstone, coarse, dolomitic; fair show of gas; light oil stain, smell of 

oil_--_------_---_ ----. -------------- 6, 467-6, 471

Limestone, light brown, dense __-__-__--_.__ 6, 471-6, 474

Limestone, gray, crystalline, highly dolomitic and

sandy; some brown dense limestone._-__ 6, 474-6, 480

Sandstone, coarse, calcareous; light oil stain, no.'

odor__----___-_-_--______-________--- 6, 480-6, 485
LEHIGH DISTRICT 119

Log, of John Thompson No. 1 well, center of 8% sec. 34, T. 2 N., R. 9 E., at

Centrahoma, Coal County, Okla. Continued 

Slmpson group (Bromide formation of Decker) Con. Feet

Limestone, brown, some gray, dense; dolomite, 

gray, fine granular-_____--__-_- -.______--- 6, 485-6, 490

Dolomite, gray, fine granular___.:.--______---- 6, 490-6, 495

Dolomite, light gray, fine granular.___________ 6, 495-6, 500

Dolomite, light gray, granular, slightly sandy.__ 6, 500-6, 505

Sandstone, coarse, calcareous, oil-stained, light 

odor.___.._._-._____-..-.-_ _____._. 6,505-6,508

Steel-line correction, 6,508=6,526 feet.

Core: 4 feet recovery; top, 2-foot dolomite, gray, 

fine granular, with sand streaks, spotty show 

of oil; 20-inch dolomite, gray, fine granular; 

bottom, 6-inch limestone, brown, dense, dip 20° _ 6, 526-6, 530

Dolomite, gray, fine granular, small show of oil; 

trace of sandstone, coarse, dolomitic, show of oil; 

small trace of green shale and dense limestone. 6, 530-6, 543

Dolomite, green gray, some gray, granular, crystalline; trace of dolomitic sand; green shale 

and dense limestone.__---____-_--______--- 6, 543-6, 550

Dolomite, green gray, granular, slightly shaly; 

trace of sand; trace of green shale...------- 6,550-6,570

Dolomite, green gray, shaly, slightly sandy; 

trace of dense limestone...___-..__-____-_ 6, 570-6, 585

Dolomite, green, shaly, slightly sandy; small 

show of oil; trace of dense limestone.--______ 6, 585-6, 590

Limestone, brown, dense; small show of oil along 

fractures and joint planes._____.._._..____- 6, 590-6, 605

Limestone, brown, bluish gray, dense._________ 6, 605-6, 640

Limestone, gray, dense; some dolomite, gray, 

granular..-----_-____--_-_----__-_-___-.- 6, 640-6, 645

Limestone, gray, dense; some white, dense__-__ 6, 645-6, 655

Sandstone, medium to coarse, highly calcareous; 

small show of oil.._.__________-__-_-__.-.. 6, 655-6, 660

Sandstone, coarse, calcareous; light stain and 

light odor.__..._______________... 6, 660-6, 665

Dolomite, green, granular, sandy..__-._.______ 6, 665-6, 668

Limestone, white, dense; sandstone, coarse; 

light stain and odor..______________.. 6, 668-6, 670

Limestone, gray and brown, dense; some sandstone; coarse dolomite; small show of oil..... 6, 670-6, 675

Dolomite, gray, granular, sandy; small show of 

oil..____________________________________ 6,675-6,680

Sandstone, fine to medium; dolomite; some light 

stain_.___.._-_._..__._..___._._.__.__.._ 6, 680-6, 685

Sandstone, medium, dolomitic; light stain, slight 

odor-.-___._--__._-_____________.-. 6, 685-6, 690

Sandstone, medium to coarse, dolomitic; oilstained.. ..--._--_.______-----_.___-_ 6, 690-6, 699

Core: 5 feet recovery; sandstone, gray, coarse; 

light stain, light odor; estimated porosity 

12-15 percent..___________________________ 6,699-6,705

81909 37 5
120 SOUTHERN PART OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

.Log ot John Thompson No. 1 well, center of Sty sec. 34, T. 2 N., R. 9 E., at

Centrahoma, Coal County, Okla. Continued 

Simpson group (Bromide formation of Decker) Con. feet 

Core: 5-feet recovery; sandstone, gray, medium

to coarse, uniform; light stain and light odor;

estimated porosity 10-12 percent.._________ 6, 705-6, 710

At 6,710 feet tested and had salt water. 

Sandstone, coarse, porous; light stain (poor

sample),_______________________ 6, 710-6, 725

Sandstone, medium to coarse; dark stain (sample

in place?)-_-_-____-_-_.__________________ 6, 725-6, 730

Sandstone, medium to coarse; light stain, some

dark stain; light smeU of oiL__-_______ 6, 730-6, 735 

Tested at 6,731 feet and had 5,700 feet of salt

water. 

Core: 1 foot recovery; dolomite, gray, granular,

slightly sandy with green shale streaks; light

stain and smell of oil._____________________ 6, 735-6, 733

Sandstone, gray, medium, very dolomitic; light

stain___._______-._____________-_ 6,733-6,737

Sandstone, medium, dolomitic; some limestone,

gray, dense.__--_____.__________ 6,737-6,750 

Dolomite, gray, granular, sandy; some limestone,

gray, dense.______--_-_-__________.____--- 6, 750-6, 760

Dolomite, gray, green gray, granular, sandy..-- 6, 760-6, 770 

Dolomite, green, green gray, shaly__-_-_______ 6, 770-6, 775

Dolomite, gray, sandy, slightly shaly; a little

sandstone, medium, dolomitic; small show of

oil-----_-_____--__-_.._-_.-..__._.._--. 6,775-6,785 

Sandstone, fine to medium, dolomitic; some

sandy dolomite and green shale.____________ 6, 785-6, 790

Dolomite, green, shaly; a little dolomitic sand--- 6, 790-6, 795 

Dolomite, green, shaly; some green shale__---_- 6,795-6,810 

Sandstone, fine to medium, dolomitic; small

show of oil_____------_____----.__.------- 6, 810-6, 815

Dolomite, gray, granular sandy; small show of

oil; some green shale.__._____--__-_____-.- 6, 815-6, 820 

Sandstone, medium, dolomitic; small show of oil;

some shale, dark green, slick._______________ 6, 820-6, 825

Sandstone, fine to medium, dolomitic; some

sandy dolomite and green shale._-.______--- 6, 825-6, 830

Sandstone, gray, fine to medium, dolomitic;

some green shale._____-_________-______--- 6, 830-6, 835

Dolomite, gray, green gray, very sandy; some

shale, green, calcareous____________________ 6, 835-6, 840

Dolomite, gray, granular, sandy; some limestone,

brown, finely crystalline; some green shale. __ 6, 840-6, 845 

Limestone, brown, dense; dolomite, gray, green

gray, sandy, slightly shaly_______._____--- 6, 845-6, 855

Dolomite, brown, granular, sandy; some limestone, brown, dense.______________________ 6, 855-6, 860

Shale, green, calcareous; some sandstone, coarse,

dolomitic __-___---______.---__.________ 6, 860-6, 870
LEHIGH DISTRICT 121

Log of John Thompson No. 1 well, center of S1/. sec. 34, T. 2 N., R. 9 E., at

. Centrahoma, Coal County, Okla. Continued 

Simpson group (Bromide formation of Decker) Con. Feet

Shale, dark green, calcareous; some sandstone,

coarse, dolomitic, tight, slightly conglomeratic. 6, 870-6, 880

Sandstone, fine to medium and coarse, highly 

dolomitic; some sandy limestone and some 

green shale...--._.-__________________ 6, 880-6, 885

Limestone, gray, crystalline, sandy, dolomitic; 

a little green shale____.--__--__.________ 6, 885-6, 895

Limestone, gray, crystalline, sandy; some green 

shale; a little sandstone, coarse, dolomitic; 

small show of oil--..._____________________ 6, 895-6, 900

Limestone, gray, crystalline, sandy, dolomitic, 

some green shale and tight dolomitic sand.... 6, 900-6, 920

Limestone, gray, crystalline, sandy, dolomitic; 

trace of dark-green shale and tight sand; 

show of oil.______-__-____________________ 6, 920-6, 930

Sandstone, medium, dolomitic; light stain, smell 

of oil; a little sandy limestone and green 

shale____-----.__________________________ 6,930-6,945

Limestone, gray, crystalline, sandy, shaly; some 

sandstone, medium, dolomitic; small show of 

oil. -------------------_-------_-___-.- 6, 945-6, 955

Sandstone, fine to medium, dolomitic, rather

tightly cement.ed.---_---______.___________ 6, 955-6, 965

Sandstone, medium and coarse, dolomitic, light 

stain; estimated porosity 10 percent_____-__- 6, 965-6, 970

Sandstone, fine to medium, dolomitic, tight; 

small show of oil---....-_...__________ 6, 970-6, 975

Sandstone, medium and coarse, slightly dolomitic; estimated porosity 15 percent; residue 

stain____--_._-_-______________________ 6,975-6,980

Sandstone, medium, calcareous, tight; small

show of oil------_---_--__._______________ 6, 980-6, 990

Sandstone, medium, porous; some dead oil stain. 6, 990-6, 995

Sandstone, medium, calcareous.______________ 6, 995-7, 005

Sandstone, medium and coarse, aggregated....- 7, 005-7, 015

Limestone, light gray, dense.-._______________ 7, 015-7, 030

Sandstone, medium, calcareous_______________ 7, 030-7, 035

Missing_------_-______._______________ 7, 035-7, 040

Sandstone, medium, calcareous; trace of darkgreen shale----------__--------_-----_--__ 7,040-7,045

Sandstone, medium, calcareous; a little gray

dense limestone and dark-green shale.__--_-_ 7, 045-7, 055

Sandstone, medium, porous; light stain of dead

oil.___--------_-----__---_-__--_---_--.__ 7,055-7,060

Sandstone, medium, calcareous; estimated porosity 10 percent---------.--..._..____.._.._ 7, 060-7, 070

Sandstone, medium, calcareous; a little fine

granular dolomite.._---------__-___-___--_ 7, 070-7, 075

Sandstone, medium, calcareous; estimated porosity 10 percent...._._._._...__..__.... 7, 075-7, 080
122 SOUTHERN PART OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

Log of John Thompson No. 1 well, center of Sy2 sec. 34, T. 2 N., R. 9 E., at

Centrahoma, Coal County, Okla. Continued - 

Simpson group (Bromide formation of Decker) Con. Feet 

Limestone, gray, dense; some sandstone, medium

dolomitic.... ________________ _____ 7, 080-7, 085

Sandstone, medium, some dolomitic; some dense

lime ------ _ ----- _ -_-_--_--_---- _ - 7, 085-7, 090

Dolomite, white, fine crystalline; some sandstone,

medium and coarse, dolomitic ______ ______ 7-090-7, 095

Sandstone, medium, slightly dolomitic; some

white dolomite ------_------------_----- 7-095-7, 105

Sandstone, medium to coarse, slightly dolomitic- 7, 105-7, 115 

Sandstone, medium to coarse, calcareous.-.--.. 7, 115-7, 120 

Sandstone, medium to coarse, calcareous; a little

dolomite, green gray, crystalline, shaly; trace

of green shale... __..________._._. -_ 7, 120-7, 126

Total depth, 7,126 feet; plugged back to 6,510

feet.

Following is the log filed with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission on the well that was drilled south of Olney. The altitude 

above sea level at the mouth of the well is about 575 feet. From 50 

to 2,530 feet in depth probably all the rocks passed through belong 

to the Atoka formation.

Log of Travelers Life Insurance Co. well no. 1, sec. 28, T. 1 S.,

R. 9 E., Coal County, Okla.

[Owned by Amerada Petroleum Corporation. Drilling begun June 12, 1935 ; completed

Aug. 14, 1935]

Surface clay __ ________

Shale --_--------__-

Gravel. ___-___.._.____

Shale --_---_---____

Gravel-sand __ _-_._.__

Broken sand and shale. _ _ 

Sand, lime_ _ _ _ _ _ . _

Sand-_----_-_-.--_ __

Sand, shale. ___________

Sand. _--____--_---____

Shale __ _____--.-_____

Shale and sand. _______

Shale __ _____________

Sandy shale__ _ __--__.-_

Shale _----___--_-_-_

Shale __-_____--___-_

Sand, hard _ _.____-___

Sand-_-_--_-------- -_

Sand, shale. ___________

Shale ____ _ _ _-_---.

Feet 

0-30

30-50

50-110

110-160

160-260

260-290

290-515 

515-630

630-820

820-830

830-945

945-1, 200

1, 200-1, 415

1, 415-1, 700

1, 700-1, 815

1, 815-2, 050

2, 050-2, 105

2, 105-2, 335

2, 335-2, 365

2, 365-2, 415

2, 415-2, 440

2, 440-2, 515

2, 515-2, 530

shale. _-_--__ _.

Lime. __________ _.

sand. _-------..

Broken lime and 

shale. -__-_-_-__

Shale____-_.______

Sand, hard_-_-____

Caney__ _________

Woodford __ __. _

Hunton. _________

Viola _-___-____

Bromide. _ ________

Asphalt.. __--_-_

Bromide__----__-

Asphalt __ _-._ _

Bromide___ -----..

McLish __ _,_-.

Bureen_-________

Feet 

2, 530-2, 670]

2, 670-2, 718

2,718-2,730 0,_A

' > 270

2, 730-2, 768

2, 768-2, 800,

2, 800-2, 838

2, 838-2, 878

2, 878-2, 900

2, 900-3, 810 910

3, 810-3, 890 80

3, 890-4, 065 265

4, 065-4, 320 255

4, 320-4, 467 147

4, 467-4, 770 303

4, 770-4, 790 20

4, 790-4, 810 20

4, 810-4, 825 15

4, 825-4, 885 60

4, 885-5, 115 230

5, 115-5, 392 277

5. 392-5. 416 24
LEHIGH DISTRICT 123

OKLAHOMA

McAlester

ARKANSAS

LITTLE ROCK

Tertiary' and 

Cretaceous

Permian and 

Pennsylvanian

Pre-Pennsylvanian

Facies of Facies of 

Arbuckle Mountains Ouacfiita Mountains

75 Miles

FIGUKB 7. Map showing areal distribution of rock exposures in portions of Oklahoma, 

Arkansas, and Texas, illustrating the probability that the Lehigh district is wholly 

underlain by pre-Pennsylvanian rocks of the sequence exposed in the Arbuckle Mountains and the Ti Valley-Choctaw belt. 1, Lehigh district. 2, Black Knob Ridge segment 

of Choctaw fault; Ordovician of Ouachita. sequence on east side of fault is in Juxtaposition with Misslssippian and Pennsylvanian rocks of facies of Arbuckle Mountains on 

west side of fault. 3, Arbuckle Mountain region. 4, Small areas of Devonian and 

Mississippian rocks of facies of Arbuckle Mountains lying between Choctaw and Ti 

Valley faults. 5, Small exposure of Ordovician rocks of facies of Ouachita Mountains 

In Frounterhouse Creek.

The sequence (fig. 7) of the pre-Pennsylvanian sedimentary rocks 

exposed in Black Knob Ridge 39a and eastward in the Ouachita Mountains differs from the sequence that represents the same portion of 

the Paleozoic era in the Arbuckle uplift. In the Ti Valley-Choctaw 

belt, described by Miser 40 as extending along the frontal margin of 

the Oklahoma salient of the Ouachita Mountains from Stringtown 

to the Arkansas boundary, the outcropping sequence from the Woodford chert (Devonian ?) to the Atoka formation (Pennsylvanian) 

is similar to the sequence of rocks of equivalent age in the Arbuckle 

uplift. A normal section of the Arbuckle sequence of rocks was 

encountered in the Hansen et al. well 41 in the SE14NW1/4 sec. 17, 

T. 4 S., R. 11 E., in the Gulf Coastal Plain about 13 miles south of 

Atoka. The Pennsylvanian Springer formation and the Mississip80a Hendricks, T. A., Knechtel, M. M., and Bridge, Josiah, Geology of Black Knob Ridge, 

Okla.: Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 1-29, January 1937.

*°Miser, H. D., Carboniferous rocks of Ouachita Mountains: Am. Assoc. Petroleum 

Geologists Bull., vol. 18, no. 8, pp. 973-979, August 1934.

« Miser, H. D., Pre-Cretaceous rocks found In wells In Gulf Coastal Plain south of Ouachita Mountains: Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., vol. 15, no. 7, pp. 804-808, July 

1931.
124 SOUTHERN PART OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

pian Caney shale of the Arbuckle-sequence crop out on the west side 

of the Choctaw fault south of Stringtown and are in faulted contact 

:with shale of Ordovician age of the Ouachita sequence. The areal 

distribution of the formations, as thus outlined, considered together 

with the structural relations along the Ti Valley and Choctaw faults, 

indicates that the Ouachita and Arbuckle sequences of rocks were 

originally, more or less distantly separated and were brought together by late Paleozoic thrusting from the southeast.

PENNSYL.VANIAN BOCKS

The Springer formation (Pennsylvanian) and the Wapanucka 

limestone (Pennsylvanian), like the pre-Pennsylvanian formations 

of the facies of the Arbuckle Moutains, differ lithologically and 

faunally from the sequence of rocks (Stanley, Jackfork, Johns Valley) representing the same general geologic time interval in the area 

east of Black Knob Kidge. The Springer and Wapanucka have been 

observed in the Lehigh district only in the small area in which they 

crop out near the west-line of T. 1 S.-, R. 9 E., and in the cuttings 

'from* the Centrahoma and Olney wells, as set forth in the logs given 

above. . They are present in the Ti Valley-Choctaw belt, to the east, 

and in the Arbuckle uplift, to the west. It is therefore assumed that 

the Springer is present beneath the surface in all parts of the district in which Wapanucka and younger formations are mapped on 

plate 11. The Wapanucka limestone, however, may be absent in some 

places, as Miser and Hendricks^2 report that it is apparently absent 

in the section overlying the Springer in North Boggy Creek in sec. 

29, T. 1 S., R. 12 E., about 4y2 miles east of the Lehigh district,

It is almost certain that the Atoka formation, which is widely exposed both in the Ouachita Mountains and in the Arkansas-Oklahoma coal basin, occurs beneath all the areas in which younger rocks 

are mapped on plate 11. This view is supported by data from wells 

drilled in widely distributed localities within those areas. The 

Hartshorne and younger formations, outcrops of which are confined 

to the coal basin, are likewise believed to extend under all parts of 

the district from which they have not been removed by erosion.

The southeastward coarsening and thickening of the sandstone 

beds of the Pennsylvanian formations of the Lehigh district indicate 

that most if riot all of the sediments that compose those formations 

were transported from the southeast or south to the basin in which 

they were deposited. Most of the'materials of the Atoka formation

were furmgU'by tKrl^j:^ during most

;of the Paleozoic era .in Louisiana and Texas and .probably -at 'times

42 Hendricks, T. A., Knechtel, M. M., and Bridge, Josiah, op. cit, p. 14.
LEHIGH DISTRICT 125

extended into southern Oklahoma and southern Arkansas.43 Llanoria 

was probably also the source of some of the Hartshorne and younger 

sediments. The sediments, however, probably were derived in part 

from uplifted and exposed earlier Paleozoic sedimentary rocks of 

the facies of the Ouachita Mountains that had been deposited in 

the Llanoria geosyneline, which lay north of Llanoria. Part of the 

sediments may have been derived from rocks of the Arbuckle and 

adjoining areas.

Beginning with orogenic movements that occurred immediately 

prior to Atoka time and continuing through most of the period of 

downward warping in the Arkansas-Oklahoma coal basin, a land 

area lay southeast and south of the Lehigh district. During the 

deposition of a large part of the Atoka formation the northern 

boundary of the land lay far to the south, possibly in northern Texas, 

but by the end of Atoka time it may have shifted northward to 

a position in Oklahoma somewhere within the area occupied by 

the present Ouachita Mountains, there to remain during a large 

part of Allegheny time. Within the land area pre-Carboniferous 

sedimentary rocks of the Ouachita Mountains facies of sedimentation 

were extensively exposed, as indicated by cherty conglomerates in 

the Strawn group of Texas, the lower and middle units- of which are 

believed by Moore 44 to be equivalent in age to the formations of the 

 Arkansas-Oklahoma coal basin. Pebbles in the Brazos River and 

Turkey Creek sandstone members of the Strawn are regarded by 

Bay 45 as having been transported westward from formerly uplifted 

rocks of Ouachita facies now buried under deposits of the Coastal 

Plain south of the Oklahoma portion of the present Ouachita Mountains. Erosion of the rocks of this former vast land area probably 

produced most of the loose materials that were carried by streams 

and redeposited as sediments in the Arkansas-Oklahoma coal basin.

Atoka and younger sandstone beds that are conglomeratic in the 

southeastern part of the Lehigh district are described on preceding 

pages of this report. The rock fragments in the conglomeratic portions of these beds are composed predominantly of chert, which must 

have been transported in Pennsylvania!! time from older formations 

exposed to the southeast. The Woodford chert (Devonian?) and 

. Pine Top chert (Middle Devonian) of the Ti Valley-Choctaw sequence appear to be capable of jdelding much cherty debris. The 

. Arkansas novaculite .(Devonian) of the Ouachita sequence, however,

43 Miser, H. D., Llanoria, the Paleozoic land area in Louisiana and eastern Texas: Am. 

Jour. Sci., 5th ser., vol. 2, pp. 61-89, August" 1921.

 **Moore, R. C., Late Paleozoic crustal mo'vements of Europe and.North America: Am. 

Assoc. Petroleum Geologists,Bull., vol. 19, no. 9,-p.-1265, September. 1935,

146 Bay. H. X., A study of certain Pennsylvania!! "conglomerates of Texas: Texas Univ. 

.Bull. 3201, pp. 149.-188,; February 1.933." .. ..>...:," - . ' .
126 SOUTHERN PART OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

would have been a productive source, and the Bigfork chert (OrdovJcian) of the Ouachita sequence might have furnished some. The derived coarse cherty material in-the conglomeratic layers in the coalbasin formations might be expected in either case to diminish northward, and this is what actually occurs, such material not being present 

in large amount in the part of the coal basin northeast of the 

neighborhood of Stringtown.

The Bigfork chert (Ordovician) and the Arkansas novaculite 

(Devonian) are well exposed in Black Knob Ridge, which might 

therefore seem to be the obvious source of the chert fragments. 

Most geologists, however, now believe that the rocks exposed in 

Black Knob Ridge were deposited as sediments many miles southeast of their present location and were brought here by overthrusting in late Pennsylvanian time. .That the coarse cherty material 

in the rocks of the coal basin is abundant only in the part of the 

basin adjacent to the extensive novaculite and Bigfork chert exposures along Black Knob Ridge must therefore be regarded as fortuitous, because the ridge did not exist while the rocks of the coal 

basin were being deposited. At that time the coal basin probably 

extended eastward beyond the site of the present ridge.

Prior to Atoka time only a moderate thickness of Carboniferous 

rocks, all of them of the general facies of the early Carboniferous 

of the region surrounding the Arbuckle Mountains, had been deposited in the Lehigh district. On the other hand, strong downward warping movements farther southeast had permitted accumulation of the enormously thick clastic deposits of the Stanley and 

Jackfork formations, of Pennsylvanian age, which together are believed to be equivalent in age to the relatively thin Springer formation, part of which is exposed in the western part of the Lehigh 

district and in the Ti Valley-Choctaw belt. In early Atoka time 

these rapid sinking movements spread northward, and the Lehigh 

district, becoming involved in the general subsidence, received thousands of feet of clastic sediments of the Atoka, Hartshorne, McAlester, Savanna, Boggy, and Thurman formations.

STRUCTURE

General features. The Pennsylvanian rocks that were deposited 

in the Lehigh district were later extensively folded and to a less 

degree faulted. Most of the district lies within a larger area of 

folded Pennsylvanian rocks of the Arkansas-Oklahoma coal basin 

adjacent to the arcuate frontal margin of the Ouachita Mountains. 

The larger area is referred to by some writers as the "open-fold

zone," In the Lehigh and McAlester districts the open-fold zone

trends northeastward. East of the McAlester district it -trends east-
LEHIGH DISTRICT 127

ward and extends into western Arkansas. According to Van der 

Gracht 46 it is present in north-central Texas under a cover of Cretaceous deposits of the Gulf Coastal Plain. In Oklahoma it ranges 

in width from about 10 to 35 miles. Northwest of the open-fold 

zone in the region north of the Lehigh district the middle and late 

Pennsylvanian rocks dip regionally northwestward at low a*ngles.

The most characteristic structural features of the open-fold zone 

are broad flat synclines and relatively narrow anticlines. The 

axes of these folds are in general parallel to the frontal margin of 

the Ouachita Mountains, and their direction in the Lehigh district 

is therefore northeastward. The rock strata exposed on several 

anticlines of the open-fold zone, including three of those in the Lehigh district, dip gently outward on both sides of the axis, but half 

a mile or more from the axis they bend abruptly downward at steep 

angles on both sides of the anticline.

Hendricks 47 believes that structural thickening and thinning of 

the rocks, particularly the shales, occur in several closely folded anticlines in the McAlester district, but no evidence of this phenomenon 

seems to be present in the Lehigh district.

The structure of the open-fold zone is principally related to 

deformational movements, probably in Pennsylvanian time, involving horizontal compressive forces directed northwestward and accompanied by overthrusting in the Ouachita region. The structure 

of the southwestern part of the Lehigh district, however, appears 

to have been modified by uplift in Pennsylvanian time, which also 

affected the rocks of the Ardmore Basin and the Arbuclde 

Mountains.

For general discussions and bibliographies concerning the stratigraphy and structure of the Arbuckle and Ouachita Mountains, 

th« reader is referred to papers .by Miser,48 Powers,49 Van der 

Gracht,50 Tomlinson,51 and Dott.52

Several anticlines, synclines, and faults that have been recognized 

in the Lehigh district are described below.

49 Van der Gracht, W. A. J. M. van Waterschoot, Permo-Carboniferous orogeny in southcentral United States: Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., vol. 15, no. 9, p. 1046, 

September 1931.

« Hendricks, T. A., op. cit. (Bull. 874-A).

48 Miser, H. D., Carboniferous rocks of Ouachita Mountains: Am. Assoc. Petroleum 

Geologists Bull., vol. 18, no. 8. pp. 971-1009. August 1934.

*» Powers, Sidney, Age of the folding of the Oklahoma mountains the Ouachita, Arbuckle, and Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma and .the Llano-Burnet and Marathon uplifts 

of Texas: Geol. Soc. America Bull., vol. 39; pp. 1039-1072, 1928.

00 Van der Gracht, W. A. J. M. van Waterschoot, op. cit., pp. 991-1057.

51 Tomlinson, C. W., Oil and gas geology of Carter County : Oklahoma Geol. Survey Bull. 

40-Z, 1928.

43 Dott, R. H., Overthrusting of Arbuckle Mountains, Oklahoma: Am. Assoc. Petroleum 

Geologists Bull., vol. 18, no. 5, pp. 567-602, May 1934.
128 SOUTHERN PAR! OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

Centrahoma dome. The Centrahoma dome lies in the south half 

of T. 2 N., R. 9 E., where the rocks exposed at the surface dip outward in all directions from, a point half a mile south of the town 

of Centrahoma. These rocks were formerly assigned by the writer 

and by Taff to the Boggy shale, but their lithology and the depth 

at which* the Lehigh coal was encountered in wells drilled on the 

dome indicate that they belong to the Savanna sandstone. At most 

points the beds involved are inclined at angles of less than 10° from 

the horizontal, but at a few places they dip more steeply. Near the 

center of sec. 28, for example, a dip of 25° NW. was recorded, and 

in the SWy^ sec. 26 a sandstone bed dips 24° E. The outcrops of 

the beds involved in the folding appear to terminate at a line trending in a northeasterly direction along the east side of the dome. 

East of this line are extensive areas of nearly horizontal strata. A 

fault has been tentatively drawn along this line on the map (pi. 11), 

though the relations along it might perhaps be equally well explained 

by unconformity and westward overlap of the flat-lying beds on the 

tilted beds of the dome.

Of five wells drilled on the Centrahoma dome, one reached the 

Simpson group (Ordovician). Four finished in the Pennsylvanian, 

and two of these are gas wells. The gas has not been marketed. 

Further data on these wells are given on pages 142-143.

Ashland anticline. The Ashland anticline enters the Lehigh district from the west, trends northeastward across T. 3 N., R. 11 E., 

and dies out in the east half of T. 3 N., R. 12 E. The highest point 

on the'axis of the anticline, as exposed at the surface, lies within, 

an area in which rocks belonging to the McAlester shale crop out; 

near the line between Rs. 11 and 12 E. Beds of the overlying Savanna sandstone, which crop out in a surrounding belt, and of the 

succeeding Boggy shale, which closes around the southwest end but 

not the northeast end of the anticline, dip away in all directions with 

reference to this area at angles that vary from place to place. The 

steepest dips occur on the northwest side of the anticline in a narrow belt and are indicated on the accompanying map by close, spacing..

of the structure contours. In this; belt dips ranging from 15° to 90°

liave been recorded in the Savanna and basal Boggy beds. A zone.

of steeply dipping rocks involving beds at the same' stratigraphic 

horizons occurs on the south side of the anticline along the south - 

boundary of T. 3 N., R. 11 E. The strata exposed at .all other points, 

on the Ashland anticline are inclined at angles of less than 15° from,

the horizontal.- The structural closure in the Ashlarid anticline is

estimated at 1 5 000 feet. ' Gas has been encountered in Hartshorne and 

McAlester beds at: depths ranging from 313 to 1,379 feet in several 

wells drilled within the area in which the McAlester shale comes to 

the surface. The gas has not been commercially developed.
LEHIGH DISTRICT "-' ' 129

Savanna anticline. The Savanna anticline of the McAlester district extends westward about l 1/^ miles into the Lehigh district and 

dies out at a point in the southeastern part of T. 3 N., R. 12 E., south 

of the east end of the Ashland anticline.

Coalgate anticline. The Coalgate anticline begins at the Phillips 

fault, near the north line of T. 1 S., R. 10 E. Its axis plunges northeastward from the fault to a point about half a mile north of the 

town of Coalgate, whence it rises as far as sec. 9, T. 1 N., R. 11 E. 

From that locality it plunges to a point in the McAlester district 

about 5 miles to the northeast, beyond which it rises eastward for 

about a mile and dies out against steeply inclined beds that dip 

northwestward near the Choctaw fault. An anticlinal axis that 

plunges northeastward in the region east of Olney, involving surface rocks of Atoka, Hartshorne, and McAlester age, may be a southwestward continuation of the axis of the Coalgate anticline beyond 

the Philips fault. .

The surface beds involved in the Coalgate anticline northeast of 

the Phillips fault are the McAlester shale, Savanna sandstone, and 

Boggy shale. As in the Ashland and Savanna anticlines, narrow 

belts of steeply inclined strata occur on both flanks of the Coalgate 

anticline. The belt on the northwest side is characterized by dips 

ranging from about 15° to 60°, that on the southeast by dips as high 

as 28°, and all other parts of the anticline by relatively low dips. 

Southwest of Coalgate the anticline is believed to close against the 

Phillips fault. The part lying northeast of Coalgate is a closed 

anticline similar to the Ashland .anticline. The..'Indian Territory 

Illuminating Oil Co;'s dry hole drilled near the 'axis in the north' 

half of T. 1 N., R. HE., was'discontinued in the Atoka formation 

at a depth of 7,890 feet, and several more shallow wells have been 

drilled, one of which, a caved hole in the southwestern part of T. 

1 N., R. HE., initially yielded. 2,500,000 cubic feet of gas.

Himton anticline. The Hiinton anticline, known 'to some- Oklahoma geologists as the Clarita horst, extends southwestward from 

the Lehigh district to the Tishomingo quadrangle. It is bounded 

on the north by the Clarita fault and on the south by the Olney 

fault. Its axis plunges in a northeasterly direction, and dies out 

in the north half of T. 1 .S., R. 9 E. Where it enters that township 

from the west it brings to the surface the Springer formation, the 

oldest formation exposed in the district, followed eastward by the 

Wapanucka limestone and the Atoka formation. Its relation to the 

structure of the rocks east of .Clear Boggy Creek is obscure. ' ;

Wardville syncline. -The Wardville syncline occupies the area be-, 

tween the Ashland and Coalgate anticlines.. Its axis extends from 

T. 2 N., R. 10 E., eastward and dies out near .the northeast .corner, 

of T. 2 N., R. 12 E. The lowest point, structurally, lies along the
130 SOUTHERN PART OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

axis in the central part of T. 2 N., R. 11 E., where the uppermost 

stratigraphic horizon exposed is about 2,000 feet above the base of 

the Boggy shale. In contrast with the flanking anticlines, which are 

relatively narrow and are bordered by zones of steeply inclined 

strata, the Wardville syncline is a broad, shallow, open fold, in which 

the rock strata at all exposures dip at low angles.

Lehigh syncline. The Lehigh syncline lies south and east of the 

Coalgate anticline and is bounded on the east by the northeastwardtrending belt of steeply inclined Pennsylvanian strata that lies adjacent to the Choctaw fault. The main axis of the syncline extends 

from a point near the southern boundary of Coal County northeastward into the McAlester district. From the main axis a minor 

synclinal axis branches northwestward and dies out near Coalgate. 

South of the Phillips fault, which cuts the Coalgate anticline near 

its south end, and around the southern and eastern margins of the 

syncline, the surface beds involved include all the formations from 

the Atoka formation to the Boggy shale.

PMllips fault. A. major fault terminates the Coalgate anticline 

near the north line of T. 1 S., R. 10 E., and dies out about a mile 

west of Phillips. Its throw, which is downward on the north side, 

increases gradually westward and may amount to several hundred 

feet near the east line of T. 1 S., R. 9 E. Near Phillips only 

McAlester beds are involved at the surface. Farther west Savanna 

sandstone north of the fault is dropped against McAlester shale on 

the south, and still farther west, in the neighborhood east of Clear 

Boggy Creek, against Hartshorne sandstone. The Phillips fault 

may continue westward across Clear Boggy Creek and is possibly 

the eastward continuation of the fault, involving at the surface 

McAlester shale and questionable Hartshorne sandstone, which enters 

the Lehigh.;district at the .west line of sec. 30, T. IN., R. 9 E. Slick-

 ensided fragments of sandstone occur in the vicinity of the Phillips 

fault in the Ny2 sec. 4, T. 1 S., R. 10 E.

Olney and Clarita faults. The Olney fault has its dropped side to 

the south, enters the Lehigh district in sec. 19, T. 1 S., R. 9 E., and

 extends along the southeast side of the Hunton anticline northeastward through Olney, east of which its course is hidden by the alluvial 

deposits along Clear Boggy Creek. The portion of the Olney fault

lying within the Lehigh district involves only Atoka beds at the

surface. The Clarita fault, named from the settlement of Clarita, 

in T. 1 S., R. 8 E., extends eastward into the Lehigh district on the

north side of the Hunton anticline and possibly dies out at some point

west of Clear Boggy Creek. Atoka beds are exposed on the downtKroYrn north side of the portion of this fault that extends into the

 district, and Wapanucka limestone on the south side.
LEHIGH DISTRICT 131

Minor faults. Two normal, faults occur in Hazelton No. 1 mine, 

in the NW^/i sec. 32, T. 1 N., R. 10 E. One of these cuts the 

Lehigh coal bed at a slope distance of about 2,000 feet from the 

mine opening. It dips about 45° NW. and drops the coal 10 feet on 

its northwest side. A small fault shown on plate 11 was encountered 

trending northwestward in the Keystone mine, in the SW*4 sec. 28, 

T. 1 N., R. 10 E., the coal being dropped 30 feet on the northwest 

side. The fault in the Keystone mine continues into Coalgate No. 5 

mine, in the NE^NE^ sec. 22, T. 1 N., R. 10 E. It drops the 

Lehigh coal 32 feet on its northwest side at a slope distance of about 

2,000 feet and dips about 65° NW. After driving westward 200 

feet from the bottom of Coalgate No. 5 .mine shaft, which is 600 

feet deep, the miners raised to find the westward continuation of 

the Lehigh coal beyond a fault that trends northwestward, dropping 

the coal on its northeast side. The possibility is suggested that 

this fault, involving beds that are inclined northwestward, is a tear 

fault along which the rocks on the southwest side are .displaced 

horizontally northwestward relative to those northeast of the fault.

Origin of the faults dud) folds. Major elements of the open-fold 

zone in the Lehigh district that appear to have originated mainly 

under the influence of thrusting from the direction of the Ouachita 

Mountains are the Ashland and Coalgate anticlines, the broad, openly 

folded Wardville and Lehigh synclines, and possibly the Hunton 

anticline (called the "Clarita horst" by some oil geologists). The 

northeastward dip of the strata over most of T. 1 N., R. 9 E., and of 

most of the strata exposed southwest of the Lehigh syncline in the 

southern part of the Lehigh district may, however, have resulted 

from uplift in late Pennsylvanian time associated with faulting and 

folding in the Arbuckle Mountains and the Ardmore Basin. As 

a result of the northeastward tilting and later planation, the oldest 

rocks exposed in the Lehigh district crop out in the southwestern 

part. The Atoka formation is there extensively exposed, and the 

Wapanucka limestone and Springer formation appear at the surface 

of the Hunton anticline. Nevertheless, the northeasterly trend of 

the axis of the Hunton anticline indicates that its structure is primarily related to that of the open-fold zone. Taff's description of 

the structure of the Hunton anticline,58 the greater part of which 

lies west of the Lehigh district, is as follows:

At the eastern end of the Arbuckle uplift one of the northern folds, called 

the Hunton anticline, enters the northwest corner of the Atoka quadrangle, 

pitching eastward at an angle of 10° The axial portion is broad and flat., 

while the sides are sharply flexed downward and even faulted. The displacement of the faulted strata on each side of the fold is several hundred feet.

M Taff, J. A., U. S. Geol. Survey Gepl. Atlas, Atoka folio (no. 79), p. 7, 1902.
132 SOUTHERN PART OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

Toward the east these faults die out in the Carboniferous strata, but toward 

the west they increase and join a number of fractures of the same nature.

The Hunton anticline, therefore, may be essentially an anticline 

of the open-fold zone which, because of tilting of its axis, has become more deeply eroded than the Ashland and Coal gate anticlines 

northeast of it in the Lehigh district. Like the central portions 

of those anticlines, the central part of the Hunton anticline is a 

broad, low arch, and the faults on its flanks suggest analogy with 

the marginal belts of steep dip that characterize these two anticlines 

of the open-fold zone. No adequate evidence of the nature of the 

subsurface structure of the Lehigh district is at present available, 

however, and any interpretation of it must on that account be highly 

speculative.

Prior to middle Pottsville time sedimentary rocks, chiefly of marine origin and ranging in age from early Paleozoic to early Pennsylvanian, had accumulated over much of southern Oklahoma. Orogenic movements of varying intensity, which deformed the rocks in 

 the Arbuckle and Ouachita regions at intervals from middle Pottsville time until 1 the late Pennsylvania!!, arid possibly the Permian, 

are discussed by Miser,54 Powers,55 and others. The only rocks now 

exposed in the Lehigh district that had been formed when these 

movements began are the Wapanucka limestone and the Springer 

formation, which crop out in the Hunton anticline near the west 

line of T. 1 S., R. 9 E. Later orogenic movements occurred in the 

region during the deposition of the Atoka formation,56 and overlap 

of younger formations on the Wapanucka limestone and the Caney 

shale 57 in the Stonewall quadrangle indicates deformation in Hartshorne, McAlester, and Savanna time.

Intense folding of the Pennsylvania!! rocks of the Lehigh district 

occurred after the deposition of the ro'ck's of the lo'wer pa'rt of the 

Boggy shaJe^ for these strata are steeply inclined on the flanks of the 

Ashland and Savanna anticlines and in the eastern part of the Lehigh syncline. It seems probable that these folds resulted from the

same compressive forces, directed northwestward, that brought about

most if not all of the Ouachita overthrusting, This conclusion is

indicated by the general parallelism in the trend of the structural

axes between the Ouachita Mountains on the one hand and the

81 Miser, H. D., Carboniferous rocks of Ouachita Mountains : Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., vol. 18. no. 8, pp. 971-1009. August 1934.

56 Powers, Sidney, Age of the folding of the Oklahoma mountains : Geol. Soc. America 

Bull., vol. 39, pp. 1039-1072, 1928.

"Miser, H. D., op. cit., p. 1008.

67 Morgan, G, D,, Geology of the Stonewall fluadrangje, OKla.: Bur. Geology Bull. 2,

p. 19," 1924, '
LEHIGH DISTRICT 133

"Arkansas-Oklahoma coal basin on the other, as well as by the prevailing decrease in the intensity of deformation from the Ouachita 

Mountains northwestward across this portion of the coal basin. 

There is, however, much difference of opinion among authors regarding the date of the northwestward overthrusting. Hendricks 58 

states that the Thurman sandstone is involved in related folding in 

the McAlester district, and Morgan 59 states that the Choctaw fault 

and many of the structural features of the Stonewall and Coalgate quadrangles resulted from movements that occurred in late 

 \Vewoka (middle Pennsylvania!!) time. Clawson,60 as stated elsewhere in this report (p. 107), believes in a great angular unconformity near the base of the Boggy shale and expresses 

the opinion that "the large, steeply folded structural features 

typical of the Coalgate-McAlester area and associated with the 

Ouachita overthrust were well developed by middle or late Boggy 

time, subsequent folding consisting more of a tilting and gentle warping, with compressive forces acting from the northeast and southwest, rather than from the direction of the Ouachita mass to the 

southeast." Melton,61 however, prefers to explain the:marked change 

in clip near the base of the Boggy shale on these folds as due to the 

cushioning effect of the thick Boggy shale, "dissipating some of the 

forces arising from the Ouachita compression, thus protecting some 

of the more rigid overlying formation from folding." Melton ° 2 concluded, chiefly on the basis of statistical studies of the orientation of 

joints in the rocks exposed northwest of the Ouachita Mountains 

at widely scattered points in eastern Oklahoma, that at least the 

"more intense phases" of the deformation are of post-early Permian 

age. Honess,03 Powers,64 and Miser,05 however, are in agreement 

in the opinion that the deformation of the Ouachita Mountain region 

occurred mainly in Pennsylvania!! time.

As already stated, the northeastward dip of most of the strata 

exposed in the southwestern part of the Lehigh district and the

88 Hendricks, T. A., op. cit. (Bull. 874-A).

50 Morgan, G. D., op. cit., p. 19.

00 Glawson, W<- W., Jr., Oil and gas geology of Coal and Pittsburg Counties : Oklahoma 

Geol. Survey Bull. 40-JJ, pp. 14-15, 1928.

61 Melton, F. A., Age of the Ouachita orogeny and its tectonic effects: Am. Assoc. 

Petroleum Geologists Bull., vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 64-65, January 1930.

82 Idem, pp. 66-72. '

63 lioness, C. -W., Geology of the southern-Ouachtta Mountains of Oklahoma: Oklahoma 

G-eol. Survey Bull. 32, p. 25!>, 1923.

64 Powers, Sidney, Age of the folding of the Oklahoma mountains: Geol. Soc. America 

Bull., vol. 39. no. 4, pp. 1031-1071, 1928.

68 Miser, H. -D., Carboniferous rocks of Ouachita Mountains: Am. Assoc. Petroleum 

Geologists Bull., vol. 18, no. 8, p. 1009, August 1934.
134 SOUTHERN PART OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

northeastward plunge of the axis of the Hunton anticline are possibly related to deformation in the Ardmore Basin and the ArbuckleMountains that occurred, according to Toinlinson,66 in late Pennsylvanian time (Deese of Goldston).

ECONOMIC GEOLOGY

COAL 

OCCURRENCE

 Two coal beds have been mined profitably in" the Lehigh district. 

The lower of these beds, formerly designated the "Atoka coal", occurs 

in the Hartshorne sandstone about 45 feet below the base of the 

McAlester shale. It occupies nearly the stratigraphic position of 

the Lower Hartshorne coal bed of the McAlester district and is 

referred to as the Lower Hartshorne bed in this report. The Lower 

Hartshorne coal is reported to be about 4 feet thick at the Hickory 

Hill strippings, in T. 2 S., R. 10 E. A thin bed of coal of little or 

no value, known as the Upper Hartshorne bed, occurs at the base of 

the McAlester shale. The upper valuable bed, known as the Lehigh 

coal, is in the McAlester shale, 400 to 500 feet below the top of the 

formation, or about 1,200 feet above the Lower Hartshorne bed. It 

occurs at about the horizon of the McAlester coal bed of the McAlester 

district.. An unnamed thin coal bed of no value occurs about 30 feet 

above the Lehigh coal bed. The thickness of the Lehigh bed ranges 

from about 3 feet 4 inches to about 5 feet and shows a general increase 

from southwest to northeast within the district. The following sections of the Lehigh bed, measured at widely separated localities, show 

the general character of the bed. The first section was measured by 

the writer; the others are taken from the work of Moose and Searle.67

Sections of Lehigh coal

J. L. Gaddo mine, NW%NE}4 sec. 36, T. 1 S., R. 10 E., 3 miles south of Lehigh

[Measured Dec. 7, 1935, in room 50 feet northeast of shaft that is 45 feet deep]

Ft. in.

Hard gray shale containing marine shells; some sulphur_ 4 6+

Bone coal____________________________________ 2

Dark-gray shale (roof of coal)_________________ 2

Hard bright coal; a little pyrite__ _______________ 1 2

Soft dull coal_________________________ 2y2

Hard bright coal; a little pyrite__________________ 1 8Va

Bone coal_______________________________ 4 

Hard gray shale (floor) 1+

68 Tomlinson, C. W., The Pennsylvania:! system in the ArdmOPfi Basin '. Oklahoma GeOl, 

Survey Bull. 46, pp. 47-48,1929.

67 Moose, J. E., and Searle, V. C., A chemical study of Oklahoma coals: Oklahoma Geol. 

Survey Ball. 51, pp. 38-39, 1929.
LEHIGH DISTBICT 135 

Keystone No. 1 mine, SW*4SW% sec. 28, 3% miles southwest of Coalgate

[Section A was cut from face of 8 west entry, 2,490 feet from mouth of slope ; section B was 

Cut' from face of long wall off 3 west entry, 1,200 feet from mouth of slope. Sections 

measured Aug. 6, 1928]

A B

Roof, soapstone. Inches Inches 

Coal___________________ ______. 3y2 1 

Pyrites_____ ______ Vz % 

Coal___________________ _______. 6 11/2 

Pyrites_____ _________ % 

Coal____________________________ 7% 13%

Pyrites_______ ________ . % Vs

Coal____________________________. 4 6

Streak.

Coal___________________.______. 6y2 7

Pyrites ____________ % %

Coal____________________________ 9 1 

Floor, soft clay.

M. K. & T. mine 21, SE^4NE^4 sec. 17, T. 1 N., R. 11 E., 3*£ miles northeast of Coalgate

[Section A was cut from face of 5 west entry, 2,100 feet from mouth of slope; section B 

was cut from face of room 4 off 4 west entry, 2,050 feet from mouth of slope; section 

C was cut from face of room 56 off 1 east entry, 3,260 feet from mouth of slope]

A B C

Roof, soft soapstone. Inches Inches Inches 

Coal________________________. 3 5y2 4y2 

Mother of coal (mineral charcoal).

Coal_______________________. 4y2 1% iy2 

Pyrites _ % % % 

Coal________________________. 2% 2% 13 

Pyrites- _______ i/i 

Coal_______________________. 6 6% 11 

Pyrites.

Coal________________________. 6% 9% 7ya 

Pyrites.

Coal________________________. 10y2 6% 14 

Floor, soft clay.

Neither the Lehigh bed nor the Hartshorne bed has been traced 

continuously between the Lehigh and McAlester districts, and correlation of these beds from one area to the other cannot be made with 

certainty.

A good general, description of the outcrop of the Lehigh and 

Hartshorne coals, as related to the geologic structure of the Lehigh 

district is given in the following quotations from a report by Taff: 68

The coal of the Lehigh district lies in a wide oval basin in the central and 

southern parts and in the sides of an upward or anticlinal fold in the northwest 

side. The downward fold is known as the Lehigh Basin [syncline] and is named 

for the mining town located on the west side. It is broad and deep in the 

central, part opposite Lehigh and is much contracted in the northeast end. In

68 Taff, J. A., Maps of segregated coal lands in the Lehigh-Ardmore district, Choctaw and 

Chickasaw Nations. Indian Territory : 61st Cong., 2d sess., S. Doc. 390, pp. 331-332, 1904.
136 SOUTHERN PART OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

the east side of this basin, extending across the eastern part-of T. 1 S., R. 11 E., 

and the southeast part of T. 1 N., R. 12 E., the coal and associated rocks are 

so steeply folded and disturbed that the coal is considered to be of little value' 

and has not been included in the segregated lands. In the south end and west 

side, however, the coal beds are well disposed structurally, and the cpa] outcrop 

can be easily traced and successfully mined. * * * From Coalgate northeastward the coal pitches downward at a low" angle, to rise" again to the 

surface near the eastern border of T. 1 N., R, 10 E. From'the border of this 

township to the northeast'corner df T. 1 N., R. 11"E., the Coal'crops in a long 

oval around the axial part of the upward fold. Farther' toward the northeast the coal pitches in a low slope to the northeast. * '* * "From Coalgate 

southwestward the anticlinal fold becomes broad and low, "the coal in the 

north side cropping in a southwesterly direction. "In the other side it strikes 

south through Phillips and Lehigh.

Both the Lehigh and Atoka [Lower Hartshorne] coals crop out at the 

southern end and southwest side of the Atoka [Lehigh] Basin, but only the 

Lehigh comes to the surface in the Coalgate anticlinal fold. * * * In the 

south side of this upward fold the coal approaches the surface at angles varying from 10° to 20°, except very near the town of Coalgate, where it is somewhat lower. In the northwest side, however, the coal is steeply inclined and 

can be exploited most economically by slope mining. :

Southwest of Coalgate the Lehigh coal bed is cut by the Phillips 

fault, which has brought it into contact with the older bsds that 

crop out on the south side of the fault. The rocks against which it 

is thus faulted near the northwest corner of T. 1 S.,"R. 10 E., are in 

the lower part of the McAlester shale. Where the coal rises to the 

surface on the north side of a fault that may be the continuation of 

the Phillips fault, about 4 miles farther west, the rocks exposed on 

the south side' of the fault belong to the Atoka formation. The 

Lehigh coal is recognized in a small mine in the Ny2 sec. 30, T. 1 N., 

R. 9 E.,.by the presence of a characteristic layer of fossiliferous limestone that also occurs immediately above that bed in the mines in 

the vicinity of Coalgate and Lehigh.

QUALITY

On the basis of its chemical composition, as shown in the following

table of analyses by the United States Bureau of Mines,69 the coal 

of the Lehigh (McAlester) bed of the Lehigh district is classified as 

a high-volatile bituminous coal. A few typical analyses of the 

bituminous coal of the McAlester bed of the McAlester district are 

included in the table for comparison, showing in general higher 

heating value, larger percentages of fixed carbon, and smaller percentages of moisture and ash than are present in the Lehigh coal. As

no mines in the Lower Hartshorne bed were operating during the 

period of the present investigation, no fresh exposures of that bed 

were accessible for sampling, and no analyses of the Lower Hartshorne coal are available for the Lehigh district.

69 Mostly quoted from U. S. Bur. Mines Tech. Paper 411,1928.
Chemical analyses of mine samples of coal from the McA

Locality, bed, mine, etc.

M'ALESTER DISTRICT

bed (composite of samples A21280, A21281, and A21282).

2 miles west of McAlester, No. 4 mine, McAlester bed (composite of samples A21128 and A21129).

Pittsburg; McAlester-Edwards No. 1 and No. 2 mines, McAlester bed (composite of samples A21276 and A21277).

LEHIGH DISTRICT

Lehigh, Yi mile north of; No. 5 mine, Lehigh bed (face of 8 south 

entry, 5 slope) .

3,000 feet northeast of; Folsom Morris No. 5 mine, Lehigh 

bed (face of 1 south entry, 8V6 slope, top entry). 

Same (face of 11 south entry, 5J^ slope, bottom entry) 

Same (face of 4 south entry, 5>£ slope, bottom entry) ..--

Same (composite of samples 30707 to 30711, inclusive). ....

\Yi miles east of; Folsom Morris No. 8 mine, Lehigh bed (face 

of 6 south entry, main slope, bottom entry).

Same (face of 5 north entry, main slope entry, bottom' 

entry).

!}.£ miles southeast of; Lehigh No. 8 mine, Lehigh bed (face 

of 19 room ,-3 north entry, 2,000 feet northwest of shaft).

Sample

Laboratory 

No.'

A21283 

A21130 

A21278

1150 

1151 

30707

30708 

30709 

30710 

30711 

30712

30713

"30714 

30715 

30716

30717 

30718

10054

Kind'

B 

B 

B

A 

A 

A

A 

A 

A , A 

A

A

A 

A 

A

A

A

A

Comdition 3

1 

2 

3 

1 

2 

3 

1 

2 

3

1

1 

2

1

1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

2 

3

1 

1 

1

1

2 

3 

1 

2 

3

Proximate

Moisture

2.9

3.0

4.0

5.3 

6.5

6.6

7.0 

7.7 

6.6 

6.2 

6.6

6.3

7.1 

7.1 

6.1

7.1 

6.9

~~7.T

Volatile 

matter

36.5

39.6

36.6 

37.8

40.0

38.5

37.5

39.0 

41.7 

38.2

38.3 

38.5 

39.8 

39.3 

38.6 

41.3

47.4.

38.3

40.4 

39.7 

40.3

40.6 

39.4 

42.3 

48.2 

36.4 

39.2- 

44.4

Fixed 

carbon

55.7 

57.4

55.0

KO 0

55.5

59 0

45.1

45.2 

48.3 

42.6

42.3 

42.3 

41.9 

42.6 

42.9

43.1

42.3 

42.4 

42.6

41.7 

42.2 

45.4 

51.8 

45.7 

49.1 

55.6

See footnotes at end of-table
Chemical analyses of mine samples of coal from the McAlester 

Locality, bed, mine, etc.

LEHIGH DISTRICT continued

Lehigh, 3 miles southwest of; J. L. Oaddo mine, Lehigh bed 

(room 50 feet northeast of shaft, 45 feet below surface).

Phillips, y& mile east of; Folsom Morris No. 6 mine, Lehigh bed 

(face of 10 nortb entry, 6H slope, top entry). 

Same (face of 10 north entry, main slope entry, bottom 

entry) . 

Same (face of 11 south entry, main slope entry, top entry).

Same (face of 10 south entry, main slope entry, top entry) .

Coalgate, 4H miles southwest of; Old Hazleton mine, Lehigh 

bed (face of 13 room, 3 west entry, slope distance 800 feet).

4 miles souttiwest of; Keystone mine, Lehigh bed (face of 1 

east parting entry, 100 feet east of slope; slope distance 300 

feet). 

3H miles northeast of; M. K. T. No. 21 mine, Lehigh bed 

(3 east entry, 3 panel slope, room 1 on east side. 60 feet 

from panel slope) . 

Same (plane, 7 west entry, 2,700 feet west of main 

slope, room 1 on west side of plane, 225 feet from panel 

slope) . 

Same (1 west parting, 50 feet west of main slope, 850 

feet from mouth of main slope).

Same (composite of samples B-10266 to B-10268,inclusive) .

Sample

Laboratory 

No.»

B-10021

30719 

30720

30721 

30722 

30723 

30724

B-786 

B-785 

B-10266 

B-10267 

B-10268 

B-10269

Kind'

B

A 

A

A 

A

A 

A

B 

B 

B 

B 

B 

B

Comdition »

1

2 

3 

1

1

: l

l 

l

2 

3 

1 

2 

3 

1 

v 2 

3 

1 

2 

3 

1 

2 

3 

1 

2 

3 

1 

2 

3

Proximate

Moisture

9.0

6.1 

5.8

5.6 

5.7 

5.9 

5.9

8.3

8.4

7.2

6.0

6.7

6.7

Volatile 

matter

37.3 

39.6 

48.5 

40.0

40.1

39.9 

40.3 

39.1 

39.5 

42.0 

46.3

37.1 

40.5 

46.7

36.5 

39.8 

44.8

34.8 

36.3

40.1

36.7 

38.1

42.0

37.0 

38.6

43.2

36.2 

37.7 

42.0

Fixed 

carbon

39.7 

42.1 

51.5 

45.1

45.7

45.4 

46.4 

45.2 

45.8 

48.6 

53.7

42.4 

46.2 

53.3

44.9 

49.1 

55.2

52.0 

54.3

59.9

50.6 

52.3

58.0

48.6 

50.6

56.8

50.2 

52.2 

58.0

i Laboratory- numbers with a prefix "W" represent samples analyzed in the Washington laboratory of th

1 A, mine sample collected by an engineer of the Bureau of Mines; B, mine sample collected by a geologi

»1, sample as received; 2, dried at 105° C.; 3, moisture and ash free.

« Figures in this column represent the temperature at which the cone of coal ash has fused to a spherical l
LEHIGH DISTBICT 139

MINING

Mining of coal has been carried on in the Lehigh district for more 

than 50 years. Most of the coal has been taken from the Lehigh 

coal bed, but some has been taken from the Lower Hartshorne bed, 

notably at the Hickory Hill strippings, in T. 2 S., R. 10 E. Formerly a large amount of the coal produced provided fuel for the 

locomotives of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe and Missouri, 

Kansas & Texas Railroads. Some coal was shipped to distant markets, and some was consumed locally. The small present production 

is partly sold locally for domestic purposes, and many of the operating mines at present are "wagon mines" from which the consumers 

buy coal in small quantities to be hauled home in wagons or motor 

trucks. The coal is mined both by stripping along the outcrop and 

by the room and pillar method in underground operations. The 

extent of the workings up to 1934 is shown on plate 11, and further 

information on most of the mines is given in the following table:

Coal mines in the Lehigh district 

[All on Lehigh bed except the last, which is on the Lower Hartshorne bed]

Location

Quarter

SE^SEM 

NWJiSWJi. 

SEKNWM--

NWKNEJ4. 

6WKSWM--

6EMSWM--

NE^SWKNW^SEJiSEKNE&.. 

NWMNWM 

SW^SE^.. 

NE&NEJ4--

NE&NE^.. 

SWJiNEJ*.. 

NE>iSW^-- 

SW^SEM 

SW}<-__---

NWMSWJi. 

SW^SEJi-. 

SW&SWJ4.. 

SEJ4NEK-- 

NEMNE^. 

NE^SWJi..

NEMSEK-- 

NEMNW'4 

SW^SWJ4- 

NW&NEJ4. 

SWJiNWJi. 

NE^SW^..

Sec

31 

32 

32

32 

28

28

28 

28 

28 

27 

22 

22

23 

13 

13 

13 

18 

18 

18 

17 

17 

16 

7

20 

25 

25 

35 

35 

35

T.

IN. 

IN. 

IN.

IN. 

IN.

IN.

IN. 

IN. 

IN. 

IN. 

IN. 

IN.

IN.

IN. 

IN. 

IN. 

IN. 

IN. 

IN. 

IN. 

IN. 

IN. 

IN.

IN. 

IN. 

IN. 

1 N. 

IN. 

IN.

R. 

E.

10 

10 

10

10 

10

10

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10

10 

10 

10 

10 

11 

11 

11 

11 

11 

11 

11

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10

Mine operator or 

name

Citron slope 

Hazeltou.. . 

..... do.. 

. .do. 

Keystone...- 

Taylor & Williamson. 

Cleland. 

Bristow 

Coalgate Coal Co~ 

__ do. _ 

 do... 

 do. 

 do. 

M.-K.-T. R. R..- 

 do... 

..... do... 

Sunshine. 

Noel. 

M.-K.-T. R. R.... 

..... do..... - 

 do.. 

Trespass.. . - M.-K.-T. R. R.~.

 do.. 

..... do.. 

..... do... 

 do....- .

Folsom-Morris 

No.

~~2~ 

1

3 

1

"T 

3 

2 

5

1 

2 

5 

10 

....

0 

17 

21

"l4"

4 

12 

12 

4

7

Kind

Slope. .. . 

... do..... 

... do...-

... do..... 

...do.. 

... do. 

... do 

... do.. 

... do. 

... do 

...do. 

ShaftSlope .... 

Shaft 

 do..... 

...do__ 

Slope.- 

... do..... 

Shaft. 

... do..... 

Slope.. 

...do..... 

... do.....

Shaft..... 

... do..... 

... do..... 

Slope.... 

_ do. ....

Shaft. .

Approximate 

average 

thickness 

(height) 

of coal

Ft. in. 

3 8 

3 10 

3 10

3 10 

3 4

3 10

3 10 

4 

4 

4 

4 

4 6

4 6 

4 

4 

4 

4 

3 6 

4 

5 

5 

4 

4 C

4 6 

4 6 

4 6 

4 6 

5 

6

Dip

(pitch)

10 

11 

H^

12 

12

12

12 

12 

12^ 

12J4 

12H 

13>£

20 

10 

6 

5 

6 

8 

14 

13M-16

40-65

14 

14 

13 

13 

12 

11

Remarks

Coal is faulted.

Coal faulted at 

1,000 and 2,000 

feet distance.

Coal faulted at 

1,000 feet slope 

distance.

Fault 200 feet west 

of bottom of 

shaft.

Slope distance 

1,400 feet to bottom of mine. 

Pitch steepens 

gradually. 

Old no. 4. 

New no. 12. 

Do. 

New no. 4.
140 SOUTHEKN PAKT OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD 

Coal mines in the Lehigli district Continued

Location

Quarter

NE^NWM!

NEJ4SWJ4-. 

NEMNE^ 

3WJ£SWJ4_"

STE&NE&-

N W %1N H. v^ 

.> £74 -NW^.

Sec

2 

2 

11 

11 

14 

?3 

13 

14 

36

36 

36

36 

6 

3

T.

IS. 

IS. 

IS. 

IS, 

IS. 

IS. 

IS. 

IS. 

IS.

IS. 

IS.

IS. 

2S. 

28.

R. 

E.

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10 

10

10 

10

1011

10

Mine operator or 

name

E. &G.. . ........

Folsom-Morris. - . .

 . .do...... ...

Pope _____ ..'.

.... do. _____ .

J. L. Gaddo ....

A. & M... ........

No

6

2

5

8

4

1

2

Kind.

Shaft.....

...do.....

Slope. ... 

...do.....

Shaft.... 

... do.....

 do.....

 do.....

Slope....

Shaft..... 

...do.....

do

Stripping,

Approximate 

average 

thickness 

(height) 

of coal

Ft. in. 

5 

4 6 

4 6 

4 6 

4 6 

4 6 

4 6

3 10

4 

4

3 1 

4 

4

Dip

(pitch)

0

11

9 

9 

8 

8 

8 

4 

6 

6

6 

6

6 

6 

5

Remarks

New no. 4. 

Small fault about 

100 feet from 

mouth. 

Thickness includes 

shale parting, 4 

 to 6 inches thick, 

known as "middle band." 

Do. 

Do.

The total coal production of Coal County for each year from 

1908 to 1935 is given in the following table, compiled from "Mineral 

Resources of the United States", published annually by the United 

States Geological Survey until 1925 and by the United States Bureau 

of Mines since. Nearly all of this coal was produced from the area 

shown on plate 11, though small quantities came from a few wagon 

mines in T. 1 N., R. 8 E., in western Coal County.

Goal produced in Coal County, Okla., 1908-35

Tons

1908_ ______ 576,746

1909-___--___- 658, 159

1910_..------. 498,658

1911.. _____ 778, 746

1912___.____ 816, 155

1913___.______ 889,299

1914____--.___ 676,292

1915__________ 556,479

1916-... 524,954

1917___-----_- 581,770

Tons

1918....-. . 542,254

1919..-____ 427,306

1920... . 461,394 

1921________ 187,451

1922_._____ 79,847 

1923___----- 33,464

1924__._____ 29,249 

1925__________ 52,862

1926-.------. 83,452

1927____-_--_- 124,015

OIL POSSIBILITIES

Tons

1928-..__._- 131, 110

1929...____ 134, 328

1930________ 96,931

1931_____--.__ 53,396

1932... _______ 42,886

1933. _._- ----- 46,671

1934_______ 42,886

1935__.-___ 38,913

Though several anticlines that have been described on preceding

pages appear, on the basis of observations made at the surface, to 

favor the accumulation of oil, the imperfect state of our present 

knowledge regarding their subsurface character makes the choice of 

drill 111? Bites difficult. The drilling for petroleum on these anticlines has not yielded commercial amounts oi. oil. Only a ffiW SflOWings"of oil have been reported in the wells that have been drilled,
LEHIGH DISTRICT 141

and the information at hand that bears upon the problem of oil 

development indicates that oil in commercial amounts is not likely 

to be found in the Lehigh district in formations younger than the 

basal part of the Atoka formation. The pre-Atoka rocks of the 

Lehigh district, which are largely concealed beneath Atoka and 

younger Pennsylvanian rocks, have not, however, been adequately 

explored by the drill. The Wapanucka limestone and older formations have, so far as the writer is aware, been reached in only two 

wells in the.area at the time of writing. Though both of these holes 

were dry, the log of one, the Amerada Petroleum Corporation's well 

in the SW^NW^SE^ sec. 28, T. 1 S., R. 9 E., about 2 miles south 

of Olney (p. 122), shows a total of 80 feet of asphalt in the Bromide 

formation of Decker, in the Simpson group, and "shows" of oil and 

gas are reported at many horizons in the log of the Carter Oil Co.'s 

deep well in the NE^NWi/4 sec. 34, T. 2 N., R. 9 E., near Centrahoma (pp. 109-122). Moreover, the gas that has been found in the 

Centrahoma, Coalgate, and Ashland anticlines in Pennsylvanian 

rocks is probably derived from potential source beds of petroleum 

in the older formations. The possibility that oil may have accumulated at lower horizons at these and other apparently favorable 

localities in the Lehigh district will probably lead to further deep 

drilling in the area. The vertical section of 6,989 feet of Atoka beds 

passed through from a depth of 870 feet to the bottom of the Indian 

Territory Illuminating Oil Co.'s dry hole in the SEi/iSWi^NW^ 

sec. 10, T. 1 N., R. 11 E., near the axis of the Coalgate anticline, may 

be much greater than the normal thickness of the Atoka in that 

locality, owing to possible unknown structural conditions at depth. 

The base of the Atoka formation may be nearer the surface at other 

points on the Coalgate anticline.

Further data regarding most of the wells that have been drilled in 

the Lehigh district are contained in the following table:
142 SOUTHERN PART OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

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LEHIGH DISTRICT 143

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144 SOUTHERN PART OF OKLAHOMA COAL FIELD

Drillers' logs of these wells are obtainable at small cost from the 

Corporation Commission, Oklahoma City, Okla.

Some encouragement for further search for oil in this area may 

be derived from the proximity of producing fields and from the 

carbon ratios of the coal. Oil is produced from the rocks of the 

Simpson, Viola, and Hunton formations in the Fitts field, about 12 

miles west of the Lehigh district, and also at Jesse, about 6% miles, 

west of the district; showings of oil in the Wapanucka limestone are 

reported in two wells in sec. 35, T. 1 N., K. 8 E., a little more than a 

mile west of the district. All these formations occur below the 

surface within the district. (See pp. 108-124).) East of the area, oil 

seeps 70 and deposits of grahamite 71 have been known for many 

years to occur within a belt 20 miles wide extending from the west 

end of the Ouachita Mountains eastward into Arkansas, and a few 

wells in that belt have yielded small amounts of oil. 72

The percentage of fixed carbon in coal samples from the Lehigh 

district which have been analyzed by the United States Bureau of 

Mines ranges from 51.5 to 59.9 (ash-, moisture-, and sulphur-free 

basis). (See table, pp. 137-138.) The carbon ratios 73 are therefore 

well below the limit, approximately 62 percent, above which the indicated chances would be against the presence of commercial amounts 

of oil.

NATURAL GAS

As shown in the preceding table, eight wells on the Ashland anticline, two on the Centrahoma dome, and one on the Coalgate anticline have yielded gas in notable quantities, though none of it has 

been marketed. The gas occurs mainly in the Hartshorne sandstone, 

but sandy beds in the McAlester shale yield some gas and the Savanna sandstone yields a little.

The gas wells on the Ashland anticline all lie within a quarter 

of a mile of the anticlinal axis as drawn on plate 11 and extend for 

nearly 3 miles along that axis within the area of exposure of the 

McAlester shale. In these wells gas occurs in the Hartshorne sand70 Miser, H. D., Relation of Ouachita belt of Paleozoic rocks to oil and gas fields of MldCODtinent region : Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., vol. 18, no. 8, p. 1065, 1934.

71 Taff, J. A., Grahamite deposits of southeastern Oklahoma; U. S, Geoi. Survey Bull. 

380, pp. 386-397, 1909.

72 Vanderpool, H. C., Oil southeast of the Choctaw fault: Oklahoma Acad. Sci. Proc., vol. 

14, pp. 58-60, 1934.

73 White, David, Some relations in origin between coal and petroleum: Washington 

Acad. Sci. Jour., vol. 5, no. 6, pp. 189-212,1915; Metamorphism of organic sediments and 

derived oils; Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., vol. 19, no. 5, pp. 589-617, May 1935. 

Fuller, M. L., Carbon ratios in Carboniferous coals of Oklahoma : Econ. Geology, vol. 15, 

no. 3, pp. 225-235, April-May 1920. Hendricks, T. A., Carbon ratios in part of ArkansasOklahoma coal field: Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists Bull., vol. 19, no. 7, pp. 937-947, 

July 1935. Fisher, D. J., Carbon ratios north of the Ouachitas: Am. Assoc. Petroleum 

Geologists Bull., vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 102-105, January 1936.
LEHIGH DISTRICT 145

stone at depths ranging from 1,176 to 1,410 feet, and in sandy beds 

in the McAlester shale at depths of 313 to 708 feet. According to 

available information the daily open-flow volumes of the wells at 

the time of completion ranged from 300,000 to 2,960,000 cubic feet. 

By far the greatest yield came from the Hartshorne sandstone. 

Though none of the gas in the Ashland anticline has been marketed, 

the present low rock pressure of the gas indicates that the supply 

has been depleted through leakage since the wells were drilled, in 

1912, 1913, and 1914. Colton 74 reports, that in 1932 the rock pressures in all the sands were subnormal, being 140 pounds to the square 

inch for shallow sands and 300 pounds for the Hartshorne sandstone. He states that "the reserve of the shallow and Hartshorne 

zones, calculated by the porosity method, is about 8 billion cubic 

feet."

Of the two wells that yielded gas1 on the Centrahoma dome, one, 

the J. W. Berryman well, obtained it from the Hartshorne sandstone at depths of 1,655 to 1,679 feet and from the McAlester shale 

or Savanna sandstone at 780 to 820 feet; the other obtained it mainly 

from a sandstone at a depth of 790 feet, either in or slightly above 

the McAlester shale, and small quantities from beds at 245 and 416 

feet, which are probably in the Savanna sandstone. The total initial 

daily open-flow volume of gas from these two wells was reported 

to be 18,600,000 cubic feet. The flow of 2,500,000 cubic feet of gas at 

1,202 to 1,229 feet, reported in the caved well in the SE^SW^t 

sec. 10, T. 1 N., R. 11 E., on the Coalgate anticline, probably issued 

from the Hartshorne sandstone.

If markets should ever become available for gas from the Lehigh 

district, the Centrahoma, Ashland, and Coalgate anticlines would 

offer the best opportunities for development of further supplies. 

Other than these, no structural features are believed to possess closure 

within the district, and it is therefore improbable that potential 

gas fields exist elsewhere in the area.

74 Colton, E. G., Natural gas in Arkansas Basin of eastern Oklahoma, in Geology of 

natural gas. edited by Harry A. Ley, pp. 519-520. Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists, 1935.

INDEX

Page

Abstract _______ ______ 91 

Allegheny age, formations of 97,101-108 

Alluvium, Kecent__ __ 108 

Amerada Petroleum Corporation, log

of well of ________ 122 

Anderson, C. B., field work of 94 

Anticlines, features of __-_ 128-129 

Arbuckle Mountains, features of 

stratigraphy and structure of________ 123,127 

Arkansas novaculite, occurrence of,

east of the district- 125-126 

Ashland anticline, features of __ 128 

Asphalt, in well near Olney_____ 122 

Atoka coal. See Lower Hartshorne

coal bed.

Atoka formation, age of_______ 101

character and thickness of_ 100-101,

111-112,122

correlation of____-__-__ 99

occurrence of 100-101,124

Atoka time, events of _ _ 125-126

Bay, H. X., cited____________ 125 

Bigfork chert, occurrence of, east of

the district ___. 126 

Black Knob Ridge, geologic relations

of _ __ _ 123, 126 

Boggy shale, occurrence and charac-

 ter of-_________ 97,106 

origin of ____________ 126

Bridge, Josiah, cited__________ 123 

Bromide formation, character and

thickness of_____ 117-122 

Burgen formation, in well near

Olney__________ 122

Caney shale (Mississippian), charac-

. ter and thickness of 98. 

115,122

correlation of____________ 98 

Carbon ratios of coal, relation of, to 

occurrence of petroleum ___________ 144 

Carter Oil Co., log of well of___ 108-122 

Centrahoma, Okla,, log of well at- 108-122 

Contrahoma dome, features of____ 128 

wells on____ 108-122,128,142,145 

Cherokee shale, correlation of, in

northeastern Oklahoma- 101 

Chert pebbles, occurrence and significance of-____ 97,102,103, 

104, 105, 107, 110, 125-126

Page 

Chimney Hill limestone, occurrence

of______-____ 115 

Choctaw fault, structural relations

and age of __- 124,133 

Christian, W., field work of_____- 94 

Clarita horst (Hun ton anticline),

features of_ 129,131

Clawson. W. W., Jr., cited 96,107

Climate, data on 94

Coal, analyses of__________ 137-138

classification of - 136

mining of____________ 139-140

occurrence of _ 104, 105, 134-136

production of, 1908-35 - 140

Coalgatc anticline, features of 129

Colton, E. G., cited-____ __ 145

Conglomerate, character and geologic

significance of_ 97, 102,' 103, 

104, 105, 107, 110, 125-126

Dane, C. H., cited 

Dott, R. H., cited___: 

Drainage of the district.

96

127

93

Faults, occurrence and features of 130-

131, 133

Fisher, D. J., cited__ __ __ 141 

Fitts oil field, proximity of, to the

district____ ___ 92, 144 

Folds, occurrence and features of- 129-134 

Fuller, M. L., cited_________ 144

Gas, natural, occurrence of- 128, 144-145 

natural, wells yielding 142-143 

Geography of the district ____ 92-94 

Gerty sand, occurrence and character of__________ 108 

Girty, G. H., cited ____ __ 95 

Grahamite deposits, occurrence of,

east of the district__ 144

Haragan shale, occurrence of__-_ 115 

Harltou, B. H., cited _ _______ 98,99

Hart, R. M., field work of __ 94

Hartshorne sandstone, coal beds in 134-136

deposition of- __ __- 103,126

occurrence and character of 102-

103,110

Hendricks, T. A., cited__ 94, 96,102,103, 

1.04, 106, 107, 108, 123, 124, 

127, 144.

Highways, accessibility of the district by_________ 92 

Hunton anticline, features of- 129,131-132

147
148 INDEX

Page 

Hunton limestone, character and

thickness of_____ 115,122 

Hyatt, D. L., eited__________ 108

Industries of the distriet- 93

Jackfork sandstone, occurrence of

east of the district- 123,126

Jesse oil field, proximity of, to the

district _________ 92,144

John Thompson No. 1 well, log of_ 108-122

Johns Valley shale, occurrence of,

east of the district__ 123

Lehigh coal bed, analyses of coal

of___________ 137-138 

mines on_____________ 139-140 

occurrence and relations of___ 105.

104-136,

sections of____________ 134-135 

Lehigh syncline, features of- 130,135-136 

Llanoria, sediments derived from- 124-125 

Location of the district_______ 92,95 

Logs of wells___________ __ 109-122 

Lower Hartshorne coal bed, character and thickness of 134 

occurrence of____ 104, 134,135-136

Map, geologic, of the district-pi. 11 (in

pocket)

showing areal distribution of 

rocks in parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, and 

Texas __________ 123 

Mayes formation, in well near Olney_ 122 

McAlester shale, coal beds in_ 97,104,134 

deposition of _ -^- __ 126 

occurrence, character, and thickness of__ 103-105,110-111 

stratigraphic relations of_ 97 

McLish formation, in well near Olney 122 

Metcalf, T. L., field work of_____ 94 

Mines, coal, records of .__ 139-140 

Miser, H. D., cited___________ 98, 

101, 123, 125, 127, 132, 144 

Mississippian beds. See Caney shale. 

Moore, R. C., cited__________ 99,125 

Morgan, G. D., cited_ _ 96, 

97, 98, 102, 104, 106, 107,132

Natural gas, occurrence of__ 128,144-145 

wells yielding__________ 142-143

Oil, possibilities of occurrence of- 140-144 

wells drilled for, logs of___ 109-122 

records of_________ 142-143 

Olney, formations encountered in

well near__ 98,108,122,123 

Olney fault, features of ____ 130 

Open-fold zone, relation of, to structure of the district 126-127 

Orogenic movements, occurrence of_ 125-

126,131-134 

Ouachita Mountains, literature on

geology of 127 

rock sequence in, east of the district _________ 123

Page

Pebbles, chert, occurrence and significance of__ 97, 102, 103, 

104, 105,107,110,125-126 

Pennsylvanian rocks, occurrence and

character of__ 98-108,124 

origin of______ __ 124-126 

Phillips fault, features of____ 105,130 

Pine Top chert, occurrence of, northeast of the district- 125 

Pottsville age, formations of__ 97, 98-101 

Powers, Sidney, cited________ 127,132 

Precipitation, records of________ 94 

Publications on the district__ 95-96

Railways in the district________ 92-93 

Read, C. B., cited___________ 94, 101 

Relief in the district, features of__ 93-94 

Routes of travel in _ the district___ 92-93

Savanna anticline, features of_-_- 129

Savanna sandstone, age of __ 97

' deposition of _ ____ 126

occurrence and character of_ 97,

105-106, 109

thickness of____ ___ 106,109 

Simpson group, character and thickness of_____ 117-122,128 

Springer formation, occurrence, character, and thickness 

of____ 97, 98, 113-115, 124 

Stanley shale, occurrence of, east of

the district_____ 123,126 

Stratigraphy of the ' district____ 96-126 

Strawn group of Texas, correlations

with ______ 125 

Streams,' flow of ' _____ 93 

Structure in the district_ ____ 107, 

126-134, pi. 11 (in pocket) 

Surveys of the district, features of 05 

Sylvan shale, character and thickness of________ 116,122 

Synclines, features of________ 129-130

Taff, J. A., cited___________ _ 95,

98, 99, 105,107, 131,144 

Temperature, records of___ __ 94 

Thompson, M. L., cited________ 99 

Thurman sandstone, age of_____ 97 

deposition of____________ 126 

occurrence, character, and thickness of________ 107-108 

Ti Valley fault, structural relations

of_____________ 124 

Tomlinson, C. W., cited_________ 127

Topography of the district, features

of__ ________ 93-94 

Travelers Life Insurance Co. well no.

1, log of _____ 122

Unconformities, occurrence of___ 97, 107 

Upper Hartshorne coal bed, occurrence and character 

of __________ 104, 134

Van der Gracht, W. A. J. M. van

Waterschoot, cited__ 127 

Vanderpool, H. C., cited_ _____ 144
INDEX 149

Page

Vegetation in the district______ 94 

Viola limestone, character and thickness of____- 116-117,122

Wallis, B. F., cited__________ 99 

Wapanucka limestone, age of____ 97, 99 

occurrence, character, and thickness of 99,113,122,123

Page

Wardville syncline, features of__ 129-130 

Wells, oil and gas, logs of_____ 109-122 

records of___-_____ 142-143 

White, David, cited______ 95,101,144 

Wilson, C. W., cited _ 101 

Woodford chert, character and thickness of_____ 115,122,125

o