Abstract: Evolution of Anadarko Basin

Rodger E. Denison

The evolution of the Anadarko basin area can be broken into four distinct phases.

The earliest recognizable phase is in the Early and Middle Cambrian. It is characterized by diverse biomodal igneous activity localized in a tensional incipient rift complex striking about N60°W. The major igneous activity was characterized by an early phase of basaltic composition and a late acidic phase of granites and rhyolites. The latest rhyolite phase extended beyond the limits of the rift.

The early phase was followed rapidly by a transgression of Late Cambrian seas. This second phase extends through the Devonian and is characterized by passive shallow-water sedimentation of a dominantly carbonate sequence. During this period shallow-water deposition in the area underlain by Cambrian igneous rock resulted in a sequence approximately twice the thickness of the same units where they were underlain by massive Precambrian rocks. It is clear that the area underlain by Cambrian basement was "softer," and thus able to respond to loading more readily than the rigid older basement. As a consequence, the Cambrian basement areas received a much thicker sequence of sediments.

The third stage was a period characterized by very rapid, largely clastic sedimentation accompanied by locally intense deformation. The Mississippian was the first period of major clastic sedimentation in the basinal area. This sequence is at least five times thicker in the areas of Cambrian basement than where underlain by the Precambrian. The deformation began during the Early Pennsylvanian and continued (with several pulses) through the Late Pennsylvanian. The deformation was most intense in the Arbuckle Mountain-Criner Hills areas southeast and east of the Anadarko basin and along the fault system separating the Wichita Mountains from the basin. The vast majority of the structural data strongly supports a deformation caused by compression normal to the basin axis. The deformation s best defined in the Arbuckle Mountains, where it is precisely parallel with the structural grain of the Cambrian igneous activity, N60°W. The basement rocks are involved closely in the deformation, and in areas underlain by Cambrian basement the deformation is much more intense than in areas underlain by massive Precambrian rocks.

The final phase is the passive postdeformation filling of the basin in Permian time and is characterized by clastic red beds and evaporites.

APG Search and Discovery Article #90974©1975 AAPG Mid-Continent Section Meeting, Wichita, Kansas