Surface Exposures of Late Cretaceous Strata at Rayburns Salt Dome, Bienville Parish, Louisiana: ABSTRACT

Abstract

Surface exposures of Cretaceous strata in Louisiana are restricted to isolated occurrences associated with salt domes in the northwestern part of the state. The best known Cretaceous exposures are associated with the Rayburns salt dome in Bienville Parish. Strata exposed at this structure previously have been correlated with formations exposed in southwestern Arkansas, in particular, the Marlbrook Formation and the Saratoga Chalk. Several distinct Upper Cretaceous lithologic units can be identified at the Rayburns locality. Detailed stratigraphic relationships of these units are obscured by the incomplete nature of the exposures and by dense vegetation. Strata on the west side of the outcrop area include a basal olive-gray marl that is locally glauconitic. This unit is thought to correlate with the Brownstown Marl in Arkansas. The basal marl is overlain in part by a massive glauconitic sandstone at the western end of the outcrop area and by a gray chalky marl at the eastern end. These lithologies are thought to correlate with the Buckrange Sand Lentil or basal Ozan Formation exposed in Arkansas. The sandstone and gray chalky marl units are directly overlain by a hard white chalk. This chalk lithology correlates faunally and lithologically with the upper Ozan and the Annona Chalk in Arkansas. Exposures along the east side of the outcrop area, adjacent to an abandoned quarry, are blue-gray marl and chalk whose fauna and lithology correlate with the Saratoga Chalk in southwest Arkansas. The concretionary clays of the Midway Group, of Paleocene age, lie unconformably on the truncated surface of this Saratoga equivalent. The unconformity is marked by a thin layer of bored, calcareous nodules. The uppermost portions of the Navarro Group, which occur elsewhere between Cretaceous and Paleocene strata, have apparently been eroded at this locality. End_of_Article - Last_Page 1212------------