Kansas Geological Survey Research Articles

Origin and Distribution of Bartlesville and Burbank Shoestring Oil Sands in Parts of Oklahoma and Kansas

About 2 years have been spent by several members of a United States Geological Survey party in studying the buried oil- and gas-bearing Bartlesville and Burbank sands in Osage and Kay counties, Oklahoma, and Cowley, Butler, and Greenwood counties, Kansas. This work followed about 2½ years study of the Kansas area, made by Bass for the Kansas Geological Survey in cooperation with the United States Geological Survey, the results of which were presented before the Association meeting at Dallas and published in the Bulletin in 1934. The later work has also included an examination of the Bluejacket sandstone, which crops out in northeastern Oklahoma and southeastern Kansas, and certain of the beach deposits on the Atlantic coast and on the Gulf coast of Texas. Stratigraphic cross sections made from well logs show that the Bartlesville sand is stratigraphically lower than the Burbank sand and that the shoestring sands of Greenwood, Butler, and Cowley counties, Kansas, are equivalent to the sands of the Burbank, South Burbank, and Naval Reserve oil fields of Oklahoma. The Bartlesville and Burbank sands are actually zones composed of numerous lenses of sand that occur within narrowly restricted limits in the Cherokee shale. The Burbank sand bodies particularly occur in definite systems, called trends, made up of lenses that are separated by gaps containing no sand. The individual sand lenses have an offset arrangement within the trends. Similar features are found in the systems of offshore bars on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The shapes in cross section of the shoestring oil-bearing sand bodies are similar to those of offshore bars. The composition and physical characteristics of the oil-bearing Bartlesville and Burbank sands are similar to those of the sands that form the modern offshore bars on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Many modern offshore bars, of which that at Cape Henry, on the Virginia coast, is an example, are made up of a series of overlapping beaches that have been preserved as ridges of sand trending parallel with the coast. These ridges represent lines of beach growth. The sand body of the main Burbank oil field, that of the Stanley stringer on its eastern margin, and the sand body of the South Burbank oil field appear to be characterized by features that may be growth ridges. The studies indicate that the Bartlesville sand was deposited as a series of offshore bars along the western shore of the Cherokee sea during an early stage of the sea when the western shore migrated to and fro across a narrow strip of country in northeastern Oklahoma and southeastern Kansas. The Burbank sand bodies were deposited much later, after the Cherokee sea had expanded widely to the northwest. The trends of Burbank sand were deposited as offshore bars mainly during the Teeter-Quincy and Sallyards-Lamont stages of the Cherokee sea. The sand bodies of the Burbank and South Burbank oil fields are tentatively assigned to the Teeter-Quincy stage and are believed to have been formed by a series of overlapping beach deposits similar to those that form Cape Henry, Virginia. End_Page 30------------------------------ It is recommended that, in prospecting for additional shoestring-sand oil fields, drilling sites be selected by projecting the known shoestring-sand trends in approximately straight lines similar to the trends of the systems of offshore bars on our present coasts, and not by meandering lines similar to stream courses. Inasmuch as modern offshore bars and the developed shoestring-sand bodies have an offset or en echelon arrangement within the systems and have gaps separating the individual sand bodies, these features should be expected in the projection of the sand trends into undeveloped territory.

Pennsylvanian Stratigraphy of North Central Texas

Previous articleNext article FreePennsylvanian Stratigraphy of North Central TexasRaymond C. Moore and Frederick B. PlummerRaymond C. Moore Search for more articles by this author and Frederick B. Plummer Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Geology Volume 30, Number 1Jan. - Feb., 1922 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/622838 Views: 469Total views on this site Citations: 4Citations are reported from Crossref PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Baran Karapunar, Alexander Nützel, Barbara Seuss, Royal H. Mapes, Lesley Cherns Taxonomy and diversity of slit‐band gastropods (Order Pleurotomariida) and some slit bearing Caenogastropoda from the Pennsylvanian of the USA, Papers in Palaeontology 8, no.22 (Apr 2022).https://doi.org/10.1002/spp2.1417Brendan Headd, Annette S. Engel Biogeographic congruency among bacterial communities from terrestrial sulfidic springs, Frontiers in Microbiology 5 (Sep 2014).https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2014.00473Fan-Wei Zeng, Caroline A. Masiello, William C. Hockaday Controls on the origin and cycling of riverine dissolved inorganic carbon in the Brazos River, Texas, Biogeochemistry 104, no.1-31-3 (Jul 2010): 275–291.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-010-9501-yChristopher G. Maples, Rex Buchanan Raymond Cecil Moore (1892–1974): Memorial and Bibliography (In Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the Kansas Geological Survey), Journal of Paleontology 63, no.S25S25 (Aug 2017): 1–29.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022336000061370

IX.—Additional Note on Loricula

Since the appearance of my paper on Loricula Darwini in the November Number of this Magazine (pp. 491–9) my attention has been called by Mr. C. D. Sherborn to two American Loriculæ described by W. N. Logan, “On some new Cirriped Crustaceans from the Niobrara Cretaceous of Kansas,” U.S.A., published in the Kansas University Quarterly (series A, October, 1897, vol. vi, No. iv, pp. 187–9, 8vo) and in the University Geological Survey of Kansas (vol. iv (Paleontology), pt. viii, 4to, Arthropoda, pp. 498–501, pi. cxi) under the names of Stramentum haworthii, Williston, type-specimen figured much enlarged, and S. tabulatum, Logan. The other two species on p1. ex, figs. 3–5, of the same work, described under the name of Squama spissa and S. lata, Logan, are quite distinct from Loricula, but are said to have been found adhering to a fragment of shell of Inoceramus by their entire length. The arrangement of the capitulum and peduncle differ very widely from those of Loricula and resemble Pollicipes.

The University Geological Survey of Kansas . Special report of coal. By ERASMUS HAWORTH, assisted by W. R. Crane, Vol. III., Topeka. J. S. Parks, State Printer. 1898. 347 pp. 70 pl. 55 Figs.

<i>The University Geological Survey of Kansas</i> . Special report of coal. By ERASMUS HAWORTH, assisted by W. R. Crane, Vol. III., Topeka. J. S. Parks, State Printer. 1898. 347 pp. 70 pl. 55 Figs.

The University Geological Survey of Kansas

The University Geological Survey of Kansas

The University Geological Survey of Kansas . Conducted under authority of the Board of Regents of the University of Kansas. By Erasmus Haworth and assistants. Vol. I., 1896. pp. xii + 320, text figures 11, plates XXXI. Topeka, Kansas.

<i>The University Geological Survey of Kansas</i> . Conducted under authority of the Board of Regents of the University of Kansas. By Erasmus Haworth and assistants. Vol. I., 1896. pp. xii + 320, text figures 11, plates XXXI. Topeka, Kansas.

Gypsum Deposits of Kansas

Introduction and historical Resume. In connection with the economic division of the University Geological Survey of Kansas I spent the greater portion of the summer of 1896 in the field investigation of the gypsum deposits in that state. In the following pages I wish to present some of the more important results of that work which are of general interest. Among the minerals of commercial importance in Kansas, gypsum occupies a prominent place, and has attracted the attention of prospectors-and geologists for m any years. Today, on account of the wide extent and purity of the deposits and the skill in manufacture, Kansas stands first among the states in the value of gypsum products. In 1869 the Blue Rapids Town Company made a reservation of the Blue River gypsum deposits before selling their lands. Mudge briefly described in the First Annual Report of the Geological Survey of Kansas (1866) the . . .