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Textures of Paleozoic Chert and Novaculite in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma and Their Geological Significance

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Textures of Paleozoic Chert and Novaculite in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma and Their Geological Significance Textures of Paleozoic chert and novaculite in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma and their geological significance WALTER D. KELLER Department of Geology, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, Missouri 65211 CHARLES G. STONE Arkansas Geological Commission, 3815 West Roosevelt Road, Little Rock, Arkansas 72204 ALICE L. HOERSCH Department of Geology, LaSalle University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19141 ABSTRACT logic imprints from plate tectonism. Moreover, a widespread thermally altered sedimentary formation may indicate elevated temperatures, not Scanning electron micrographs of cherts and novaculites from only in a local area, but over a region as large as a mountain belt, and as a the Ouachita Mountain fold belt of Arkansas and Oklahoma show a long-term definitive thermal event. sequential range in textures from cryptocrystalline, anhedral quartz Evidence that elevated temperature has been secondarily imposed < 1 /¿m in diameter in the nonmetamorphosed chert and novaculite, to upon sedimentary rocks is the presence of polygonal, triple-point texture as coarse, polygonal triple-point, euhedral quartz 100 fim or more in shown in Figure 1, a scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of the Arkansas diameter where the cherts have been thermally metamorphosed, the Novaculite from the Hot Springs, Arkansas, region. This texture is charac- coarsest being in xenoliths. The textures have been correlated with teristic of thermally metamorphosed silica rock, for example, chert- similar texture and crystal sizes in the chert from a contact metamor- novaculite, as discussed by Spry (1969) and Kretz (1966). In contrast to phic aureole on the Isle of Skye, Scotland, where classic metamorphic mineral assemblages from talc through tremolite, diopside, and for- sterite grades have been identified. Texture of chert thus can be used as an indicator of elevated temperature. Mean apparent crystal diameters measured of the quartz in the Arkansas Novaculite and associated cherts were plotted on a map of the Ouachita Mountain fold belt extending from Little Rock, Arkan- sas, to near Broken Bow, Oklahoma. The regional trend in texture parallels the structural core trend and, in addition, is strongly over- printed by localized areas of coarser crystallinity near Little Rock, Magnet Cove, and Potash Sulphur Springs, Arkansas, where igneous intrusions have occurred, and near Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Temperature estimates from studies of fluid inclusions, stable isotope ratios, mineral-chemical phase relationships in associated rocks, and novaculite as xenoliths suggest that maximum tempera- tures as high as 760 °C may have been reached by portions of the novaculite. Other examples of triple-point texture in chert collected from distant localities, which range in age from Precambrian to Tertiary, show that polygonal triple-point texture in chert is world-wide in occurrence. It follows that small samples of chert-novaculite can yield evidence of a history of elevated temperature. Such evidence may be used to estimate maturation or degradation of hydrocarbons in the rocks and to furnish clues during exploration for thermally related metallic and nonmetallic minerals. INTRODUCTION Sedimentary rocks that show evidence of having been heated to Figure 1. Scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of Arkansas higher temperatures than normal for sedimentary environment may indi- Novaculite showing polygonal, triple-point texture. Collected from cate the possibility of thermal maturation in source beds of hydrocarbons, a honestone quarry a few miles east of Hot Springs, Arkansas, a locus for deposition of hydrothermal mineral deposits, a buried and shown as locality no. 1 in Figure 15. The scale bar represents 5 jum; otherwise hidden pluton, an episode of thermal metamorphism, or petro- original magnification (OM) is 2,000*. Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 96, p. 1353-1363, 25 figs., November 1353 Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-pdf/96/11/1353/3444841/i0016-7606-96-11-1353.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 1354 KELLER AND OTHERS Figure 2. SEM of nonmetamorphosed Arkansas Novaculite at Atoka, Oklahoma. Shows fine-grained, anhedral, mosaic quartz Figure 3. SEM of nonmetamorphosed chert in the Durness typical of sedimentary chert, OM 6,000x. dolomite, Isle of Skye, Scotland. A portion of a vug lined with quartz crystals secondarily deposited from solution, not triple- point, is shown in the upper-left corner, OM 4,400x. triple-point texture, the Arkansas Novaculite, where it is not metamor- phosed, shows the texture of typical sedimentary chert, that is, anhedral, cryptocrystalline quartz (Fig. 2), collected from vertical novaculite beds at film of gold to carry away excess electrical charge from the electron Atoka, Oklahoma, far outside the thermal area and effects within the core microscope beam, they were micrographed at magnifications ranging from of the Ouachita Mountains. lOOx to 40,000* but 200x to 6,000x were those most commonly used. The purposes of this report are to illustrate with SEMs the full range After thorough visual examination of the entire areas of a specimen mount in sizes of triple-point crystals present in the chert-novaculite in Arkansas under the microscope, several micrographs judged to be representative of and Oklahoma, to match these textures with morphological counterparts the texture were taken for record and publication. Apparent diameters for collected from classic metamorphic-grade zones, to show on a map the the crystals were measured by counting the lengths of crystal intercepts distribution of the triple-point textures in the Ouachita Mountain fold belt, along lines plotted across the SEM photos and by using metric-circle to interpret in broad terms the thermal and geological significance of these charts. Although apparent diameters of crystals in rocks are smaller than textures, and to point out their possible application as guides in geologic their true diameters, apparent diameters provide reproducibly measurable exploration. data that are statistically comparable between diverse samples from a single region or from widely separated localities. These data on size are EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES reported for individual reference-texture specimens and to prepare the map of crystal sizes in the Ouachita fold belt. More than 2:50 samples were systematically collected in the field Scanning electron micrography adds an extra vertical dimension to from the major outcrops of the Arkansas Novaculite and of other cherts in the views seen by thin-section microscopy as used by Goldstein (1959), the Ouachita Mountain Belt from Little Rock, Arkansas, to Broken Bow, Goldstein and Reno (1962), and Goldstein and Hendricks (1963) in their Oklahoma, so as to represent the exposed distribution of those rocks. extensive petrographical studies of the Arkansas Novaculite. SEM also Ordinarily, several specimens were collected from each area of outcrop, extends the range in magnification beyond 20x to l,000x, which is the and/or from diffe rent levels in the stratigraphic section. At places of spe- typical range and optical limit of light microscopy, to as much as 4C,000x, cial interest, 10 or 20 specimens were taken at selected spacings, as along a or higher if needed, yielding excellent resolution. traverse outward from the intrusion at Magnet Cove, or at the Hot Springs and Little Rock areas. REFERENCE METAMORPHIC TEXTURES For micrography, small chips were broken from hand specimens, thereby yielding clean, fresh, natural-fracture surfaces. These were not A set of textures presented as standard reference examples for distin- ground or etched, thus avoiding the possibility of otherwise introducing guishing metamorphic grades was micrographed from the Cambrian artifacts during processing. After the chips were sputter-coated with a thin cherty Durness dolomite that was progressively metamorphosed in the Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-pdf/96/11/1353/3444841/i0016-7606-96-11-1353.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 PALEOZOIC CHERT AND NOVACULITE, OUACHITA MOUNTAINS 1355 Figure 4. SEM of talc, elemental composition confirmed by Figure 5. SEM of portion of Figure 4 enlarged to OM 5,000x. energy dispersive analysis and chert in the Durness dolomite, talc- Shows early development of triple-point texture representative of grade metamorphic zone, Isle of Skye, Scotland, OM 1,000*. talc-grade metamorphism in the Durness dolomite. contact aureole where intruded by the Tertiary Beinn an Dubhaich granite, Isle of Skye, Scotland (Hoersch, 1981). Cherts were collected from the zones containing metamorphic mineral assemblages that characterize clas- sic metamorphic grades, such as talc, tremolite, diopside, and forsterite; they are therefore indicative of the metamorphic grades constituting that standard metamorphic sequence. Unmetamorphosed Durness chert from outside the border of the metamorphic aureole is shown in SEM in Figure 3. A micrograph was selected that includes not only the sedimentary quartz, that here is slightly coarser than the Arkansas Novaculite at Atoka (Fig. 2), but also a vug containing coarser crystals of quartz that were secondarily deposited from solution, that is, texture other than the triple-point variety. In Figure 4, metamorphosed Durness chert and talc are shown, inde- pendently identified by energy dispersive analysis from the talc-grade zone on Skye. A part of the chert is shown at higher magnification in Figure 5; the mean apparent diameter (MAD) in this specimen is 0.9 ¡im. A textural counterpart to it from an outcrop of Arkansas Novaculite on Highway 375, in the SE'/4NE1/4, sec. 11, T. 3 S., R. 30 W., Polk County, is shown in Figure 6, at the same magnification as in Figure 5. Figure 6. SEM of morphological counterpart to talc-grade meta- morphic chert in the Arkansas Novaculite, collected along Highway 375 in the SE%SW%, sec. II, T. 3 S., R. 30 W., Polk County, Arkan- sas, locality no. 6 in Figure 15, OM 4,800*. Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-pdf/96/11/1353/3444841/i0016-7606-96-11-1353.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 Figure 7. SEM! of tremolite-grade metamorphic chert from the Figure 8.
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