C. W. Honess — Stanley Shale of OMalioma. 67 



The Stanley shale formation in general is composed 

 of materials which are non-resistant and when exposed 

 to weathering and erosion are easily reduced to low 

 rounded hills and ridges . and intervening flats, and 

 ^^ glades." Good exposures of shales, slates, sandstones, 

 and the other rocks composing this formation are, there- 

 fore, not very plentiful and such as do occur are un- 

 fortunately almost always interrupted at frequent inter- 

 vals — the sandstones projecting, the shales covered. 

 Along the creeks and rivers in favorable places, espe- 

 cially where streams flow across the strike of the rocks, 

 partial sections of the strata present themselves to view, 

 but elsewhere, on all the slopes and hill tops rarely does 

 one see more than exfoliated bowlders of the hard sand- 

 stones or float from the thin-bedded materials. 



Being a humid region trees and brush form a thick 

 cover over most of the country and a mantle of rocky soil 

 prevails on all the low slopes. The flats, where wet and 

 low, often bear an impenetrable undergrowth of bram- 

 bles, green-briers and thorns, but where higher and drier 

 are sometimes grass covered and more or less open with a 

 poor, blue clay soil. 



The strata have been sharply folded, contorted and bent, 

 over the entire region under discussion. Large and small 

 drag folds are practically every^vhere present, slicken- 

 sided zones and slates have been developed in all the 

 strata throughout the mass and faults of unknown dis- 

 placement occur to such an extent that one never knows, 

 except at the very bottom of the formation, where the 

 Stanley lies upon the recognizable Arkansas Novaculite — 

 whether what he is looking at is right side up or not or 

 whether there be repetitions in the section. It is, in fact, 

 impossible to find anywhere an undisturbed continuous 

 and measurable section. Consequently, a determined 

 thickness of the Stanley is not known and cannot in the 

 Lukfata Quadrangle be calculated or estimated. The 

 thickness elsewhere is stated by Taff and Miser to be ap- 

 proximately 6,000 feet. The writer has not attempted 

 to measure the type section of the Stanley at Stanley, 

 Oklahoma, but concurs in the belief that it must be at 

 least as thick as that, and with a similar thickness in the 

 area studied to the southeast. 



The basal beds of the Stanley (in the Lukfata Quad- 

 rangle) are tough, hard, fine-grained, evenly bedded, blue- 

 gray, stony flints, interbedded mth a little hard, even* 



