Misplaced Pages

#831168

49-599: The Arroyo Formation is the oldest and most eastern component of the Clear Fork Group. It extends in a Northeasterly direction from Concho County up as far north as Wilbarger County. North of the Red River in Oklahoma, the equivalent formation is the upper Garber Formation and cave deposits of Richards Spur (formerly Fort Sill). The Arroyo Formation was first named by Beede and Waite (1918). The type locality

98-1202: A junior synonym of D. magnicornis D. limbatus Junior synonym of D. magnicornis D. primigenius May be synonymous with D. magnicornis Goniocara G. willistoni An indeterminate gymnarthrid microsaur known from skull fragments. Initially named Goniocephalus . Gymnarthrus G. willoughbyi Junior synonym of Cardiocephalus sternbergi . Pantylus P. coicodus A fragmentary microsaur . May be synonymous with Pantylus cordatus , or completely unrelated. Permoplatyops P. parvus Also known as Diplocaulus pusillus and Platyops parvus . Junior synonym of Diplocaulus magnicornis . Acheloma A trematopid A. casei Junior synonym of Isodectes obtusus Alegeinosaurus A. aphthitos Junior synonym of Aspidosaurus chiton Aspidosaurus A. peltatus Junior synonym of Dissorophus multicinctus Eobrachyops E. townendae Junior synonym of Isodectes obtusus Isodectes I. megalops Junior synonym of Isodectes obtusus Trimerorhachis T. conangulus Junior synonym of Isodectes obtusus Desmospondylus D. anomalus Garber Formation The Garber Formation

147-454: A new free bridge crossing the Red River. A joint project to build a free bridge between Durant, Oklahoma and Denison, Texas turned into a major dispute when the Governor of Texas blocked traffic from entering his state on the new bridge. The Red River Bridge Company of Texas owned the original toll bridge and had a dispute over its purchase deal. Oklahoma Governor William H. Murray sent

196-542: A series of terrestrial mudstone layers interspersed with several distinct intervals of marine limestone , four of which having been named. These four limestone intervals are, from stratigraphically lowest to highest, the Rainey, Lytle, Kirby Lake, and Standpipe Limestones. The composition and appearance of these limestones can be variable, with some localities having fine-grained layers and others being practically marine conglomerate. These four limestone layers do not persist in

245-649: A single poorly preserved nautiloid which likely drifted in from more open waters. Fossils from terrestrial deposits (like stream conglomerate or red mudstone) are rare in the southern area, found at only a handful of sites in Haskell County and southwestern Baylor County. These fossils are probably from a later interval of the Arroyo Formation, a segment which would lie between the Kirby Lake and Standpipe Limestone layers further south. The fauna

294-772: A steamboat, the Enterprise , up the Red River. Fulton and Livingston, who claimed the exclusive right to navigate Louisiana waters by steamboat, sued Shreve in the District Court of New Orleans. The judge ruled that the monopoly claimed by the plaintiffs was illegal. That decision, along with a similar outcome in Gibbons v. Ogden , freed navigation on every river, lake or harbor in the United States from interference by monopolies. When John Quincy Adams became Secretary of State in 1817, one of his highest priorities

343-928: A taxonomic turnover at the beginning of the Vale Formation, as advanced taxa like Labidosaurikos and Captorhinikos replace or evolve from the more primitive captorhinids soon after the red shale boundary between the two formations. The first specimens of the gracile eureptile Araeoscelis were discovered at the Craddock Bonebed, one of the most productive Arroyo Formation sites in Baylor County. Aquatic amphibians like Diplocaulus , Trimerorhachis , and Eryops are common. Terrestrial amphibians like Seymouria , Diadectes , microsaurs , and various dissorophoids ( Acheloma , Broiliellus , Aspidosaurus , etc.) were present as well. Many of these terrestrial amphibians did not survive into

392-584: Is a geologic formation in Oklahoma . It preserves fossils dating back to the Permian period . This article about a specific stratigraphic formation in Oklahoma is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article related to the Permian period is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Red River of the South The Red River , or sometimes

441-523: Is characterized by flat, fertile agricultural land, with only a few major cities. The drainage basin of the Red River is very arid and receives little precipitation . As a result, much of the river above the Texas–Oklahoma border is intermittent, and until the river is past its great bend south in Arkansas, the flow varies widely. Most of the agriculture in the basin is sustained by groundwater , which

490-657: Is formed in Randall County, Texas , near the county seat of Canyon , by the confluence of Tierra Blanca Creek and intermittent Palo Duro Creek (not to be confused with another Palo Duro Creek 75 miles to the north, which drains into the North Canadian River ). It turns and flows southeast through Palo Duro Canyon in Palo Duro Canyon State Park at an elevation of 3,440 feet (1,050 m), and past Newlin, Texas , to cross

539-541: Is known from the Arroyo, with the family going extinct soon afterwards. Other pelycosaurs, including Secodontosaurus , Varanosaurus , and several species of Dimetrodon , were abundant, though the abundance of Dimetrodon was retained in the Vale and Choza Formations. Captorhinids were the most common eureptiles in the Arroyo, represented by basal taxa such as Captorhinus and Labidosaurus . Captorhinids experienced

SECTION 10

#1732801645832

588-631: Is one of the most fossiliferous parts of the Texas Red Beds, and it is typically differentiated from surrounding formations by paleontologists on the basis of faunal differences. A large number of sites are known bearing either abundant plant or animal remains. The animal-bearing sites are among the most diverse Early Permian tetrapod assemblages in the world, with numerous remains of amphibians , pelycosaurs (mammal relatives), chondrichthyans (sharks), and eureptiles . The last and largest known species of edaphosaurid , Edaphosaurus pogonias ,

637-521: Is recharged with rainfall and riverflow. The lower course of the river flows through a series of marshes and swamps , where its flow is dramatically moderated. Native American cultures along the river were diverse, developing specialized adaptations to the many different environments. Starting near the headwaters, the Plains division of the Lipan Apache dominated the western Red River area until

686-541: Is similar to that of the "Classic area", with Diplocaulus , Dimetrodon , and Orthacanthus fossils being the most common and Eryops and Diadectes also known, albeit from much more fragmentary remains. Between the Salt Fork Brazos and Red River , the Arroyo Formation preserves a terrestrial floodplain ecosystem found in outcrops in Baylor, Wilbarger, and Wichita counties. This area, which Olson (1989) termed

735-669: The Adams–Onís Treaty (in force 1821) until the Texas Annexation and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo . The Red River is the second-largest river basin in the southern Great Plains . It rises in two branches in the Texas Panhandle and flows east, where it serves as the border between the states of Texas and Oklahoma . It forms a short border between Texas and Arkansas before entering Arkansas. It forms much of

784-676: The Blue River , as well as the Ouachita River (also known as the Black River at that point) not far (at Acme, Louisiana ) from the mouth. The Red River is salty through tributaries above Lake Texoma . The saltiness is caused by a natural phenomenon that dates back to ancient times. About 250 million years ago, an inland sea blanketed parts of what is now those states. As time passed, that sea evaporated, leaving salt deposits – mostly sodium chloride. Rock and silt eventually buried

833-732: The North Fork or the Prairie Dog Town Fork is the true stem. Because of a cartographic error, the land between the north and south forks were claimed by both the state of Texas and the United States federal government . In 1852, Randolph B. Marcy 's expedition had followed the Prairie Dog Town Fork. Originally called Greer County, Texas , the US Supreme Court ruled that it belonged to

882-637: The Red River of the South to differentiate it from the Red River in the north of the continent, is a major river in the Southern United States . It was named for its reddish water color from passing through red-bed country in its watershed . It is known as the Red River of the South to distinguish it from the Red River of the North , which flows between Minnesota and North Dakota into

931-669: The Rio Grande , and was sent home by the Spanish authorities. A more successful exploration of the river's upper reaches to both its sources came with the 1852 expedition under Capt. Randolph Barnes Marcy , assisted by Brevet Capt. George B. McClellan . (A decade later McClellan became an important general in the American Civil War .) In April 1815, Captain Henry Miller Shreve was the first person to bring

980-602: The Wichita River about 25 miles northeast of the city of Wichita Falls . Near Denison , the river exits the eastern end of Lake Texoma , a reservoir formed by the Denison Dam . The lake is also fed by the Washita River from the north. Beyond the dam it runs generally east towards Arkansas and receives Oklahoma's Muddy Boggy Creek on the left bank before turning southward near Texarkana . Soon after,

1029-529: The "Classic area", has been extensively studied for its Permian plant and animal fossils. The portions of the Arroyo Formation exposed in this area are among the oxidized Permian sediments collectively termed the Red Beds of Texas and Oklahoma . They are represented by Red clays , shales , and mudstones , with occasional layers of sandstone or conglomerate , as well as scattered carbonate nodules which become increasingly more common in younger levels. Some of

SECTION 20

#1732801645832

1078-474: The 18th century, when they were displaced by invading Comanche from the north. The middle part of the Red River was dominated by the Wichita and Tonkawa . This area was prairie , where Native Americans constructed portable and temporary tepees for housing. They practiced limited farming and followed game in seasonal, nomadic hunting cycles. By the time of European contact, the eastern Piney Woods of

1127-615: The Arroyo Formation in the Wichita (or Albany) Stage/Group , rather than the overlying Clear Fork Stage/Group. Subsequent authors, starting with Sellars (1932), have considered the Arroyo Formation the basal part of the Clear Fork Group. Olson (1989) called the portion of the Arroyo Formation below the Salt Fork of the Brazos River the "Southern area", contrasting it with the extensively studied "Classic area" further north. "Southern area" deposits found north of Runnels County preserve

1176-469: The Arroyo and Vale based on the presence of an even red shale or mudstone layer. This layer is found along a northeastern-oriented line that bisected the Clear Fork area in the western part of Baylor County. This even layer, he argued, was formed by slow, brackish streams in a lowland delta close to sea level. Therefore, their presence may have been a result of the same marine transgression responsible for

1225-905: The Canadian province of Manitoba . Although once a tributary of the Mississippi River , the Red River is now a tributary of the Atchafalaya River , a distributary of the Mississippi that flows separately into the Gulf of Mexico. This confluence is connected to the Mississippi River by the Old River Control Structure . The south bank of the Red River formed part of the US–Mexico border from

1274-473: The Craddock dolomite, has been known to preserve plant impressions as well as arthropod and tetrapod footprints. With the absence of the characteristic Standpipe Limestone of the "southern area", Arroyo red beds in the "classic area" are difficult to differentiate from the overlying Vale Formation on a purely geological basis. A similar issue obscures the boundary between the Vale and Choza Formations, with

1323-614: The Mississippi River. Its waters eventually become a tributary of the Atchafalaya River and flow generally southward into the Gulf of Mexico . Tributaries include the Little Red River , Prairie Dog Town Fork Red River , Salt Fork Red River , North Fork Red River , Cross Bayou , Pease River , Washita River , Kiamichi River , Wichita River , Little Wichita River , Little River , Sulphur River , Bayou Brevelle , Loggy Bayou (through Lake Bistineau and Dorcheat Bayou ),

1372-640: The Missouri, the most interesting water of the Mississippi", in a letter to explorer William Dunbar . Having threaded the maze of bayous at the river's confluence, and the " Great Raft " of lodged driftwood, the expedition was stopped by the Spanish near present-day New Boston, Texas . In 1806, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike , under orders to ascertain the source of the Red River, ascended the Arkansas River , made his way downstream on what turned out to be

1421-499: The Oklahoma National Guard to reopen the bridge that July. Texas had to retreat when lawyers determined that Oklahoma had jurisdiction over both banks of the river. In June 2015, the Red River flooded parts of northeast Texas, southwest Arkansas, southeast Oklahoma and Louisiana, from Denison Dam , to just south of Alexandria, Louisiana . The river reached its highest level in over 70 years, cresting in most of

1470-555: The Oklahoma state line. About 2 miles south of Elmer, Oklahoma , the Salt Fork of the Red River joins from the north. These combined waters receive the North Fork Red River from the north about 10 mi (16 km) west-southwest of Frederick, Oklahoma to form the Red River proper. The combined river proceeds to follow a winding course east through one of the most arid parts of the Great Plains , receiving

1519-474: The Standpipe Limestone further south. Under this hypothesis, the Vale Formation could be found in stratigraphically higher areas west of the line, and the Arroyo formation would be east of the line. Nevertheless, Olson admitted that this boundary was imprecise due to the variable depth of the shales and the varying topography of the surrounding landscape. The "classic area" of the Arroyo Formation

Arroyo Formation - Misplaced Pages Continue

1568-619: The United States Congress consented in October 2000 to the Red River Boundary Compact adopted in 1999 by the states of Oklahoma and Texas . This set the jurisdictional boundary between these states at the vegetation line on the south bank, but left title of adjacent property owners at the south bank. (The Red River actively meanders, as shown by a comparison of maps of the political boundaries defined by

1617-573: The United States, which at the time oversaw the Oklahoma Territory . That territory was later incorporated into the state of Oklahoma , whose southern border follows the south fork. Today, the southern Prairie Dog Town Fork is considered the main fork, though the North Fork is as long and normally has a greater water flow. The southern fork is generally considered the main stem of the Red River and about 120 miles (190 km) long. It

1666-458: The Vale Formation. Burrows containing aestivating Brachydectes , Gnathorhiza , and Diplocaulus are common in the middle part of the Arroyo Formation, likely indicating a period with a drier climate than the early or late Arroyo. The most common shark remains belong to Orthacanthus platypternus , although teeth from Xenacanthus luederensis are also known from some early Arroyo sites. Diplocaulus D. copei Indeterminate, likely

1715-599: The absence of the Bullwagon Dolomite which separates the two further south. As a result, sedimentologists generally do not distinguish the component formations of the Clear Fork Group, and simply prefer to call these northern red beds the Clear Fork Formation . Under this system, the Arroyo Formation would be roughly equivalent to the informal "Lower Clear Fork Formation" . Olson (1958) attempted to provide an informal geological boundary between

1764-535: The area of present-day Natchitoches Parish was settled by French Creole and mixed-race Louisiana Creole people , starting before 1800. The Cane River National Heritage Area is recognized to mark this area of influence, with plantations and churches founded by Louisiana Creoles. Some of the sites are designated as destinations on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail , established from 2008 onwards. The area along

1813-498: The bones belong to small animals, likely due to taphonomic bias due to ease of transportation. This is also a possible reason as for why found teeth from the freshwater lungfish Gnathorhiza , are much smaller and rarer than those from terrestrial deposits. Captorhinus , a common small animal in the "Classic area", is curiously absent. Shark remains include teeth from Orthacanthus and hybodonts . Marine invertebrates mostly belonged to shallow water or estuary niches, apart from

1862-455: The deposits, but the salt continues to leach through natural seeps in tributaries above Lake Texoma, sending as much as 3,450 tons of salt per day flowing down the Red River. The Red River's watershed covers 65,590 square miles (169,900 km ) and is the southernmost major river system in the Great Plains . Its drainage basin is mostly in the states of Texas and Oklahoma, but also covers parts of New Mexico, Arkansas and Louisiana. Its basin

1911-573: The eastern border of Miller County, Arkansas , turning south near Fulton and flowing into Louisiana , where it feeds the Atchafalaya River. The total length of the river is 1,360 miles (2,190 km), with a mean flow of over 57,000 cubic feet per second (1,600 m /s) at the mouth. The Red River begins at the junction of Buck Creek and Prairie Dog Town Fork , in Harmon County, Oklahoma . Specialists have debated whether

1960-499: The entirety of the "Southern Area", with the Standpipe Limestone terminating just north of Abilene . This makes it difficult to distinguish the boundary between the Arroyo and Vale Formation north of Taylor County, where it occurs shortly after the top of the Standpipe Limestone. The limestone layers are often fossiliferous, preserving fossils from both marine organisms and reworked inland fauna. A diverse assortment of palaeoniscoid fish teeth and scales and bivalve shells are by far

2009-542: The lower Red River of Grant Parish, Louisiana and neighboring parishes had a mixture of hill-country farms and cotton plantations. In the early 19th century, settlers found that much of the river's length in Louisiana was unnavigable because of a collection of fallen trees that formed a Great Raft over 160 miles (260 km) long. In 1839, Captain Henry Miller Shreve began clearing the log jam, but it

Arroyo Formation - Misplaced Pages Continue

2058-558: The lower river courses were dominated by the numerous historic tribes of the Caddo Confederacy . They found plentiful game and fish, and also had good land for cultivating staple crops. In 1806, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned the Red River Expedition to explore parts of the new lands of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase by traveling up the Red River. Jefferson wrote that the river was "in truth, next to

2107-406: The most abundant fossils. Worm burrows and ostracods are also very common. Tetrapod remains include Dimetrodon teeth, unusually small " Lysorophus " ( Brachydectes ) vertebrae, skull fragments from small Diplocaulus and Trimerorhachis , a few Eryops components, and fragments from various microsaurs , possibly referable to Pantylus , Microbrachis , and/or Pelodosotis . Most of

2156-575: The river's course decades ago and currently.) The Red River Campaign (March–May 1864) was fought along the Red River Valley in Louisiana during the American Civil War . It was part of a failed attempt by the Union to occupy eastern Texas. Confederate commander Richard Taylor succeeded in repelling an army under Nathaniel Banks that was three times bigger than his own. In Louisiana,

2205-514: The sandstone layers have been given informal names, such as the Red Tank and Brushy Creek Sandstone Members. Limestone layers are rare relative to the "southern area", and the diagnostic Taylor County layers are seemingly completely absent north of the Salt Fork, although a dolomite layer possibly equivalent to the Rainey or Lytle limestones has been reported. This dolomite layer, informally named

2254-479: The waterway crosses south into Louisiana . The sister cities of Shreveport and Bossier City were developed on either bank of the river, as were the downriver cities of Alexandria and Pineville . After being joined from the north by the Black River (downstream name of the Ouachita River , its largest tributary) about 1.5 miles south of Acme , the river broadens into a complex network of marshlands west of

2303-618: Was a series of marine limestone , shale , and gypsum deposits cropping out at Los Arroyos (formerly Los Arroyo), a specific arroyo in Runnels County a few miles west of Ballinger . Wrather (1917) observed the same geological sequence in Taylor County , although he named it the Abilene Formation , which was a preoccupied name rejected by Beede and Waite (1918). At first, Beede and Waite (1918) tentatively placed

2352-483: Was not completely cleared until the 1870s, when dynamite became available. The river was thereafter navigable, but north of Natchitoches it was restricted to small craft. Removal of the raft further connected the Red and Atchafalaya rivers, accelerating the development of the Atchafalaya River channel. The Red River Bridge War of 1931 was a boundary conflict between Oklahoma and Texas over an existing toll bridge and

2401-605: Was to negotiate with Spain about the boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase. He negotiated with Luis de Onís , the Spanish Minister to the United States, and finally concluded the Adams–Onis Treaty , also known as the Treaty of 1819. The treaty defined the south bank of the river as the boundary between the United States and Spain, as of when it was surveyed and demarcated following 1819. That boundary continued to be recognized when Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821, and ongoingly when Texas became independent from Mexico in 1835–1836. It remained an official boundary until

#831168