The McCurtain County Wilderness Area is a 14,087 acres (5,701 ha) wilderness nature preserve 25 miles (40 km) north of Broken Bow, Oklahoma . It has been owned by the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation . It was designated a National Natural Landmark in December 1974 for its excellent example of a xeric upland oak - pine forest.
6-464: The Area is in the southern section of the Ouachita Uplift and ranged from 575 feet (175 m) to 1,363 feet (415 m) in elevation. It receives 47.5 inches (121 cm) of rain annually, the highest amount in the state. There are over 110 bird species in the area, including the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker and bald eagle . It was nominated as an Important Bird Area in 2008 by
12-410: A flysch sequence with dark shales and graywackes was deposited. Lenses of silicic tuff exist as evidence of limited volcanism . These later sediments were formed over a subduction zone which formed along southern Laurentia. South America approached Laurentia as the intervening oceanic crust was subducted. The collision of South American and Laurentian continental crust compressed and uplifted
18-823: The folding and faulting of strata currently exposed in the Ouachita Mountains . The more extensive Ouachita system extends from the current range in Arkansas and Oklahoma southeast to the Black Warrior Basin in Alabama and to the southwest through the Llano , Marathon , and Solitario uplifts in Texas on into Coahuila and Chihuahua in Mexico . The region during the early Paleozoic lay off
24-545: The Audubon Society. There are over 359 species of plants in the area. There is a short 1 mile (1.6 km) nature trail, but further exploration of the east side of the reservoir requires advance permission. This article related to a protected area in Oklahoma is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Ouachita Uplift The Ouachita orogeny was a mountain-building event that resulted in
30-579: The coast of the southern portion of Laurentia , in what is now the southern United States. Laurentia straddled the equator at the time and the Rheic Ocean was to the south of Laurentia. Through the Ordovician , Silurian , Devonian , and early Carboniferous , marine sedimentation left extensive deposits of black shale , quartzose sandstone , and chert beds. During the Mississippian ,
36-727: The region to form the Ouachita Mountains. During the Pennsylvanian and Permian , river systems draining westward from the Ouachita Mountains deposited sediments in north-central Texas and Oklahoma, which are now exposed at the surface. The Ouachita Mountains were extensively eroded between the Permian and the Jurassic , and much of the Ouachita system was subsequently buried beneath Mesozoic and Cenozoic sediments to
#46953