Wichita Mountains
Wichita Mountains | |
---|---|
Highest point | |
Peak | Haley Peak (officially unnamed) |
Elevation | 2,481 ft (756 m) |
Coordinates | 34°50′22″N 98°48′13″W / 34.83944°N 98.80361°W |
Dimensions | |
Length | 60 mi (97 km) northwest-southeast |
Width | 10 mi (16 km) |
Geography | |
Country | United States |
State | Oklahoma |
Geology | |
Orogeny | Ouachita orogeny |
Age of rock | Cambrian, Pennsylvanian, Permian |
Type of rock | granite, rhyolite, gabbro, conglomerate |
The Wichita Mountains are located in the southwestern portion of the U.S. state of Oklahoma.[1] It is the principal relief system in the Southern Oklahoma Aulacogen, being the result of a failed continental rift. The mountains are a northwest-southeast trending series of rocky promontories, many capped by 500 million-year old granite. These were exposed and rounded by weathering during the Pennsylvanian and Permian Periods. The eastern end of the mountains offers 1,000 feet (305 m) of topographic relief in a region otherwise dominated by gently rolling grasslands.
The mountains are home to numerous working ranches and quarry operations, the
Recreation
The Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge, a favorite for hikers and rock climbers in the region, is located adjacent to Cache, Medicine Park, Indiahoma, and historic Meers, and is a short drive from Lawton and Walters. Bison, elk and deer are protected on the 59,020-acre (23,880 ha) wildlife refuge. The refuge also manages a herd of longhorn cattle. A scenic highway traversing the park permits leisurely views of these and other fauna.[2]
Backcountry camping is available in the
Geography
At 2,464 ft (751 m) Mount Scott is the second highest mountain within the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge boundary. Mount Pinchot in the Special Use Area [a] is 12 feet (4 m) taller.[4][5] A paved road leads to the summit of Mount Scott, offering views of the granite promontories to the west, the wind farm on the Slick Hills to the north, the lakes to the south and east, Fort Sill, and Lawton. The highest peak in the Wichita Mountains (including areas outside the refuge) is Haley Peak, at 2,481 ft (756 m). Haley Peak is located on private property just outside the northwest corner of the refuge.[6]
History
When the area was part of Indian reservations and therefore off-limits to non-Native Americans, the Wichita Mountains were rumored to contain rich gold deposits. When the area was first opened up for settlement, many prospectors staked mining claims, and towns were laid out to serve the presumed bonanzas, but no economic deposits were found. The gold boom was prolonged by some unscrupulous assayers who found gold in every sample, but the miners eventually gave up, leaving behind ghost towns such as Wildman, Oklahoma.[7][8]
Geology
Overview
The Wichita Mountains are rocky promontories and rounded hills made of red and black
- rifting just prior to and in the Cambrian Period produced the granites and rhyolites (the red rocks), gabbroic rocks, anorthosites, and diabases(the black rocks).
- Subsidence resulted in burial by sandstones and carbonates (the light-colored rocks) during the early Paleozoic.
- Uplift during the Ouachita Orogenybrought these rocks to the surface as mountains.
- Weathering and erosion during the Permian Period flattened the mountains and produced a mantle of conglomerates.
The mountains themselves are Permian landforms covered and preserved by river-borne sediments in the Permian and partially excavated only in recent geological times. Exposure of these fossil mountains is greatest towards the southeast; much of the western part of the Permian range remains buried under sandstones and mudstones.
Details
The
Uplift and erosion followed, as the layered complex is
The Mount Scott Granite is the most extensively exposed Wichita Granite. It forms the topographic feature from which it takes its name, and it is distributed throughout the northern half of the wildlife refuge. Dark rounded
Relatively small and compositionally distinct
Following the cessation of
During the
This uplift locally created rugged mountains reduced by
The most common soil in the Wichita Mountains is Brico series, which has a topsoil of brown cobbly loam over a reddish brown to red cobbly clay loam or clay subsoil.[19]
Notes
- ^ The Special Use Area is a part of the WMNWR that is closed to the public.
References
- ^ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Wichita Mountains
- ^ "Wichita Mountains Scenic Byway". TravelOK.com - Oklahoma's Official Travel & Tourism Site.
- ^ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Wichita Mountains Charons Garden Area
- ^ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Wichita Mountains North Mountain Area
- ^ Splinter, Dale K. and Marston, Richard A. "Wichita Mountains". Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Oklahoma Historical Society. Accessed May 16, 2016.
- ^ Haley Peak Elevation information from records stored at USGS/NSDI Standards Team/NGTOC III/Mid-Continent Mapping Center, Rolla, Missouri.
- ISBN 978-1607810209.
- ISBN 978-0806114200.
- ^ a b c d e M. Charles Gilbert, 1982, Geologic setting of the eastern Wichita Mountains with a brief discussion of unresolved problems, in Gilbert, M.C. and Donovan, R.N., eds., Geology of the Eastern Wichita Mountains, Southwestern Oklahoma, Oklahoma Geological Survey Guidebook 21, p. 1-30.
- ^ D.A. McConnell and Gilbert, M.C., 1990, Cambrian extensional tectonics and magmatism within the Southern Oklahoma Aulacogen, Tectonophysics, 174 p. 147-157.
- .
- ^ Roger W. Cooper, 1986, Platinum-group-element potential of the Glen Mountains Layered Complex, in Gilbert, M.C. ed., Petrology of the Cambrian Wichita Mountains Igneous Suite, Oklahoma Geological Survey Guidebook 23, p. 65-72.
- ^ Hogan, John P., Price, J.D., and Gilbert, M.C., 1998, Magma traps and driving pressure: consequences for pluton shape and emplacement in an extensional regime., Journal of Structural Geology, 20 pp. 1155-68.
- ^ Clifford A. Merritt, 1965, Mt. Scott Granite, Wichita Mountains, Oklahoma, Oklahoma Geology Notes, 25, pp. 263-72.
- ^ http://ogs.ou.edu/docs/guidebooks/GB38PIIRP9.pdf Jonathan D. Price, The Mount Scott Intrusive Suite, page 305.
- ^ R. Nowell Donovan, Ragland, D., Rafalowski, M., McConnell, D., Beauchamp, W., Marcini, W.R., and Sanderson, D.J. 1988, Pennsylvanian deformation and Cambro-Ordovician sedimentation in the Blue Creek Canyon, Slick Hills, southwestern Oklahoma, in Hayward, O.T., ed., Geological Society of America, Centennial Field Guide, 4, p. 127-34.
- ^ ISBN 978-0471332183.
- ^ USGS America's Volcanic Past
- ^ "SoilWeb: An Online Soil Survey Browser | California Soil Resource Lab".
External links
- Wichita Mountains - Video footage of the area and a list of local activities and resources.
- United States Fish and Wildlife Service: Official Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge Homepage
- BikeUSA.com: Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge
- America's Volcanic Past - Oklahoma
- Oklahoma Digital Maps: Digital Collections of Oklahoma and Indian Territory
- O'Dell, Larry: Holy City of the Wichitas Pageant - Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - Oklahoma Historical Society
- Splinter, Dale K. and Marston, Richard A.: Wichita Mountains - Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - Oklahoma Historical Society
- O'Dell, Larry: Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge - Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - Oklahoma Historical Society