Published: October 20, 2009 09:47 pm         

Our state’s rocky past

When discussing major rifts in Oklahoma, the words University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University usually are part of the equation, but there was time in the region’s past our land nearly was split in two, and I’m not talking football.

Oklahoma has a rich past, mainly because settlers were looking to build their dreams on the harvest of the land. But long before the first plow broke the Oklahoma soil, the first oil rig penetrated the earth or even the first explorers set foot on the northern hemisphere, our land was in turmoil and our past was being born.

Since that time —only about 550 million years or so — Oklahoma has settled into a pretty tame place to live, but she holds her secrets of her past.

Walking along Salt Plains Wildlife Refuge — a mirror on that millions-old history — my husband reached down and picked up a fossil — history in the hand. Admittedly, it doesn’t happen the land will reveal its history quite so easily, but lightning struck twice for Kevin, as he was walking with our son and saw another fossil among the rocks in the co-op driveway in Braman.

Opposites must attract, because I am the least observant person that I know.

It’s strange to think of sea life in Oklahoma, but oceanfront property was at a premium in this part of the world millions of years ago.

Shallow seas covered all of Oklahoma 570 to 365 million years ago, according to a federal Web site on America’s volcanic regions — yeah, in another explosive news flash, we had those, too.

But that’s all water under the bridge.

Studying the geological makeup of our state is fascinating, as rocks of every geologic period crop out in Oklahoma, according to the Web site.

We can’t lay claim to it all, however.

Black Mesa State Park boasts the highest elevated point in the state of Oklahoma, but it can thank its northern neighbor for this distinction.

The high point is on a basal lava flow less than 5 million years old that came from a volcano in southeastern Colorado.

Volcanic ash once was mined for abrasives in Beaver, Hughes and Okfuskee counties, according to the Web site at vulcan.wr.usgs.gov. “Some of the ash was blown by the wind from Mount Mazama (in Oregon, where only Crater Lake now remains of the volcano) and from volcanoes in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, and northern New Mexico. The volcanoes erupted thousands to hundreds of thousands of years ago.”

It puts a whole new meaning to shaking the dust off your feet.

The greatest period of mountain building in Oklahoma was 330 to 290 million years ago, when three mountain chains — Ouachita, Arbuckle and Wichita — were thrust above surrounding seas. Those eventually were worn down by water rushing from an inland sea that covered most of what now is western Oklahoma, according to the history recorded at the United States Geological Survey site.

As rocky as Oklahoma’s past has been, nothing compares to the event in geological history that nearly split the region apart.

The resulting scar on the land has become one of Oklahoma’s more popular parks.

The southern part of Oklahoma tried to split apart from the northern half about 550 million years ago, but failed, according to USGS data. Evidence of that attempted rift can be found in the granites of southern Oklahoma, such as at Quartz Mountain State Park, and resulted in a weakness of the Earth’s crust. Magma erupted at the surface and cooled to form the Wichita Mountains granites.

From the woods of southeast Oklahoma to the plains of the west, the formation of our state is fascinating, and every step you take has you walking on history.



Anyone with information or remembrances about history of the Enid area or northwest Oklahoma can contact the News & Eagle at violeth@enidnews.com.