© TGS, 2006 - Tulsa's Physical Environment, 1972

60 TULSA PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT

DEWEY LIMESTONE
by L. A. Desjardins

ORIGIN OF NAME AND DISTINCTIVE CHARACTER

Ohern (1910) conceived the name Dewey Limestone for a distinctive fossiliferous
limestone that is extensively quarried for cement and crushed stone in the vicinity of
Dewey, Oklahoma. This limestone crops out prominently across Washington County to with-
in one-quarter mile north of Hillside Church on the Tulsa County border where it pivots
to the northwest and then southwest across southeastern Osage County into the western
panhandle of Tulsa County.
In that distance, the Dewey Limestone has changed from a shelf type limestone bank
to a predominantly deeper water clay shale with thin dolomitic limestones and calcareous
sandstones restricted largely to the uppermost and lowermost beds. Some limestones bear
abundant shells of fusulinids~one celled animals resembling wheat grains.

AREAL EXTENT AND FORMATIONAL GEOMETRY

As noted above, the Dewey Limestone in Tulsa County is confined to the western pan-
handle. Outcrops north of the Arkansas River are sparse, owing to the extensive cover
of Quaternary terrace and fluviatile deposits. South of the Arkansas River, the Dewey
sequence is largely covered by heavy forest-type soil, and talus rubble from the over-
lying Chanute sandstones. The best exposed section is along the Coyote Trail on the
north line of Section 31, T.19N., R.11E., where the Dewey is about 45 feet thick. The
lower 5 feet contains two limestones—a lower molluscan limestone and an upper crinoidal
limestone—separated by two feet of clay shale. The upper 5 feet contains a ferruginous
oolitic limestone overlying interbedded shales and calcareous sandstones, abounding in
large productid brachiopods. The middle clay shale member is 35 feet thick.
A few variations are seen in the Dewey sequence within Tulsa County. On the crests
of the hi U s east of Wekiwa, the lower 10 feet of the Dewey beds from the base up con-
tain a fusulinid limestone, a calcareous sandstone, and thin, lenticular, limestone
conglomerates. At some localities, the uppermost limestone is extensively dolomitized.
In a deep cut 4 miles west of Prattville along 31st Street South, the discon-
formable contact of the Dewey Limestone with the overlying Chanute shale and sandstone is
completely exposed. The upper 4 l/2Vfeet of the Dewey Limestone resembles a weathered
caliche zone that is commonly developed in the soil profile over limestones in subtropical
Mexico. The upper 1 foot is a yellow to green gray impure marly limestone lying above
2 1/2 feet of green to brown nodular limestone. The underlying 4 feet of dolomitic
limestone is discolored brown to violet, and shows relict mud cracks.

INTERPRETATION OF ANCIENT ENVIRONMENT

The Dewey Limestone is an outstanding example of a sedimentary cycle almost coin-
ciding with a geological formation. The rise in sea level began with deposition of the
uppermost layers of the Coffeyville Formation and culminated in the middle shale member of
the Dewey Limestone. A shoaling phase led to the shell banks of the upper Dewey, which
locally became deeply weathered and eroded, before the advent of the Chanute Formation,
the next sedimentary cycle.

ECONOMIC SIGNIFICANCE
The Dewey Limestone has little to offer economically in Tulsa County for several
reasons. Few of its beds are of a pure homogeneous quality, slopes are steep, and most
beds appear too thin, However, some of its limestone ledges may prove locally suitable
for coarse aggregate. Rippability is good to excellent, except for occasional thin
limestone ledges.