242-7 Whole-Rock Geochemistry of the Wichita Igneous Province, Southern Oklahoma

Abstract:

The Wichita Igneous Province (WIP) is a large igneous province exposed in Wichita Mountains of southern Oklahoma. The outcrop exposure of the WIP is broadly elongate in shape and trends in the WNW direction. In the subsurface, the rocks of the WIP extend from north central Texas across western Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle and reach at least 12 km in depth. The WIP was emplaced in the Southern Oklahoma Aulocogen (SOA), a failed rift structure related to rifting along the Laurentian margin. Geochronological age dating places the formation of the WIP in the latest Ediacaran – earliest Cambrian during the opening of the Iapetus Ocean at the southern Laurentian margin.

Rocks of the WIP reflect bimodal magmatism and volcanism and consist of a layered mafic intrusion, peralkaline granite intrusions, rhyolite flows, flood basalts (subsurface only), and diabase dike swarms. Additionally, slivers of metamorphic rock can be found along igneous contacts and as stoped blocks. Here, we present whole rock geochemical data acquired through USGS EarthMRI funded projects along with Harker, REE, tectonic discrimination, and petrological diagrams to further characterize petrological and magmatic processes. The ultimate goal of this study is to place the geochemistry of the WIP in a mineral systems framework to understand the concentrations of critical minerals.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 58, No. 5, 2026

doi: 10.1130/abs/2026AM-20077

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