Ouachita Mountain Biological Station, Mena Arkansas

Do you know of a geologist needing a research area? Do I  have a place for them.  It's the Ouachita Mountain Biological Station in Mena Arkansas. Here's its profile -http://www.obfs.org/index.php?option=com_community&view=profile&userid=24965385.

View of the Ouachita Mountain Biological Station

Here's how I found out about it.  We attend church with Mac Hardy.  We've been hearing about the trips to the station for years.  I put it on my list of places to check out since it is open to people interested in biology and nature in general.  Then my husband's company was approached to looked into its insurance.  My husband deemed it wise to go look and actually see what is there.  I was glad they would let me tag along and look at things.  We went up and visited it on June 12-13, 2015.

We came to see what was on the property and when we got there that's what we looked at first. These are some of the places that are there that can be used.  The first is the dormer building.

 This is the main area where people eat and can hang out. It has lots of windows so you can look at nature while you are there.

 This is the eating area.  They do have a small kitchen area.

I forget how many this dormer can sleep but what really impressed me was the fact it had electricity,  HOT clean running water and it was air conditioned.  To me that was unheard of when I did my field work.  All I was thinking was those biologist have it too easy.  I was glad to hear the place is open to any type of group or individual that is interested in doing research - in other words its not just open to biologists.
  We did stay in the dormers.  There were two rooms with bunk beds in each.  You do have to bring your own bedding.  There were also two bathrooms and one of them had a shower in it.

Then there was a class room where people could do some research

There was also an office building.  They keep books and other things in this building.

For faculty members there are a few small cabins so they wouldn't have to stay in the dormers unless they want to.

They also have this meeting area where BBQ and other things could be held.

And they also have a storage area where equipment and some of the vehicles are stored.

There is a station manager who lives on the property and does research.  The person has a house to live in but I did not include pictures of that house.

The next day we took a tour of the property.  Here's the map that we used. I never did know what the contour interval was on the map or  the scale of it. 

We started out on the West Cabin Trail.

 Normally I would have liked to have walked this trail but due to time constraints we did use an all terrain vehicle to transverse it.  We got to the West cabin which was our main objective.

As you can see its just a big storage shed.  No running water but is protection if the weather gets bad.
This area at one time had had a slate mine operation on it.  After the mine had been abandoned people still would use the road to come dump things on the property.  One of the things that was planned was to have a clean up day. The road was no longer passable so we ended up finally getting to walk.   Here's some of the things Mac wanted to get cleaned up.

 We took the Butcherknife trail to the end of the property and saw where it intersected with the National forest road for the Ouachita Mountains.  We saw some some pretty things as we walked and I felt like I was in heaven enjoying the scenery.  Here's a few of the things I got to enjoy.  I must say the images do not do the place justice.  It's so much pretty there and you just can't capture the feel of the place.
It was nice to look down and to be actually walking on a rock outcrop.  Its been a while since I've  been able to do that. 

 And there was some relief so I could look down and see some creeks in the valleys.

 Here's were two of them merged together.

 This area was so pretty, quiet and restful.  The picture really doesn't do it justice but it is one of the favorite places for people to stop and enjoy.

 I could actually see some strike and dip in the beds and could tell this area has been folded and faulted.  This was looking at it from across the creek.  I couldn't get over to it to put something to scale on it.

As we were checking the area out,  I really got excited when we saw these outcrops and started to talk about it. Mac pointed out that there has never been a good geological study done on the area.  He asked me if I was interested in doing one.  I declined because of my age and not having worked as a professional  geologist in 22 years even though geology has always been a love of mine. I felt I was too out of date in my training - especially since very few of my textbooks even mentioned plate tectonics when I studied geology and there is definitely a lot of stuff relating to that in this area.

Here's some more images from section D2 & D1.

 These flowers where along the road. 

 This was where the road and Butcherknife Creek crossed.  This was in the topmost section of D2 referring to the OMBS West map and was looking North?

 This was looking south? towards the OMBS property.

We headed back towards the cabins.  Yet there was still work to be done.  On the trees there are these boxes and the videos had to be changed on them. It's the stations way for keeping track of the wildlife.  I could barely see them. 

A better view of them.  This was a natural trail that the animals would use to go down to the water.

We also were looking out for other wildlife traces like these trees.

 See how the woodpeckers holes can effect the pine tree.  When I saw this I thought of amber and how in time this sap could turn to amber if it was buried under the right conditions.

We went back to the cabins.  I hated for things to end and was glad when the question was asked if there was any other place I wanted to see. Ever since I saw the map with the Slate Mine trail on it I was curious what the mine would look like.  The road to it was too steep to take a vehicle and so we had to walk the trail.
      There were some man made lakes on the property that we had to walk around to get to the trail.  The vegetation was so thick in places you could barely see the water unless you were right at the waters edge.

The lakes were the result of stopping the water of a creek in the area.  The creek waters seemed to follow a shale bed that was not as resistant and the surrounding rocks.
It was tricky trying to get some pictures of  the creek.  The water was just a trickle.

 But the bed were more vertical like this.  

 Here we were standing on a ledge looking down at the creek.

I wondered if this outcrop of shale/ slate was the same material they were mining at the slate mine?

 But most of the terrain looked more like this.  When you looked at the rocks that were there most of them were what I would call novaculite.   Its the more resistant rock that forms most of the ridges in the area.

Finally we got up to the Slate Mine.  At first I was surprised this was the area.

 Then you went around the bend and I could see this and definitely tell this was the mine area.

 Here's the other side to the left of the above picture.

 Mac was curious why they would have abandoned the mine.  This piece did look like slate.

 But the stuff down the hill looked like this stuff.  The rocks had more sand in them and were more friable.

 Then I notice a line running through the back wall. It look like a fault zone. 

 Mac talked about the pond and how its always there.  I figured there must have been too much water going along that fault line and interfered with the mining operations.  This area definitely needs someone to look at and figure out whats going on in the area. 

The one thing is the pond is a gathering place for animals. While walking there we did see some old  bear tracks that didn't show up on the picture I took of them.  What did show up was this picture.

Here's it cropped.  A nice little snake skin.

All good things must come to an end.  Here's the parting image I had of the area. I was there less than a full day but I saw so much there and would love to go back there and spend more time.  I kept on thinking this would be such a great area for a geology student to do field work or even a thesis project.

Here's some of the  information I did obtain.
 The map of the Ouachita Mountains National Forest Area: https://fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fsm9_039236.pdf
The biological station is located near Mena Arkansas.  We had to take hwy 71/59 most of the way to get to it.  If you contact the station they can give you exact instructions on how to get there. The station itself is about 20 acres.

The geology of Ouachita Mountains National Forest http://www.ouachitarocks.com/Information/Geology/geology.html

Here's the National forest website on the Ouachita Mountains National Forest -http://www.fs.usda.gov/ouachita/

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouachita_Mountains

The other bit of information is the official geology of the  state of Arkansas   http://www.geology.ar.gov/home/index.htm  
and this section on the geology of Arkansas http://www.geology.ar.gov/geology/geology_home.htm
 Geologic map of Arkansa.  

http://www.geology.ar.gov/ark_state_maps/Geologic%20Map%20of%20Arkansas%201993%20%2834x52%29.pdf
and the stratigraphic summary of Arkansas:
http://www.geology.ar.gov/pdf/IC-36_v.pdf

 
As you can see there is still a lot of work that can be done in the area.  If you are interested please contact

OBFS Main Contact:

Laurence M. Hardy

OBFS Main Contact Position:

Director

OBFS Main Contact Email:

lhardy@lsus.edu