The Bend Arch–Fort Worth Basin Province is a major petroleum producing geological system which is primarily located in North Central Texas and southwestern Oklahoma.

It is officially designated by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) as Province 045 and classified as the Barnett-Paleozoic Total Petroleum System (TPS).

[3] The Fort Worth Basin and Bend Arch lie entirely within North Central Texas covering an area of 54,000 square miles (140,000 km2).

The north boundary follows the Texas-Oklahoma State line in the east, where the province includes parts of the Sherman Basin and Muenster Arch.

The fault system bisects the Newark East Field (NE-F) creating a zone of poor production in Barnett Shale gas reservoirs.

Several faults that cut basement and lower Paleozoic rocks in the southern part of the province are identified at the Ordovician Ellenburger Group stratigraphic level.

[4] Evolution of the Fort Worth Basin and Bend Arch structures are critical to understanding burial histories and hydrocarbon generation.

Flippen (1982) suggested it acted as a fulcrum and is a flexure and structural high and that only minor uplift occurred in the area to form an erosional surface on the Chester-age limestones that were deposited directly on top of the Barnett.

In contrast, Cloud and Barnes (1942) suggested periodic upwarp of the Bend flexure from mid-Ordovician through Early Pennsylvanian time resulted in several unconformities.

[4] From Cambrian through Mississippian time, the Fort Worth Basin area was part of a stable cratonic shelf with deposition dominated by carbonates.

A pronounced drop in sea level sometime between Late Ordovician and earliest Pennsylvanian time, perhaps related to the broad, mid-North American, mid-Carboniferous unconformity, resulted in prolonged platform exposure.

Provenance of the terrigenous material that constitutes the Barnett Shale was from Ouachita thrust sheets and the reactivation of older structures such as the Muenster Arch.

As the shallow Late Mississippian seas spread southward and westward from the subsiding Southern Oklahoma Aulacogen, they inundated an uneven Lower Paleozoic surface and almost immediately initiated the growth of reef-forming organic communities.

All of the Mississippian-age reef complexes whose bases have been penetrated by boreholes have been found, without exception, to be resting directly upon the underlying Ordovician rocks.

The reef cores are porous enough to serve as stratigraphic traps for oil and gas, and they have yielded excellent production in the northern part of the Fort Worth Basin for three-quarters of a century.

Consequently, the proximity of a given borehole to a nearby reef complex can be qualitatively estimated by the degree to which this lower member of the Barnett has been impregnated with calcite.

[7] Clastic rocks of provenance similar to the Barnett dominate the Pennsylvanian part of the stratigraphic section in the Bend Arch–Fort Worth Basin.

The primary source rock of the Bend Arch–Fort Worth Basin is Mississippian Chester-age Barnett Shale, perhaps including the overlying Chesterian Forestburg Formation.

[12] It is eroded in areas along the Red River-Electra and Muenster Arches to the north, the Llano uplift to the south where it outcrops, and the easternmost portion of the province where the Barnett laps onto the Eastern Shelf-Concho Platform.

[14] Low maturation levels in the Barnett Shale at vitrinite reflectance (Ro), estimated at 0.6-0.7%, yield oils of 38° API gravity in Brown County.

A good average value for Barnett Shale is derived from the Mitcham #1 well in Brown County where TOC is 4.2% and hydrocarbon potential is 3.37% by volume.

Samples from the T. P. Simms well in the Newark East gas-producing area have average TOC values of 4.5%, but greater than 90% of the organic matter is converted to hydrocarbons.

Any oil generated would be expelled into shallow (or deeper) horizons as in the west and north, or cracked to gas where measured vitrinite reflectance is above 1.1% Ro.

In the main gas-producing area of fractured Barnett Shale, the gas generation window is along a trend sub-parallel to the Ouachita thrust front.

Stratigraphic traps in Pennsylvanian Atoka sandstones and conglomerates are mainly pinch outs related to facies changes or erosional truncation.

Similar quality oils (40-50° API gravity), and condensates associated with gas are produced in Wise County where the Barnett is of higher thermal maturity.

[16] The Barnett's main producing facies is a black, organic-rich siliceous shale with a mean composition of about 45% quartz, 27% clay (mostly illite/smectite, and illite), 10% carbonate (calcite, dolomite, and siderite), 5% feldspar, 5% pyrite, and 5% TOC.