Novaculite

Novaculite is a form of chert or flint found in the Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas and Oklahoma and in the Marathon Uplift of Texas. Novaculite is considered to be highly siliceous sediments and may be a product of the low-grade metamorphism of chert beds. The strata were deposited in the Devonian Period and early Mississippian Subperiod and subjected to uplift and folding during the Ouachita orogeny of the Atokan Epoch (early Pennsylvanian Subperiod). Novaculite is very resistant to erosion and the layers of novaculite stand out as ridges in the Ouachita Mountains.