The Anadarko Basin is a geologic depositional and structural basin centered in the western part of the state of Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle, and extending into western Kansas and southeast Colorado.
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The basin is bound on the south by the Wichita-Amarillo uplift, on the east by the Nemaha uplift, on the north by the Central Kansas uplift, and on the west by the Las Animas arch.
Sedimentary rocks from Cambrian through Permian age fill the basin. The sedimentary column is thickest, in excess of 40,000 feet (12,000 m), at the southern edge, next to the upfaulted Wichita-Amarillo uplift. The basin has an especially thick section of Pennsylvanian rocks, up to 15,000 feet (4,600 m) thick.
The basin holds one of the most prolific natural gas reserves in North America, with ultimate gas production in excess of 100 trillion cubic feet (2,800 km3) of gas.[1]
The brine in the Pennsylvanian Morrow Formation in the Anadarko Basin contains about 300 parts per million iodine, and is the only current commercial source of that element in the United States. Three companies extract iodine from brine produced as a byproduct of natural gas production from depths of 5,000 feet (1,500 m) to 13,000 feet (4,000 m). Iodine production in 2005 was 1,570 tonnes.[2] The Woodward Iodine company plant is 3.7 miles (6.0 km) west of Woodward, Oklahoma and uses a 6,600 feet (2,000 m) deep well north of the city, while the IOCHEM plant 2.5 miles (4.0 km) east of Vici, Oklahoma extracts the brine from a 9,800 feet (3,000 m) deep well.[3] North American Brine Resources operates a plant near Dover, Oklahoma.
Some natural gas in the basin has unusually high helium content (greater than 0.3%). Helium is recovered from produced natural gas as a byproduct.