Characteristics of thin-skinned style of deformation in the southern Appalachians, and potential hydrocarbon traps

Abstract

Rome Formation (Lower and Middle Cambrian) r Conasauga Group (Middle and Upper Cambrian) c Chickamauga Group (Middle and Upper Ordovician) Och and Knox Group (Upper Cambrian and Lower Ordovician) OCk Upper Ordovician to MississippiF IGURE 1.-Seismic profile and interpretative structure section of a 20-mile (32-km) segment of the Valley and Ridge of east Tennessee. From Harris (1976). Line of section shown on plate IA.

Geologic Cross Section I–I′ Through the Appalachian Basin from the Eastern Margin of the Illinois Basin, Jefferson County, Kentucky, to the Valley and Ridge Province, Scott County, Virginia

“…Cramer, Jr., Exxon Company, July 9, 1979) and on the presence of anhydrite beds in the Shady Dolomite in drill hole 18 (both in the parautochthonous section near the bottom of the drill hole and the allochthonous horse blocks in the Pine Mountain thrust sheet, discussed later in the text). This placement contradicts previous work by Harris and Milici (1977) and Kulander and Dean (1986), who placed the basal detachment zone in the Cambrian Rome Formation.…”

“…Typical Appalachian thin-skinned structures (terminology of Rodgers, 1963) are bedding-plane detachment zones, footwall ramps, ramp anticlines, and imbricate thrust faults (Rodgers, 1963;Harris and Milici, 1977;Woodward and Gray, 1985). These features are contractional in origin and probably developed during the Late Mississippian to Permian continental collision (Alleghanian orogeny) between eastern North America and Africa (Rodgers, 1988;Hatcher and others, 1989).…”

“…Another thin-skinned structure, the Russell Fork fault ( fig. 1), is recognized as a transverse fault and lateral ramp (Harris and Milici, 1977;Meissner, 1978).…”

“…Useful references for stratigraphic correlations and (or) nomenclature include the following: Colton (1970), Harris and Milici (1977), Le Van and Rader (1983), Patchen and others (1985), Milici and de Witt (1988), Swezey (2002), and Noger and Drahozal (2005) for the entire Paleozoic section; Read (1980), Webb (1980), Cressman (1973), Weir and others (1984), others (1993, 2006), Ryder, Crangle, and others (2008), and Harris and others (2004) for Cambrian and Ordovician rocks; Wilson and others (1981a,b), McDowell (1983), Currie and MacQuown (1984), Brett and others (1990), Dorsch and others (1994), and Meglen and Noger (1996) for Silurian rocks; Wilson and others (1981a,b), de Witt and others (1993), and Filer (2002Filer ( , 2003 for Devonian rocks; Averitt (1941), Englund (1979), Englund and Thomas (1990), Sable and Dever (1990), Chesnut (1992), Harris and Sparks (2000), Greb and others (2004, 2009), and Stamm (2004 for Mississippian and Pennsylvanian rocks. A correlation chart for all the stratigraphic units identified along cross section I-I′ is shown in figure 2.…”

“…1). Cross section I-I′ either updates or complements earlier geologic cross sections through the central Kentucky and southwestern Virginia part of the Appalachian basin by Renfro and Feray (1970), Black (1989), others (1991), and, and restored stratigraphic cross sections by Colton (1970) and Harris and Milici (1977). Although other published cross sections through parts of the basin show more structural detail (for example, Black, 1968;Alvord and Miller, 1972;Evans and Troensegaard, 1991) and stratigraphic detail (for example, Read, 1980;Mitchell, 1982;Englund and Thomas, 1990;Pope and Read, 1997;Harris and Sparks, 2000;Riley and others, 2006;Ryder, Crangle, and others, 2008), these other cross sections are of more limited extent geographically and (or) stratigraphically.…”