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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 69 (1985)

Issue: 5. (May)

First Page: 869

Last Page: 869

Title: Thrusting and Synorogenic Sedimentation in Central Utah: ABSTRACT

Author(s): Previous HitAlainTop Villien, Roy Kligfield

Article Type: Meeting abstract

Abstract:

The thrust belt in central Utah can be divided geometrically into four major thrust systems, from west to east: the Canyon Range, the Pavant, the Gunnison, and the Wasatch thrust systems, Biostratigraphic correlations together with constraints imposed by the geometry indicate the following ages for thrusting events: late Albian for the Pavant 1 thrust, late Santonian-early Campanian for the Pavant 2 thrust, middle to late Campanian for the late Canyon Range thrust, late Maestrichtian for the Gunnison thrust system, and late Paleocene for the Wasatch thrust system.

In the hinterland, a combination of structural, stratigraphic, and chronologic evidence indicates that shortening was accommodated by the development of a backbreaking (overstep) thrust sequence: Pavant 1 thrust, Pavant 2 thrust, (late) Canyon thrust. This led to the formation of successive overlapping unconformities of late Cenomanian, early-middle Campanian, and late Campanian age. In the foreland, the Gunnison thrust system has a ramp-flat geometry; a series of blind, splay, imbricate faults are associated with a major ramp beneath Sevier and Sanpete Valleys. Late Cretaceous and Paleocene unconformities coincide with the development of an imbricate fan, which was subsequently deformed during the late Paleocene by formation of a deeper duplex structure within the Wasatch thrust syst m. Associated back thrusts accommodated shortening toward the surface at the west side of the Wasatch Plateau.

The times of superimposed thrusting phases, when compared with eustatic episodes recorded in the Cretaceous seaway, indicate that episodes of continental tectonism were approximately synchronous with eustatic rises in central Utah.

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