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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
Houston Geological Society Bulletin
Abstract
Abstract: Geologic Evolution of the Mid-Continent
and Gulf Coast Areas - A Plate Tectonics
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The Gulf Coast and Mid-Continent areas of the southern
United States, in the past 500 million years, are postulated to
have been the scene, first, of continental approach and
collision, and later of a rifting almost at the site of the suture.
Spreading apart of the newly formed continents proceeded
to the present. This paper presents a review of these events. A
series of cross sections and maps shows an interpretation of
the tectonic evolution of the region beginning in Cambrian
time and extending through the Neogene.
As extensions of the open ocean, epicontinental seas of
Late Cambrian through Mississippian time deposited largely
carbonate rocks over a vast region in what is now the Mid-
Continent area. From Pennsylvanian time to the end of the
Paleozoic, as the continents closed rapidly causing great
instability in the area, terrigenous deposits dominated Mid-Continent sedimentation. Collision of the continents occurred
in about early Mid-Pennsylvanian time creating the
Ouachita suture belt which contains the basinal rocks of the
Early and Middle Paleozoic. By Triassic time the sea had
withdrawn completely from the Mid-Continent area and
rifting had begun south of the Ouachitas.
Plate tectonic movements have affected the distribution
of hydrocarbon deposits in the Mid-Continent and the Gulf
Coast areas. The location and shifting through time of a
sedimentational and tectonic hingeline may have been
controlled in part by plate movement. Structure and trap
style, timing in trap development, and quality of trap also may
have been affected by plate tectonic movement, particularly
in the late stages of continental approach (for Mid-Continent) and the early stages of moving apart (for the Gulf
Coast). End_of_Record - Last_Page 2---------------