About This Item

Share This Item

The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 67 (1983)

Issue: 8. (August)

First Page: 1351

Last Page: 1351

Title: Late Jurassic Tectonism on West Side of Colorado Plateau, Utah and Arizona: ABSTRACT

Author(s): Fred Peterson

Article Type: Meeting abstract

Abstract:

Detailed sedimentologic studies in south-central Utah and north-central Arizona indicate that several major basins and uplifts as well as many smaller folds within them were actively growing during deposition of the Salt Wash Member of the Morrison Formation. The region lies outside that part of the Colorado Plateau underlain by thick Pennsylvanian halite deposits so the structures are not related to salt deformation. Tectonic activity in the region is inferred from several types of sedimentologic features which include thickness variations, facies distribution, cross-bedding parameters, and bedding ratios. Distribution of the various features studied indicates the Emery, Circle Cliffs, Echo Cliffs-Kaibab, Cow Springs, and Monument uplifts, as well as the Henry and Kaipar wits basins, were active during the Late Jurassic. In addition, several anticlines and synclines that were active at the same time can be delineated in or near the Henry and Kaiparowits basins.

The apparent absence of local angular unconformities in the Salt Wash near the positive structures suggests that most of the tectonic movements were the result of differential subsidence rather than uplift of the positive structures. It could not be determined if the San Rafael swell near the Emery uplift was active during Late Jurassic time. Also, the relationships are not entirely conclusive but suggest that the Cow Springs uplift may have extended southeast across Black Mesa and that downwarping may not have occurred there in the Late Jurassic.

Late Jurassic folds have essentially the same northwest to north-northwest trend as many of the Laramide and possibly younger folds in the region although the older folds tend to be less sinuous. Vertical repetition of lacustrine strata, deposited under conditions especially sensitive to slight tectonic movements, suggest that the movements were episodic. Comparison of the present amount of structural relief with the Late Jurassic structural relief indicates that approximately 3 to 7% of the present-day relief between several of the major basins and uplifts can be attributed to tectonic movements during deposition of the Salt Wash. Thus, it is erroneous to assume that all of the structural deformation in the region occurred during or after the Laramide orogeny.

End_of_Article - Last_Page 1351------------

Copyright 1997 American Association of Petroleum Geologists