Vertical movements of crustal blocks along the narrow east-west-trending Shawneetown fault zone in southeastern Illinois occurred between Early Permian and Late Cretaceous. The main blocks moved vertically and returned to roughly their original positions so that strata now show little relative offset across the fault zone. However, individual faults with displacements up to 3,500 ft (1,070 m) bound narrow slices of steeply tilted or overturned strata resulting in a juxtaposition of Kinderhookian (Lower Mississippian) and Upper Devonian strata with Lower Pennsylvanian strata. The bedrock is intensely fractured, commonly brecciated, and cemented with either silica or calcite. Slickensides and mullion display various orientations within the zone and on individual outcrops. T e dominant movement, however, appears to be vertical with no evidence for significant strike-slip movements. Pleistocene deposits do not exhibit offsets across the fault zone, indicating that no tectonic activity has occurred since the beginning of the epoch.

The trend of the fault zone changes abruptly from east-west in southern Gallatin and easternmost Saline Counties to south-southwest in southern Saline and northeastern Pope Counties, where it joins the Fluorspar area fault complex. Here the zone widens and develops a braided pattern as the amount of displacement along individual faults decreases. The Shawneetown fault zone and Fluorspar area fault complex in part are younger than the Cottage Grove fault system to the northwest and the Wabash Valley fault system to the north. The hope of finding structural traps near the junctions of the fault systems has spurred recent oil exploration in the area.

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