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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
AAPG Bulletin
Abstract
AAPG Bulletin, V.
1Manuscript received March 9, 1998; revised manuscript received April 13, 1999;
final acceptance June 28, 1999.
2Marathon Oil Company, P.O. Box 3128, Computer-Aided Interpretation, Houston,
Texas 77056; e-mail: [email protected]
3Department of Geology and Geography, West Virginia University, Morgantown,
West Virginia 26506.
ABSTRACT
The Rome trough, a northeast-trending graben, is that part of the Cambrian interior
rift system that extends into the central Appalachian foreland basin in eastern North
America. On the basis of changes in graben polarity and rock thickness shown from
exploration and production wells, seismic lines, and gravity and magnetic intensity maps,
we divide the trough into the eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia, and northern West
Virginia segments. In eastern Kentucky, the master synthetic fault
zone consists of
several major faults on the northwestern side of the trough where the most significant
thickness and facies changes occur. In southern West Virginia, however, a single master
synthetic
fault
, called the East-Margin
fault
, is located on the southeastern side of the
trough. Syndepositional motion along that
fault
controlled the concentrated deposition of
both the rift and postrift sequences. The East-Margin
fault
continues northward into the
northern West Virginia segment, apparently with less stratigraphic effect on postrift
sequences, and a second major normal
fault
, the Interior
fault
, developed in the northern
West Virginia segment. These three rift segments are separated by two basement structures
interpreted as two accommodation zones extending approximately along the 38th parallel and
Burning-Mann lineaments.
Computer-aided interpretation of seismic data and subsurface geologic mapping indicate that the Rome trough experienced several major phases of deformation throughout the Paleozoic. From the Early(?)-Middle Cambrian (pre-Copper Ridge deposition), rapid extension and rifting occurred in association with the opening of the Iapetus-Theic Ocean at the continental margin. The Late Cambrian-Middle Ordovician phase (Copper Ridge to Black River deposition) was dominated by slow differential subsidence, forming a successor sag basin that may have been caused by postrift thermal contraction on the passive continental margin. Faults of the Rome trough were less active from the Late Ordovician-Pennsylvanian (post-Trenton deposition), but low-relief inversion structures began to form as the Appalachian foreland started to develop. These three major phases of deformation are speculated to be responsible for the vertical stacking of different structural styles and depositional sequences that may have affected potential reservoir facies, trapping geometry, and hydrocarbon accumulation.
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