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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
GCAGS Transactions
Abstract
EXTENDED ABSTRACT: Structural Geology
of the Mississippi Fan 
Fold
Belt, Northern Deep Gulf of Mexico, Part 1:
Geometry and Restorations
Fold Belt, Northern Deep Gulf of Mexico, Part 1:
Geometry and Restorations
Morris, Peter L.1,2 and Weimer, Paul1
ABSTRACT
fold belt is one of several Cenozoic
deepwater fold belts in the Gulf of Mexico. This fold belt covers an area
of approximately 110 by 40 miles south of the Sigsbee Escarpment in the northern
Atwater Valley area. A thick layer of Middle Jurassic Louann salt is interpreted
to have deformed during the Early Cretaceous, forming a regional salt canopy.
This allochthonous layer was critical to the development of the Mississippi
Fan fold belt. The folds are interpreted to be salt-cored and overlie the
regional detachment of the Louann salt. The general trend of the fold axes
are EW to ENE. The general fold geometry is southerly vergent folds with
a north dipping thrust that offsets strata in the southern limb.
Two additional structural styles associated
with the Mississippi Fan fold belt are present near shallow salt features.
These features are only found in what is termed, in this study, the east-ern
Mississippi Fan fold belt. The fold geometry around these features tend to
be either symmetric around a salt diapir, or they are folds with steeply
dipping strata in the northern limb and gently dipping strata in the southern
limb of the fold. The second fold model tends to be associated with salt
features where the salt has evacuated and formed salt tongues on the paleo seafloor. The
timing of deformation of the fold belt in this study is generally constrained
between 9.0 and 5.4 Ma. However, minor folding may have begun as early as
30 Ma. Detailed correlation of syn-growth strata is necessary to better constrain
timing of deformation of the Mississippi Fan fold
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