Abstract

The Salina Basin in north-central Kansas is not a prolific oil-producing basin as are other similar basins in the Midcontinent. However, long-known subtle structures—plains-type folds—in the southern part have produced oil for almost 70 years. The northwest-southeast basin axis extends northward into Nebraska, and the basin is asymmetrical with a steeper southwestern flank bounded by the Central Kansas Uplift and a gentle northeastern flank extending eastward to the Nemaha Anticline. The southern limit of the basin is ill-defined with no major limiting feature between it and the Sedgwick Basin to the south. Rocks range in age from Precambrian to Quaternary, but it is mainly a Paleozoic basin with the stratigraphic section truncated to the east, so that the maximum thickness of sediment in the basin is about 4,500 feet. The structural history of the basin is similar to that of the adjacent Forest City, Sedgwick, and Cherokee Basins. A major change occurred in the structural regimen in the Late Mississippian/Early Pennsylvanian when the present-day structural features were formed. Minor folds, as elsewhere in the Midcontinent, were formed by differential compaction of sediments over tilted, rigid Precambrian fault blocks. Minor, but important, structural adjustments continued during the late Paleozoic and Mesozoic, and continue yet today. Several of the plains-type folds which occur along northeast-trending anticlines were analyzed as to time of origin, development, and relation to geothermal conditions of the region