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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

West Texas Geological Society

Abstract


The Permian Basin: Geological Models to the World, 2008
Page 29

Two Great Megashears: Texas and Oklahoma

Bill McBee

Abstract

In mid-Proterozoic, Laurentia may have been in the middle of an aggregation of the many cratons that made up Pangaea. During that time, sets of northwest-trending fractures were imposed on the craton, some with igneous dikes isotopically dated at 1600-1200 Ma. In mid-Cambrian, ~550 Ma, external forces caused several of these fractures to become sinistral wrench-faults and later to become megashears. Two of these that transect the entire craton, are the subject of this study, the Texas and Oklahoma Megashears. Both were intermittently active from mid-Proterozoic into late Paleozoic time, and the Texas remained active into recent time. These transpressional stresses directly initiated and maintained movements of the megashears, thus controlling most of the structural, depositional, and erosional patterns in the southern portion of the craton during the Paleozoic era.


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