Structural style and timing of Late Paleozoic basement uplifts in southern Oklahoma

Proposed theories of deformation in southern Oklahoma presently involve large-scale basement thrusting or large magnitudes of strike slip. As more and better seismic data and well control have become available, a predominant interpretation of the structural style is emerging. This style is characterized by a large basement overhang along the mountain fronts, created by major reverse dip-slip (thrust) faults. Additionally, these reverse faults may have an antithetic back-thrust on the hanging wall. In cross section, this style appears as a wedge-uplift that is often mistakenly interpreted to represent the upper portion of a flower structure created by wrench-faulting. Structural uplifts in southern Oklahoma developed as a result of Late Paleozoic Wichita, Ouachita and Arbuckle orogenies. Emplacement of the thin-skinned Ouachita thrust belt occurred during the Ouachita orogeny (Mississippian through Middle Pennsylvanian). Basement-involved compressional uplifts of the Wichita Mountains and Criner Hills were initially uplifted during the Wichita orogeny (Late Mississippian to Early Pennsylvanian), while the Arbuckle anticline and Tishomingo uplift reached their culmination during the Arbuckle orogeny (Middle to Late Pennsylvanian). Evidence for the timing of these uplifts are the various conglomerates and unconformities preserved in the subsurface, and occasionally exposed at the surface. Age-dating of these unconformities strongly suggestsmore » a sequence of deformation in which the culmination of uplift progressed generally from south to north through time. This sequence is also suggested by deformation of the thin-skinned Ouachita thrust belt by basement-involved structures of the Arbuckle orogeny.« less