The Meers Fault in Southern Oklahoma: Holocene Movements on a Fault with Pennsylvanian and Cambrian Linages
Abstract
The Meers fault and subparallel fault strands in southern Oklahoma is the southernmost element of the complex and massive (>10 km of throw) frontal fault zone that forms the boundary between the Anadarko basin, which is the deepest intra-continental basin in the United States, and the uplifted Cambrian igneous rocks of the Wichita Mountains. The Wichita uplift is evidence of extraordinary Pennsylvanian intra-plate deformation along the trend of the Southern Oklahoma aulacogen, which is a classic example of a failed and massively inverted rift. The Meers Fault is the best-documented Holocene fault scarp east of Colorado and probably represents reactivation of a Pennsylvanian oblique thrust that in turn is likely to be an inverted Cambrian normal fault. The magnitude of these structures is shown on images from 3-D industry seismic reflection data ~25 km northwest of the northwestern mapped extent of the Meers fault that indicate the Pennsylvanian structure, or a northern strand of it, has a reverse throw of ~6km at depth. The fault displays a conspicuous and continuous scarp that is at least 25 km long and is evident in air photos and 1:100,000 scale geologic mapping, but this feature is not well mapped in detail beyond the area of trenching studies conducted in the 1980's. In the Holocene, 3-5 m of vertical surface displacement has been documented and left-lateral strike slip displacement on the fault is 2-3 times greater than the vertical displacement. During this movement, Quaternary soils along the fault were folded and ruptured, and the scarp has dammed small gullies where fine-grained alluvium has collected and has been used in the dating efforts. The most recent movement occurred (1100-1300 y ago) with a variety of earlier events having been proposed. As such, this fault represents one of the highest potential seismic hazards in the central/eastern United States.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2011
- Bibcode:
- 2011AGUFM.S21C..04K
- Keywords:
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- 7221 SEISMOLOGY / Paleoseismology;
- 7230 SEISMOLOGY / Seismicity and tectonics;
- 8107 TECTONOPHYSICS / Continental neotectonics;
- 4302 NATURAL HAZARDS / Geological