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The Lower Cretaceous Kootenai Formation, Southwestern Montana

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The Lower Cretaceous Kootenai Formation, Southwestern Montana Sedimentation in a tectonically partitioned, nonmarine foreland basin: The Lower Cretaceous Kootenai Formation, southwestern Montana PETER G. DECELLES* Department of Geology, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405 ABSTRACT creased tectonism, influx of siliceous volcanic ash, and change in source lithology. The Lower Cretaceous Kootenai Formation in southwestern 4. Renewed tectonic activity in the fold-thrust belt generated a Montana was deposited in the nonmarine, Cordilieran foreland basin second episode of coarse-grained alluvial sedimentation, producing in the United States during a period of intensified uplift in the west- the Kootenai Second Sandstone Member. Basin partitioning was ac- ward adjacent, but increasingly impingent, Sevier fold-thrust belt. centuated, but drainage directions remained essentially unchanged. Concurrently, the foreland basin was partitioned by uplift of intra- Initial activation of the Blacktail-Snowcrest uplift dammed the south- foreland structural elements and incipient plutonism. Kootenai fluvial ern portion of the Second Sandstone fluvial system. Base level was and fluviolacustrine depositional systems developed and evolved in elevated, and a major anastomosed-stream system developed up- response to changing basin architecture. The Kootenai thus provides a stream from the structural dam. Downstream from the axis of the case study of nonmarine sedimentary responses to tectonic partition- uplift, a transport-efficient, probably entrenched, meandering system ing in a foreland basin. developed. The following criteria for recognition of tectonic partitioning of a 5. The remainder of Kootenai siliciclastic deposition was domi- nonmarine foreland basin are demonstrated by the Kootenai: (1) com- nated by muddy fluvial and fluviolacustrine systems. The foreland- plex, internalized drainage patterns which locally diverge from the basin configuration remained essentially unchanged as drainage over-all regional paleoslope direction and a typical longitudinal pat- became ponded in response to further elevation of base level as basin tern; (2) intraformational and interformational unconformities, both partitioning continued. An extensive carbonate lacustrine interval proximal to the fold-thrust belt and within the foreland basin; (3) punctuated this period of sedimentation. evidence for cannibalization and redistribution of foreland-basin sed- 6. Gradual southward transgression of the Cretaceous sea left a iments; (4) abrupt deflections of paleodrainage axes in response to transitional fluviolacustrine to marine imprint on the sedimentary rec- initiation of intraforeland uplifts; and (5) dramatic base-level altera- ord of the uppermost Kootenai and overlying Blackleaf Formation. tions and consequent changes of fluvial geomorphology as a result of Rejuvenation of orogenesis in the fold-thrust belt, augmented by tectonic partitioning and segmentation of the foreland basin. cratonic and major intraforeland volcanic and sedimentary lithic Kootenai sedimentation can be divided into six phases. sources, renewed the supply of coarse-grained detritus to the foreland 1. A tectonic pulse in the Sevier fold-thrust belt produced a thin basin during deposition of the Blackleaf. but widespread sheet of gravel alluvium, referred to as the "Basal Conglomerate Member," which was deposited by a shallow, perhaps INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY ephemeral, gravel-bed, braided-stream system. Drainage was predom- inantly eastward, across the axis of the foreland basin. Retroarc and peripheral basins are elongated, pericratonic basins 2. Subsequently, initial activation of intra-foreland structures which develop on continental crust in response to tectonic and sedimen- over the present Tobacco Root, Madison, Gravelly, and Beartooth tary loading adjacent to active fold-thrust belts (Dickinson, 1974; Beau- Archean blocks and the Boulder batholith caused reworking of the mont, 1981; Jordan, 1981). In this sense, both can be considered as Basal Conglomerate in all but the westernmost foreland basin. Al- foreland basins (Dickinson, 1977). Because foreland basins are formed on though the topographic manifestations of these uplifts were subtle, the cratons and are genetically coupled with adjacent orogens, they are glo- foreland basin was effectively partitioned into at least four distinct bally the major loci of preservable nonmarine sedimentation (Allen and drainage basins. The resulting deposit, commonly called the "Pryor others, 1967; Van Houten, 1969; Dickinson, 1974; Miall, 1981). Member," but here referred to as the "First Sandstone Member," was Foreland-basin fills are generally considered to be wedge-shaped deposited by sand- and gravel-dominant, braided-stream systems in packages (thinning toward the craton) of detritus derived primarily from the west and east, respectively. Paleodrainage directions in the west- the adjacent fold-thrust belt (Dickinson, 1977). Miall (1978a, 1981), how- ern foreland basin were southward, but over-all drainage was ever, called attention to the possibility of intraforeland tectonism, sug- northward. gested probable sedimentary manifestations, and noted modern examples. 3. A period of mud-dominant sedimentation followed deposition Despite the abundance of nonmarine foreland-basin fills preserved in the of the First Sandstone, probably resulting from a combination of de- rock record, however, few studies have been devoted specifically to under- standing the evolution of nonmarine depositional systems in tectonically * Present address: Department of Geological Sciences, University of Rochester, broken, or partitioned, foreland basins. Rochester, New York 14627. The Cretaceous Kootenai and overlying Blackleaf Formations were Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 97, p. 911 -931, 18 figs., 1 table, August 1986. 911 Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulletin/article-pdf/97/8/911/3445061/i0016-7606-97-8-911.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 912 P. G. DECELLES deposited in the western Montana portion of the Cordilleran retroarc basin and (2) to provide a set of generally applicable, diagnostic criteria for foreland basin during a period of intensified uplift in the westward adja- the recognition of ancient nonmarine sedimentary responses to intrafore- cent, but increasingly impingent, Sevier fold-thrust belt. Concurrently, land tectonic episodes. The Kootenai was examined at more than 75 nascent uplift of inherent, local, intraforeland structural elements and in- localities, and 41 stratigraphic sections were measured. More than 1,800 cipient volcanism and plutonism occurred (Suttner and others, 1981; measurements of limbs of large-scale trough cross-strata, according to Schwartz, 1983; Schwartz and others, 1983; DeCelles, 1984). Within this Method I of DeCelles and others (1983), were gathered at 130 different tectonic-plutonic framework, sedimentological study of the Blackleaf has outcrops. All paleocurrent data used in directional interpretations were been undertaken, and many of the results are in the literature (Schwartz, gathered from major-channel lithofacies. Cobble imbrications, maximum 1983; Schwartz and others, 1983). The Blackleaf consists largely of marine conglomerate-clast sizes, and longitudinal erosional furrows were mea- deposits, however, and sedimentary responses to tectonics (for example, sured at a few localities. Finally, -120 thin sections of Kootenai sand- sediment-dispersa l patterns) were modified by complex marine processes. stones were point-counted (medium-grained sandstones, 400 counts per The Kootenai, on the other hand, is entirely nonmarine, and the types, section, according to the methods of the "traditional school" of Ingersoll directions of flow, and facies distributions of the various alluvial systems and others, 1984) to determine framework mineralogy. can be interpreted in terms of tectonic driving forces. The area covered by this study includes most of southwestern and With respect to intraforeland tectonism, the Kootenai of southwest- portions of west-central Montana (Fig. 2). The Kootenai thickens west- ern Montana is of special interest because it was deposited across the zone ward to an erosional zero edge, where thrusting and uplift have removed of transition between the structural provinces of the central Rocky Moun- most Phanerozoic rocks and exposed the Proterozoic Belt Supergroup. tain foreland (to the south), which is characterized by large, Laramide Kootenai outcrops are generally confined to the flanks of major Laramide basement-cored uplifts, and the northern Rocky Mountain disturbed belt mountain ranges (Fig. 2), the intervening fault-block basins being filled by (to the north), characterized by thin-skinned folding and thrusting of Tertiary sedimentary material. Upper Cretaceous intrusive bodies; (most supra-crustal sedimentary rocks (Fig. 1). In addition, this transition zone is notably the Boulder, Tobacco Root, and Pioneer batholiths) are present the site of a major eastward salient in the Mesozoic plutonic belt of throughout the central and northern study area. western North America (Figs. 1, 2). Greenwood and others (1979), Suttner and others (1981), Schwartz (1983), and Schwartz and others STRATIGRAPHY AND AGE (1983) have suggested that Kootenai and Blackleaf sedimentation in southwestern Mo ntana was influenced by possible precursors of the Lara- The Kootenai in southwestern Montana can be subdivided into eight mide foreland blocks and plutons. If this was the case, depositional genetically
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