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Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 8907297 Stratal packages at the subsiding margin of the Cretaceous foreland basin, Utah. (Volumes I and H) Schwans, Peter, Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1988 Copyright ©1988 by Schwans, Peter. All rights reserved. UMI SOON. Zeeb Rd Ann Arbor, MI 48106 STRATAL PACKAGES AT THE SUBSIDING MARGIN OF THE CRETACEOUS FORELAND BASIN, UTAH VOLUME 1 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By- Peter Schwans, M.S. (Dipl. Geol.) The Ohio State University 1988 Dissertation Committee: Approved by L. A. Krissek G. D. McKenzie Advisor T. J. Wilson é Department of Geology and Mineralogy Copyright by Peter Schwans 1988 To My Parents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I sincerely thank Dr. James W. Collinson for his guidance throughout the project, my wife Mary for her editorial expertise and patience, Dr. Peter Noel Webb for providing many opportunities, and Dr. Terry J. Wilson for her encouragement and numerous discussions. I am grateful to Drs. Steven R. Jacobson and Sheldon N. Nelson of Chevron Co. Inc, Denver, for the processing and classification of palynomorph samples, and Drs. Kirt Campion, Bill Devlin, and John H. Van Wagoner of EXXON Production Research Co., Houston, for invaluable discussions, much logistic support, and for gaining release of some materials presented herein. I also thank Dr. William A. Cobban of the U.S. Gelogoglcal Survey, Denver, for patiently identifying all invertebrate fossils. I am grateful to the field camp staff and the administration of Snow College at Ephraim, Utah, for room and board. Janice Gist of EXXON Production Research Company, Houston, helped with many diagrams and Beth Daye of Ohio State University, Columbus, processed many of the photos. This research wqs supported by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Atlantic Richfield Oil Company, the Chevron Field Studies Fund, Exxon Production Research Company, the Friends of Orton Hall Fund, Marathon Oil Company through Q.S..A. Grants #3491-85 and #3491-86, Sheil Western Exploration and Production Company, and SIGMA XI, The Scientific Research Society. ABSTRACT The geologic history of the Cretaceous foreland basin in Utah has been interpreted in the past largely on the basis of lithostratigraphic correlations. This study uses sequence-stratigraphic concepts to identify unconformities and depositional sequences in the Cordilleran basin fill in Utah. The resulting sequence-stratigraphic framework is analyzed to test the concept of globally synchronous sea level changes in the Cretaceous foreland basin. The Early Cretaceous history of the foreland basin in Utah is that of a differentially subsiding alluvial basin. Initial foreland basin subsidence near the thrust load was Airy isostatic in nature, following the thrust-related reactivation of basement structures, lineaments, and subsurface fault zones that originated during Proterozoic rifting. The Cretaceous foreland basin in Utah was narrow and elongate to the thrust front, while foreland areas distal to the thrust front (> 150 km) experienced little or no subsidence. Initial thrusting occurred along the Pavant 1 thrust and Charleston-Nebo thrust during the Barremian and early Aptian and resulted in anticlinal uplift above subsurface thrust ramps. The preservation of thick overbank mudstones with interspersed channel sandstones and numerous lacustrine limestones marks the onset of basin subsidence and erosion of fine-grained Mesozoic strata in the iv emergent source terrenes. Right-lateral faulting along the lineaments aided the structural and erosional dissection of the thrust terrenes, making Proterozoic strata and Paleozoic carbonates available to the fluvial systems during the Albian. As a result, eastward prograding conglomeratic sheet-fiood fan and braided stream systems formed at the western margin of the basin at the apex of the basinward termination of the lineaments, which acted as conduits for elastics from the hinterland. Thrust sheet stacking, together with thrust sheet buttressing and transverse faulting along the reactivated basement structures during the Late Cretaceous, continued to result in maximum subsidence near the load. In addition, eastward propagation of the Charleston-Nebo allochthon and extensive overthrusting in northern Utah and southern Wyoming in the late Alblan caused broad flexural subsidence across Utah. Although flexural subsidence determined the large-scale configuration of the Late Cretaceous foreland basin, depositional systems architecture was primarily controlled by high frequency basin accommodation changes related to eustasy. Five eustatic highstands and three separate tectonic events are documented in central Utah. Tectonism partially overprinted the eustatic signature in the basin fill by further increasing basin accommodation near the load, while eustasy determined the frequent sediment accommodation changes and depositional geometries. VITA January 2 ,1 9 5 5 ......................................... Born - Oldenburg, V/est Germany 1977 ............................................................. B, S. (Vordipiom), Universitaet Muenchen, West Germany 1981 ............................................................. M. S. (Dipiom) in Geology, Universitaet Kiel, West Germany 198 1 ............................................................. Geological Assistant, BEB Erdgas & Erdoel GmbH, Hannover, West Germany 198 2 ............................................................. Exploration Assistant, Uran- gesellshaft Canada Ltd., Toronto, Canada 1983-1988 .................................................. Graduate Student, Department of Geology and Mineralogy, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 198 6 ............................................................. Geological Consultant, EXXON Production Research Company, Houston, Texas 198 7 ............................................................. Summer Intern, EXXON Production Research Company, Houston, Texas 198 8 ............................................................. Research Geologist, EXXON Production Research Company, Houston RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS ARTICLE AND ABSTRACTS: Schwans, P., in press, Depositional response of Pigeon Creek Formation, Utah, to initial fold-thrust defomation in a differentially subsiding foreland basin, in Schmidt, C. J., and Perry, W. J., eds.. Interaction of the Rocky Mountain Foreland and the Cordilleran Thruiit Belt: Geological Society of America Memoir 171. Schwans, p., 1087a, Initial foreland flexure and sedimentation. Early Cretaceous, central Utah [abs.]: Geological Society Abstracts with Programs, v. 19, p. 835. Schwans, P., 1987b, Response of alluvial-marine deposition to episodic thrust-loading and sea-level changes in the Cretaceous foreland basin, Utah [abs.]: Geological Society Abstracts with Programs, v. 19, p. 835. Schwans, P., 1987c, Sedimentological effects of the tectonic transition from fold-thrust deformation to thrust-cored uplift, proximal Sevier foreland (Six Mile Canyon-Price River-North Horn interval), Campanian-Paleogene of Utah [abs.]: Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, v. 19, p. 332. Schwans, P., 1986a, Late Cretaceous depositional sequence evolution as a result of tectonism, basin subsidence, and sea level change, Turonian to Santonian, west-central Utah [abs.]: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, v. 70, p. 1055. Schwans, P. 1986b, Early Cretaceous depositional sequence evolution in the foreland of the Sevier overthrust belt in west-central Utah [abs.]: Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, v. 18, p. 411. Schwans, P., 1985a, Fanglomerate déposition in the foreland of the Sevier overthrust belt, control, facies, and timing of earliest syntectonic deposition in Utah, western