Abstract
Using gravity and magnetics, Kinsland (1983) proposed that a large, late Precambrian to early Paleozoic fault traversed North America. Among the features offset by this proposed fault were the Central North American Rift System (CNARS) in Kansas from the Hartville uplift in southeastern Wyoming. An implication central to Kinsland’s hypothesis is that failed rift tectonics are part of the structural history of both the Hartville uplift and the CNARS. Gravity and magnetic models of both these structures created from available geophysical and geological data have been used to test this implication. The lack of geologic constraint due to the burial of both features allows many interpretations consistent with the geophysical data.
The Hartville uplift models show that a shallow (< 5 km depth) basement uplift, cored on the east flank by dense Archean metasediments, can explain the gravity anomaly. A large magnetic anomaly is associated with the uplift, but it overlies the western half of the uplift and is not coincident with the gravity anomaly. Smaller magnetic anomalies, however, are coincident with the gravity anomaly and are caused by basalt within the metasediments. The larger magnetic anomaly may be explained by giving the western flank of the basement uplift a higher susceptibility value than the surrounding basement, or by a smaller, deeper body of high susceptibility.
The CNARS was modeled two ways. One follows Serpa’s (1984) rotational fault block extensional interpretation of the COCORP seismic line. The other, following most of the rift models found in the literature, shows a later compressional event. Each model includes a mantle downwarp to help account for the flanking gravity lows, and a deep, dense body which causes the central gravity high to be superimposed on the broad gravity low.
Comparison of the models implies that a CNARS type rift tectonic model is not necessary to explain the Hartville uplift. However, CNARS-like rift tectonism is possible in the tectonic history of the Hartville uplift.
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© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Humphris, D.D., Kinsland, G.L. (1992). Possibilities of Similar Rift Histories for the Central North American Rift System in Kansas and the Hartville Uplift in Wyoming. In: Mason, R. (eds) Basement Tectonics 7. Proceedings of the International Conferences on Basement Tectonics, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0833-3_24
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