Sedimentary Tectonic Patterns Associated with Middle Devonian Tioga and Kawkawlin Tuffs in Northeastern United States

John M. Dennison, Daniel A. Textoris

A pair of lithofacies maps of northeastern United States within 2 m below and above the Tioga Ash middle coarse zone in the Appalachian and Illinois basins and the equivalent Kawkawlin Bentonite in the Michigan basin reveals a pronounced sea level rise about 0.3 m stratigraphically beneath the Tioga middle coarse zone. Removing effects of this rise yields a facies residual indicating these sedimentary tectonic patterns during the volcanic eruption: (1) Tioga volcanic source present near Fredericksburg, Virginia, on the 38th Parallel fracture zone of the North American plate, now hidden beneath the Blue Ridge crystalline overthrust, (2) the Acadian orogeny beginning with rise of low-grade metamorphic terrane near the volcanic center, (3) Browns Mountain growth anticline ex ending southward across present Valley and Ridge outcrops, (4) east-northeast-trending hinge line controlling Onondaga pinnacle reefs in New York and Pennsylvania, (5) western Rome trough boundary in northwestern West Virginia subsiding to the east, (6) tectonically negative Rome trough in eastern Kentucky, (7) Waverly arch reactivating in southern Ohio, (8) Marcellus Shale initially prograding from a source near Fredericksburg, Virginia (only later did New England Acadian uplift become the dominant source of siliciclastics reaching New York), (9) dolomite flat of Indiana and Illinois receiving normal marine waters from the south, (10) restriction of Tioga to southeastern Illinois basin, suggesting only that part of the basin was tectonically negative, and (11) apparent absence of a Kawkawlin tuff in extreme eastern Michigan basin, suggesting a margin emergent as sabkha dolomite and evaporites, with more normal marine waters entering across the downwarped Chatham Sag.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91030©1988 AAPG Annual Convention, Houston, Texas, 20-23 March 1988.