--> Abstract: Tectonic Setting and Hydrocarbon Potential of the Proterozoic to Early Paleozoic Section in the Rough Creek Graben, Illinois and Kentucky, by L. K. Goetz, J. G. Tyler, R. L. Macarevich; #91013 (1992).

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ABSTRACT: Tectonic Setting and Hydrocarbon Potential of the Proterozoic to Early Paleozoic Section in the Rough Creek Graben, Illinois and Kentucky

GOETZ, LISA K., J. GARY TYLER, ROGER L. MACAREVICH, DAVID L. BREWSTER, and JAGADEESH R. SONNAD, Conoco Inc., Oklahoma City, OK

The fault systems of the Rough Creek graben and Rome trough were formed by repeated movements along the preexisting northwest trending 38th Parallel Lineament fracture system. The Reelfoot rift may have initially formed as a younger aulacogen which propagated north as the Iapetus Sea opened in late Precambrian to Cambrian time. The intersection and continued movement of these two great fault systems resulted in the Southeast Craton Block rifting, drifting, and subsiding as the Iapetus Sea continued to open. Total horizontal left-lateral transtensional displacement along the fracture system was small but produced the Rough Creek graben and the Rome trough. Until isolated by Late Pennsylvanian uplifts, the Reelfoot rift and the Rough Creek graben remained tied to each other in the same anner as the modern Red Sea rift and Dead Sea Fault Zone. Though still untested, paleotectonic reconstructions suggest that the Proterozoic graben fill may be very similar to the Vendian source rock of eastern Siberia and Oman.

Additional major basement structures in the Rough Creek graben were formed during the early Mississippian right-lateral transpressional reactivation and subsequent Pennsylvanian compression related to the Appalachian/Ouachita orogeny.

Our model suggests that the large complex structures seen on seismic data were in place prior to the Pennsylvanian migration of hydrocarbons and have not been substantially changed by later tectonic events. These structures and numerous facies pinchouts strongly suggest the presence of many different hydrocarbon traps within and along the edges of the deep under-explored Rough Creek graben.

 

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91013©1992 AAPG Eastern Section Meeting, Champaign, Illinois, September 20-22, 1992 (2009)