Abstract: Tectonic Ancestry of Central Montana and Its Influence on Inversion Tectonics

Lee A. Woodward

Inversion tectonics, where structurally low areas become structurally high, has profound implications for hydrocarbon exploration. Effective exploration depends on understanding structures, timing, and controls on tectonic inversion. In central Montana tectonic inversion occurred three times in Phanerozoic time and reflects Precambrian tectonic trends.

Westerly striking, steep foliation in Archean crystalline rocks defines the tectonic grain in basement exposures. The Helena embayment of the Middle Proterozoic Belt Basin formed an east-trending aulacogen extending into the craton in central Montana. Westerly trending fault-blocks of probable late Proterozoic age formed within the embayment. The trough was tectonically inverted in the Devonian, but was depressed in the Carboniferous, accumulating major thicknesses of Madison Group and Big Snowy Group strata. Tectonic inversion again occurred with rise of the "Belt island" in the Jurassic. The trough was reactivated with a thick accumulation of lower Lower Cretaceous strata.

Laramide (Late Cretaceous-early Tertiary) deformation resulted in tectonic inversion with rise of the Little Belt, Big Snowy, and related uplifts. Reactivation with reverse and strike-slip movement occurred on synsedimentary Proterozoic westerly trending normal faults that bounded the Helena embayment.

Subsidence was probably related to crustal extension, whereas tectonic inversion and rise is inferred to be caused by crustal shortening. West-northwesterly trending en echelon folds that cross central Montana suggest major left shift.

The Precambrian structural framework and fabric of the region thus appear to have had major influence on tectonic features that were multiply reactivated in Phanerozoic time.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90952©1996 AAPG Rocky Mountain Section Meeting, Billings, Montana