The Wyoming Transect: What, Where, How, and Why

Donald S. Stone
Independent, Littleton, CO

The Wyoming Transect is a detailed structural cross section across the state of Wyoming, originally drawn at a scale of 1: 24,000 (1in = 2000 ft). It begins at the South Dakota-Wyoming border and extends southwest some 400 miles to the Idaho border, traversing the northern Black Hills, Powder River, Big Horn, Wind River, and Green River basins and the intervening mountain ranges, ending in the Wyoming thrust belt. An extensive data base was used in construction, including published geologic and commercial photogeological mapping, data from 150 deep wells, and considerable proprietary seismic data through critical parts of the basins and across the thrusted mountain fronts. The Transect provides a foundation for analyzing structural relationships on both a regional and local scale.

The poster includes photos of the analog clay model studies of the kinematic development of “basement-involved thrust-generated folds” that characterize the Paleozoic oil fields crossed by the Wyoming Transect and some of the seismic profiles that served as part of the critical data base.

The 15 individual segments of the original colored Transect have been digitally scanned and saved on two DVDs, copies of which are packaged together with a pre-folded, colored hard copy of the full-length Transect at a scale of 1: 96,000 (1in = 8000 ft) which constitutes the primary part of the Poster. Also on the DVDs and in the poster is a description of the method of construction, the data base, and a well list. A topographic strip map along the bottom of each Segment shows the exact line of section with relevant well locations. There is also a Stratigraphic Legend and a list of References for each Segment. Transect sales are handled by the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists and all net proceeds are go to fund the newly established Stone/Hollberg Graduate Scholarship in Structural Geology, to be administered by the RMAG Foundation.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90092©2009 AAPG Rocky Mountain Section, July 9-11, 2008, Denver, Colorado