West-east stratigraphic cross section of Cretaceous rocks, central Rocky Mountains to east-central Great Plains, Utah, Colorado, and Kansas

Conference · Fri Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 1991 · AAPG Bulletin (American Association of Petroleum Geologists); (United States)

OSTI ID:5617983

Fouch, T D ^[1]

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1. Geological Survey, Denver, CO (United States)

Cretaceous sedimentary strata varies in thickness from nearly 3,050 m adjacent to the western thrust belt at the westernmost end of the Uinta basin, Utah, to 1,700 m near the Colorado-Utah boundary east of the basin axis. They thicken locally to more than 2,800 m near local Late Cretaceous Laramide uplifts in the region between the Piceance and the western Denver basins, Colorado, and then to less than 600 m in the eastern Denver basin and Kansas. Depositional environments represented by the rocks include coarse-grained alluvial facies deposited directly adjacent to the western thrust belt, and finer grained fluvial-deltaic and marine facies of the basin's depositional and structural axis (generally within 50-100 km of the thrust belt). Entirely fine-grained marine siliciclastic and carbonate rocks were formed in more slowly subsiding distal parts of the basin that are as much as 1,000 km east of the depositional axis. Some thick sections represent deposition in lows created by sediment and thrust loading adjacent to local Laramide thick-skin thrusts within the limits of the overall Western interior Cretaceous basin. Depositional and geometric asymmetry of the preserved sedimentary system are the result of varied rates of regional and local subsidence due to tectonic and sediment loading. They also result from fluctuations in sea level and concomitant erosion associated with falls and from relative sediment starving of the parts of this depositional system that were far from sediment.

• OSTI ID: 5617983
• Report Number(s): CONF-910403--
• Conference Information: Journal Name: AAPG Bulletin (American Association of Petroleum Geologists); (United States) Journal Volume: 75:3
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

58 GEOSCIENCES
580000* -- Geosciences
COLORADO
CRETACEOUS PERIOD
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
FEDERAL REGION VII
FEDERAL REGION VIII
GEOLOGIC AGES
GEOLOGIC STRUCTURES
GEOLOGY
GREAT PLAINS
KANSAS
LITHOLOGY
MESOZOIC ERA
MOUNTAINS
NORTH AMERICA
PICEANCE CREEK BASIN
ROCKS
ROCKY MOUNTAINS
SEDIMENTARY BASINS
SEDIMENTARY ROCKS
STRATIGRAPHY
UINTA BASIN
USA
UTAH
WATERSHEDS