Lower Permian Dry Mountain trough, eastern Nevada: preliminary basin analysis
The Lower Permian Dry Mountain trough (DMT) is one of several basins that developed during the Late Pennsylvanian to Permian along the western edge of the North American continent. A tectonic mechanism has been suggested for the subsidence of the DMT, possibly due to reactivation of the Antler orogenic belt during the waning stages of Ancestral Rocky Mountain deformation. The DMT records marked subsidence with the appearance during the Artinskian (latest Wolfcampian) of a deeper water facies that consists of thin-bedded silty micrites and micritic mudstones rich in radiolarians and sponge spicules, characterized by a relative abundance of ammonoids, and rarer conodonts and Nereites ichnofacies trace fossils. Taxa recovered from a distinctive concretionary horizon at various locations provide an Artinskian datum on which to palinspastically reconstruct the DMT paleogeography. These taxa include ammonoids: Uraloceras, Medlicottia, Marathonites, Crimites, Metalegoceras, properrinitids; and conodonts: Neogondolella bisselli, Sweetognathus whitei, S. behnkeni, and Diplognathodus stevensi. The western margin facies of the DMT consists of Permian Carbon Ridge/Garden Valley Formations. Here, lowermost black Artinskianage euxinic micrites, considered a potential source rock for petroleum generation, are overlain by base-of-slope carbonate apron deposits, which, in turn, are overlain by base-of-slope carbonate apron deposits, which, in turn, are overlain by a thick, eastwardly prograding conglomerate wedge. Seismic profiles across Diamond Valley indicate a 3.0-4.6-km thick Tertiary sequence above the Paleozoic strata.
- Research Organization:
- Boise State Univ., ID
- OSTI ID:
- 5863868
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-870915-
- Journal Information:
- AAPG (Am. Assoc. Pet. Geol.) Bull.; (United States), Vol. 71:8; Conference: American Association of Petroleum Geologists Rocky Mountain Section meeting, Boise, ID, USA, 13 Sep 1987
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
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Pennsylvanian-Permian tectonism in the Great Basin: The Dry Mountain trough and related basins
Related Subjects
NEVADA
PETROLEUM DEPOSITS
SEDIMENTARY BASINS
SOURCE ROCKS
CARBONATE ROCKS
FOSSILS
PENNSYLVANIAN PERIOD
PERMIAN PERIOD
SEISMIC SURVEYS
SILTSTONES
TECTONICS
TERTIARY PERIOD
CENOZOIC ERA
FEDERAL REGION IX
GEOLOGIC AGES
GEOLOGIC DEPOSITS
GEOLOGIC STRUCTURES
GEOPHYSICAL SURVEYS
MINERAL RESOURCES
NORTH AMERICA
PALEOZOIC ERA
RESOURCES
ROCKS
SEDIMENTARY ROCKS
SURVEYS
USA
020200* - Petroleum- Reserves
Geology
& Exploration