An ancient seismite response to Taconian far-field forces: the Cane Run Bed, Upper Ordovician (Trenton) Lexington Limestone, Central Kentucky (USA)

Abstract

The Cane Run Bed is a prominent unit of micrograined limestone and shale of distal storm origin in the lower part of the Late Ordovician (late Chatfieldian; late Caradoc) Lexington Limestone (Trenton) in central Kentucky, USA. The unit's prominence relates to presence of up to three horizons of penecontemporaneous, soft-sediment deformation that form a distinctive event bed; equivalent horizons of different lithology are also deformed. Concurrence of four lines of evidence, including deformation consistent with a seismogenic origin, widespread distribution in temporally and stratigraphically constrained horizons, a pattern of increasing frequency or deformation intensity toward likely epicentral areas, and the ability to exclude other likely causes, points strongly to a seismogenic origin for each horizon. This interpretation is bolstered by the facts that the deformation contains random fold axes, crosses facies boundaries, is associated with a periodically reactivated basement structural lineament, and crosscuts undeformed beds from both above and below. Moreover, mapping the distribution of deformation intensity allows for the interpretation of possible epicentral areas. The association of Cane Run deformation with other sedimentologic-stratigraphic anomalies related to reactivated basement faults, as well as their coincidence with the inception of a Taconian tectophase, suggest that Cane Run seismites are one of several responses to the distal transmission of far-field forces from the coeval Taconian orogeny into the foreland, largely via zones of basement structural weakness. Units like the Cane Run Bed and its equivalents, whose seismogenic origins can be confidently demonstrated, suggest that seismicity must have had a substantial influence at times on epicontinental sedimentation, even in seas far removed from orogenic sources of stress.