Structural Styles and Tectonic Implications of Richmond-Taylorsville Rift System, Eastern Virginia: ABSTRACT

Abstract

Recent drilling and seismic surveys in the Richmond basin have revealed unexpected results. Alternating episodes of extension and compression have created overprints of structural styles, and generated syndepositional unconformities as sediments were uplifted and rotated. Eroded Triassic sediments from structural highs were redeposited in adjacent synclinal or fault-controlled lows. In addition, lithologic correlation has revealed the existence of large deltaic complexes prograding across the basins, followed by Mississippi-size meander-belt channel deposits in the subsurface. The early lacustrine-deltaic deposits (Vinita beds, etc) appear to have been deposited in a basin much larger than the apparent outcrop limits of the Richmond or Taylorsville basins. As much as 3,000 ft of these deposits accumulated prior to a compressional event that folded them into enormous anticlines and synclines, as Paleozoic thrust sheets were reactivated and sub-Triassic buried hills grew in height, raising the overlying Triassic sediments by as much as 2,000 ft over a distance of less than 2 mi. End_Page 1434------------------------------ The synclines contain a nearly continuous sedimentary sequence, whereas the anticlines have the uppermost Otterdale Sandstone facies as a blanket deposit over their truncated tips and steeply dipping Vinita beds below the unconformity on their flanks. Extensional events followed the main phase of folding and pulled the limbs of the anticlines apart, causing normal listric faults to form and blocks of Vinita beds to separate into North Sea-type fault-block structure. Based on maturation and porosity trends with depth, at least 7,000 ft of overburden have apparently been removed from the basins. Either the structural style changed dramatically from listric faults to horst and graben mechanics, thereby dropping the Richmond-Taylorsville sequences below the present erosional level, or an enormous gravity slide from the east covered the basins, and erosion has created windows through this detached Paleozoic thrust sheet into a much larger Triassic rift system below it. End_of_Article - Last_Page 1435------------