Structure of the Southern Keweenawan Rift from COCORP Surveys across the midcontinent geophysical anomaly in northeastern Kansas

Abstract

COCORP profiling across the midcontinent geophysical anomaly in northeastern Kansas reveals structural basins and other features of the Precambrian Keweenawan rift buried beneath the Phanerozoic cover. The 40‐km‐wide main basin is asymmetric, with a maximum depth of 3 km on the east and 8 km on the west. The basin fill is characterized by a lower layered sequence of strong continuous west dipping reflectors which may be correlated with Middle Keweenawan interbedded volcanic and clastic rocks exposed along the MGA in the Lake Superior region. Overlying this layered sequence is a zone of weak, discontinuous reflectors correlated here with the predominantly clastic rocks characteristic of the Upper Keweenawan sequence near Lake Superior. A second tilted but shallower basin lies to the east of the main basin and appears to be filled predominantly with clastic sedimentary rocks. The character of the seismic data, the seismic velocity distribution, and gravity modeling suggest that mafic intrusions lie beneath the main rift basin. Normal faults associated with the rift dip at moderate angles to the east. Palinspastic reconstruction indicates that the rift basin formed by the rotation of fault bounded blocks during crustal extension. Although reactivation of preexisting structures appears to have occurred in many other rifts profiled by COCORP, the evidence is inconclusive on this point in the case of the Kansas data. The structures mapped by COCORP surveys in Kansas and elsewhere suggest that asymmetric sequences of layered reflectors are characteristic, and perhaps diagnostic, of rift basin deposits in general.