Incremental Growth of Plains-Type (Compactional) Folds in a Cratonic Environment as Revealed by the Sedimentary Sequence

The enigma of the origin and development of plains-type folds, as they were christened in the early 20th Century, essentially has been solved. The folds, a considerable distance from the tectonic disturbance, were formed by draping of sediments over differentially displaced Precambrian basement fault blocks. These Precambrian basement fault blocks controlled the location, size, and shape of the folds. Forces were transmitted through the rigid basement causing readjustment along the indigenous fracture/fault pattern formed much earlier. In the U.S. Midcontinent, the crystalline basement is overlain by a thin veneer of sediments, and once the structures were formed, they continued to develop as evidenced by features in the overlying sediments. As the stress was transmitted through the basement and then relaxed, the fault blocks moved differentially in concert to these outside forces. Sediment compaction and nondeposition over structural topographic highs reacted accordingly to form the features as seen today. To determine the structural history, structural closure on different horizons on the anticline is plotted in their appropriate stratigraphic position at depth. This gives a ‘compaction line’ for each tectonically coherent segment. Similar segments show a relatively straightline with offsets at major unconformities indicating breaks in the continuum. It is at these breaks that the section can be stretched until the compaction line matches as a continuum with the resulting gap giving the approximate amount of missing section for that part of the rock column. Conversely, the amount of closure on a structure at depth for each line segment can be estimated by extrapolating downward in that segment. This technique to determine depth of burial and thus the amount of missing stratigraphic section from well data at numerous locations has been compared with estimates made by other methods and the results are similar. Where no other data are available or for quick estimates, then, it is proposed that this approach will give reasonable results and that the values can be used as a constraint in basin modeling.