Sevier Orogeny - Geologic Structures

Geologic Structures

The Sevier orogenic belt consisted of a series of thin plates along gently dipping west thrust sheets and moving from west to east. These thin skinned thrusts moved late Precambrian to Mesozoic age rock of the Cordilleran passive margin east. The Sevier meets the Laramide orogenic belt on its eastern side. The Sevier and Laramide combination is similar to the modern day Andean margin in Chile. They are comparable because the younger Laramide faults and structures were a geometric response to the shallow dipping Sevier thrusts.

The location of the eastern edge of the Sevier orogeny was determined by conglomerates largely made up of boulders that would have been shed from the eastern and steepest edge of the rising mountains. Such conglomerates can be seen throughout Utah in Echo Canyon, the Red Narrows in Spanish Fork Canyon, and in Leamington Canyon near Delta, Utah. Today Sevier faults at the surface have been broken up and tilted steeply from their original gently dipping positions due to the extension of the Basin and Range faulting. The earliest thrusts of the Sevier are located furthest west with each newer thrust cutting the older thrust. This pattern caused the older thrusts to ride on top of the younger thrusts as they moved eastward. The Paris-Willard thrust in Utah was determined to be the oldest thrust in the series using this pattern. The youngest thrust is the Hogback in Wyoming.

The Sevier thrust belt in Utah can be divided in two, north of Salt Lake City and South of Salt Lake City. The thrusts to the north are much better understood because oil and gas are often associated with them. The northern portion runs through present day Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming. The southern portion stops around Las Vegas. The total crustal shortening of the northern portion was roughly 60 miles.

The Sevier belt left behind many distinctive geologic features in the Wyoming and Utah region, namely recesses and salients. Transverse zones can accompany thrust faults connecting the segments of the belt. One such zone is the Charleston transverse zone linking the Provo salient to the southern arm of the Uinta/Cottonwood arch. Although the Uinta/Cottonwood arch is a Laramide structure the Sevier helped the arch form. Another important zone is the Mount Raymond transverse zone connecting the Wyoming salient and the northern arm of the arch.

While continental margins are typically the most deformed in orogenic events, the interior of continental plates can also deform. In the Sevier-Laramide orogenic events evidence for interior plate deformation includes folds, cleavage and joint fabrics, distorted fossils, persistent faulting, and calcite twinning.