Incremental Retrodeformation of NE Utah Thrust Belt using Late Cretaceous-Paleocene Synorogenic Conglomerates

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This project is an investigation of the structural characteristics, provenance, and sedimentology of proximal synorogenic conglomerates of Late Cretaceous-Paleocene age in northeastern Utah. Because these deposits contain progressive structures and well developed unroofing sequences of clast types, they should be useful for incremental retrodeformation of the NE Utah thrust belt. The general questions to be addressed include: (1) What are the structural characteristics of proximal, thrust-derived fans, and can these structures be used to retrodeform the conglomerates? (2) What are the spatial relationships between angular unconformities and large-scale morphostratigraphic lithosomes in these proximal fans, and can these relationships shed new light on interpretations of tectonic control on sediment distribution during thrust faulting? (3) What structures control the production and distribution of sediment in thrust belts--large scale structural culminations or frontal tip anticlines? In addition to these general questions, the proposed study will address several longstanding regional problems in the NE Utah thrust belt, such as the location of the southern terminus of the Crawford thrust and the former extent of the Wilard thrust sheet. This study will take an integral approach to working out the complexities of the linking zone between the thrust belt-proper and the adjacent basin. The results of the proposed research will be of use to structural geologists, foreland-basin stratigraphers and sedimentologists, and basin modelers.