The Appalachian and Black Warrior Basins: Foreland Basins in the Eastern United States

UV-B radiation was the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary terrestrial extinction kill mechanism

“…5) both at high paleolatitudes, e.g., Chaguaya, Bolivia (60°S) (50,51), and in eastern North America (52) (estimated at 30°S to 45°S). The multiple occurrences (52,53) of glacial sediment in eastern North America demonstrate the severity of the terminal Devonian glacial cycle that was exceptional for reaching into low paleolatitudes and closer to the equator than any comparable Quaternary glaciation. The evidence from eastern North America includes giant dropstones (53), so the ice centers were not simply at altitude but glaciers were reaching to sea level.…”

The Appalachian area as a tectonostratigraphic analogue for the Barents Sea shelf

“…Widespread flysch‐like and molasse‐like sequences were deposited in that area during Permian to Late Triassic time and are represented by black shales and marine to marginal‐marine clastics (Figure 3). This event corresponds to stage 6 in the Appalachian area (Table 2), which was repeated during each Appalachian orogenic pulse and explains the deposition of multiple foreland successions (Ettensohn et al., 2019; Figure 5). In the BSS, at least two phases of crustal loading and relaxation are apparent during at least Late Triassic time (Figure 3).…”

“…The tectonic setting of the Appalachian Basin has been used to construct tectonostratigraphic models for foreland‐basin sedimentation (Ettensohn, 1991, 2004, 2008; Ettensohn et al., 2019; Johnson, 1971), and following similar lines of thought, Johnson (1971) used the concept of ‘tectophase cycles’ to predict, discuss and illustrate the tectonostratigraphic succession of a foreland basin. Inasmuch as subduction‐related orogenies occur in a series of deformational pulses or ‘tectophases’ (Camacho et al., 2005; Jamieson & Beaumont, 1988; Johnson, 1971), each tectophase will generate a typical sequence of lithologies (Figure 8), representing isostatic responses to the changing deformational load.…”

“…Moreover, some workers include the Ouachita fold belt (Figure 4b) as a structural extension of the Appalachian system that extends southwestward for an additional 2,100 km (Denison, 1989; Miall & Blakey, 2019; Thomas, 1985; Viele, 1989). In a broad view, the Appalachian Basin and adjacent intracratonic areas reflect subsidence accompanying a series of terrane collisions with the Appalachian margin during at least five orogenies (Ettensohn et al., 2019). These tectonic events contributed to the development of Pangea and represent one complete Wilson cycle (Hatcher, 2010; Miall & Blakey, 2019; Stockmal et al., 1998).…”

“…At the time, the Appalachian region remained within arid latitudes (Torsvik & Cocks, 2017) and produced a foreland‐basin succession including black‐shale deposition of excellent petroleum potential within and beyond the foreland basin (Ettensohn et al., 2019; Park et al., 2010). The Appalachian margin remained in arid latitudes until Late Mississippian time, and during this period, experienced a series of orogenic events, the Salinic and Acadian/Neoacadian orogenies (Ettensohn et al., 2019; Hatcher, 2010; Miall & Blakey, 2019). These orogenic events generated foreland‐basin deposits that include widespread black‐shales, as well as coarser‐clastic and carbonate sequences that comprise one of the most prolific petroleum systems within the foreland and adjacent intracratonic basins (Cluff & Dickerson, 1982; Ettensohn, 1985; Ettensohn & Lierman, 2012; Konyukhov, 2014; Roen, 1984; Figures 1a and 5).…”