| dc.description.abstract | The southern margin of the North American continent transformed from a passive margin to an active margin during the Ouachita orogeny. Consequently, this tectonic activity resulted in depositing the thick and near-continuous syn-orogenic Carboniferous deep-water clastic deposits of the Ouachita Mountains in Oklahoma and Arkansas. The limited exposures of these syn-orogenic Carboniferous deep-water deposits in the Ouachita Mountains provided the prefect opportunity to further constrain the effects of the Ouachita orogeny on the sediment sourcing and dispersal patterns of the Southern Midcontinent during the Carboniferous. In this study, a total of six outcrop samples (n=616) from the Mississippian Stanley Group and Lower-Middle Pennsylvanian Jackfork and Johns Valley Groups were collected and processed for U-Pb detrital zircon geochronologic analysis. Results show that the age distributions of the Carboniferous deep-water clastic deposits in the Ouachita Mountains are characterized by major peaks of the Paleozoic (~350-500 Ma), Grenville (~900-1350 Ma), and Midcontinental Granite-Rhyolite (~1350-1500 Ma), with minor peaks of Yavapai-Mazatzal (~1600-1800 Ma) and Superior (> ~2500 Ma) provinces. The detrital signatures of the six samples are relatively identical and were primarily derived from the recycled detritus of the distal Appalachian orogenic belt and associated forelands with intermixed contributions from the Ouachita orogenic belt, the northern Midcontinent region, and western Laurentia. Additionally, the results of this study allow for furthered constraints to be placed on sediment dispersal pathways to the Southern Midcontinent in the Carboniferous. | |
