DETECTION OF ROME TROUGH TECTONICS BY QUATERNARY KARSTIFICATION: PULASKI COUNTY, KENTUCKY

Quaternary karstification of Mississippian age carbonates in southern Pulaski County, Kentucky is extensive. Exploration and study of several cave systems in Pulaski County has revealed a high dependence upon geological structure. The spatial location and orientation of the passages and flow paths within Jugornot Cave are independent of surface drainage patterns and continue the trend found in sections of the Coral Cave System. This relationship is shown in sections of several other regional caves. Photographic, statistical, geologic, and seismic evidence gathered from within Jugornot and other regional caves as well as nearby surface features supports the hypothesis that regional speleogenesis has been influenced by faulting. Further evidence suggests this faulting is related to the Rome Trough structure formed during Iapetan rifting in the Late Precambrian to Middle Cambrian. Fractures and lineaments generated by minor reactivation of this fault system have propagated upward through Mississippian and Pennsylvanian strata as fracture swarming. To date 5km of passage have been mapped in Jugornot Cave with a vertical span of 81m. Evidence gathered from this study confirms the presence of the Burnside Lineament previously hypothesized by magnetic anomaly data. Surface and subsurface data from this lineament extends in a 3km band spanning a linear distance of more than 20km at an orientation of approximately 65 degrees. Structural, depositional, and geophysical evidence points toward three sub-parallel right-lateral oblique-slip faults in the Precambrian and Cambrian strata of Pulaski County, including below the Burnside Lineament, related to Rome Trough tectonism.