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Joint 53rd South-Central/53rd North-Central/71st Rocky Mtn Section Meeting - 2019

Paper No. 21-1
Presentation Time: 8:30 AM-5:45 PM

THE SEISMIC HAZARD OF BURIED STRUCTURES AROUND THE WICHITA-AMARILLO UPLIFTS IN THE SOUTHERN OKLAHOMA AULACOGEN


CHASE, Brandon F.1, KOLAWOLE, Folarin2, ATEKWANA, Estella A.3, WALTER, Jake4 and CARPENTER, Brett M.2, (1)Oklahoma State University, Boone Pickens School of Geology, 105 Noble Research Center, Stillwater, OK 74078, (2)School of Geosciences, University of Oklahoma, 100 E Boyd St., Rm 710, Norman, OK 73019, (3)Department of Geological Sciences, University of Delaware, 101 Penny Hall, Newark, DE 19716, (4)Oklahoma Geological Survey, University of Oklahoma, 100 East Boyd St, Sarkeys Energy Center Room N131, Norman, OK 73019

Recent observations of both natural and induced seismicity around buried zones of past intense deformation in the US midcontinent region, like the Reelfoot Rift, Midcontinent Rift and the Southern Oklahoma Aulacogen (SOA) highlight the need to characterize the structures and seismicity in these areas. Here we examine the structures of the Wichita-Amarillo segments of the SOA and highlight the seismic hazard of these structures. We use aeromagnetic, seismic, and satellite data to characterize the structures in the SOA and integrate our observations with available earthquake data. Our results reveal several buried, parallel to subparallel, E-W trending structures in the Wichita Uplift of southern Oklahoma and the Amarillo Uplift of the Texas Panhandle. We also find an unmapped ~100 km-long, E-W trending, sinistral strike slip fault that appears to represent the western continuation of the Meers Fault system; paleoseismic studies suggest that the Meers Fault may have ruptured in the last ~1300 years. Focal mechanisms of recent earthquakes in the Texas Panhandle area show normal and strike-slip faulting with ~E-W nodal planes, consistent with previously published stress field data around the Amarillo part of the SOA. We also find similar magnetic anomalies in the lower resolution data of the Amarillo Uplift, which are spatially associated with recently recorded seismic events. Depending on the stress field many of these buried structures of the SOA may represent critically-stressed seismic hazards, with the potential to create large magnitude events in southwestern Oklahoma and Texas Panhandle area. Further, we suggest a need for more seismic instrumentation and the collection of higher resolution subsurface data, in order to better characterize critical, and potentially seismogenic structures in the subsurface. We suggest particular focus around the Amarillo Uplift, where subsurface structure is poorly constrained.

Session No. 21--Booth# 38

T3. Injection-Induced Seismicity in the U.S. Midcontinent: Where Are We after a Decade? (Posters)
Tuesday, 26 March 2019: 8:30 AM-5:45 PM
Big Basin/Kaw Nation Rooms (Hilton Garden Inn Manhattan )
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 51, No. 2
doi: 10.1130/abs/2019SC-327811
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