RECOGNITION OF FAULTING IN THE CENTRAL LOWLANDS, WICHITA MOUNTAINS, U.S.A.: THE QUANAH CREEK FAULT ZONE

The Wichita Mountains of southwestern Oklahoma represent a rare surface exposure of Paleozoic crystalline basement in the midcontinent and are often thought to comprise the bulk of the Southern Oklahoma Aulacogen, the hypothesized failed arm of a rift dating back to the Cambrian period. Despite being interpreted as a rift there have been few faults identified and described in the Wichitas, perhaps due to the difficulty often inherent to recognizing structural juxtaposition in crystalline terranes. This study’s focus is on the structural geology of the Wichita Mountains, specifically, fractures and joints which we propose as faults. Recent field structural measurements have identified a fault located at or very near the contact between the Mount Scott Granite and Glen Mountains Layered Complex near Panther Creek, to the Southwest of Mount Marcy in the Special Use Area of the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. This fault is proposed as a part of a larger zone of deformation tentatively named the Quanah Creek Fault Zone, which runs parallel to the Wichita Mountains along with several apparent branch lines which are visible via satellite imagery and high-resolution DEM. Further ground truthing and exploration will be done in order to identify more branches and better describe the faults in this hypothesized Quanah Creek Fault Zone.