The Muenster Uplift of North Texas: The Easternmost Expression of the Pennsylvanian Ancestral Rockies

The Muenster Uplift is a positive structural feature characterized by NW-SE trending reverse faults extending ~300 km (200 miles) in the subsurface from the Wichita Uplift in southwestern Oklahoma to the Ouachita fold and thrust belt in northeast Texas. It shares a similar structural style to other Late Paleozoic Ancestral Rockies basement-involved uplifts throughout the west-central United States. It is a strongly asymmetric structure, bounded by a fault to the SW, with considerable offset to the downthrown foreland Fort Worth Basin. Gravity strongly correlates with the uplift, with steep gradients on the SW. Seismic and well data indicate a thrust fault offsetting Precambrian basement by greater than 10,000’ (~3 km). The uplift began developing in Late Mississippian time and remained active through Late Pennsylvanian time. It has since remained as a positive structural element, although buried by Cretaceous sediments and has no surface expression. The Muenster Uplift played an important role in the depositional patterns and tectonic evolution of the Fort Worth Basin.