Tectonic geomorphology of the southeastern Mississippi Embayment in northern Mississippi, USA

We analyzed drainage-basin geometry in part of the southeastern Mississippi Embayment near the New Madrid seismic zone in order to detect areas of lateral stream migration that could indicate recent tectonism. Toward this goal, a field of drainage-basin asymmetry vectors was generated from a digital terrain model and compared to geologic structure, lithofacies, seismicity, remotely sensed lineaments, and major drainage divides. Transverse topographical drainage-basin asymmetry (T-index) results define geomorphic domains in northern Mississippi (33° to 35°N, 88.5° to 90.25°W) that may reflect deep crustal blocks bounded by active faults or flexures. T-index measurements (a proxy for lateral stream migration) of more than 4500 second-order drainage basins produced a two-dimensional field of 282 spatially averaged vectors from which we interpreted 12 domains. Some domain boundaries correspond to mapped faults of two Paleozoic fault systems in our study area, the northeast-striking Mississippi Valley graben system and the northwest-striking Ouachita thrust belt and foreland faults. Several other prominent domain boundaries may be previously unmapped faults (flexures?) parallel to these systems. This interpretation is supported by satellite image analysis of the northeastern study area, which reveals lineaments consistent with our domain boundaries that have strikes that reflect the regional subsurface structural grain.

[1]  P. Bishop,et al.  Differentiating the Roles of Lithology and Uplift in the Steepening of Bedrock River Long Profiles: An Example from Southeastern Australia , 1995, The Journal of Geology.

[2]  Randolph S Parker,et al.  Experimental Study of Drainage Basin Evolution and Its Hydrologic Implications , 1977 .

[3]  G. Murray.  Geology of the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Province of North America , 1961 .

[4]  S. Schumm,et al.  Tectonic geomorphology of the Mississippi Valley between Osceola, Arkansas and Friars Point, Mississippi , 1997 .

[5]  J. Adams.  Active tilting of the United States midcontinent: Geodetic and geomorphic evidence , 1980 .

[6]  C. Paola,et al.  Landscape instability in an experimental drainage basin , 2000 .

[7]  W. Ellery,et al.  Avulsion and anastomosis in the panhandle region of the Okavango Fan, Botswana , 1997 .

[8]  J. Curray,et al.  The Analysis of Two-Dimensional Orientation Data , 1956, The Journal of Geology.

[9]  N. Fisher,et al.  Statistical Analysis of Circular Data , 1993 .

[10]  A. N. Strahler.  DYNAMIC BASIS OF GEOMORPHOLOGY , 1952 .

[11]  S. Hough,et al.  Magnitude Estimates of Two Large Aftershocks of the 16 December 1811 New Madrid Earthquake , 2002 .

[12]  R. Stearns.  CRETACEOUS, PALEOCENE, AND LOWER EOCENE GEOLOGIC HISTORY OF THE NORTHERN MISSISSIPPI EMBAYMENT , 1957 .

[13]  W. A. Thomas.  The Appalachian-Ouachita orogen beneath the Gulf Coastal Plain between the outcrops in the Appalachian and Ouachita Mountains , 1989 .

[14]  J. Marshall,et al.  Kinematics associated with late Cenozoic deformation in central Costa Rica: Western boundary of the Panama microplate , 1994 .

[15]  Dorothy J. Merritts,et al.  Geomorphic response of coastal streams to low, intermediate, and high rates of uplift, Medocino triple junction region, northern California , 1989 .

[16]  F. A. McKeown,et al.  Analysis of stream-profile data and inferred tectonic activity, eastern Ozark Mountains region , 1988 .

[17]  S. Rhea.  Geomorphic observations of rivers in the Oregon Coast Range from a regional reconnaissance perspective , 1993 .

[18]  M. Ellis,et al.  Reconciling Short Recurrence Intervals with Minor Deformation in the New Madrid Seismic Zone , 1994, Science.

[19]  Channel Changes on the Po River , Mantova Province, Northern Italy , 1995 .

[20]  J. B. Harris,et al.  Identification of possible Quaternary deformation in the northeastern Mississippi Embayment using quantitative geomorphic analysis of drainage-basin asymmetry , 2001 .

[21]  E. M. Cushing,et al.  General geology of the Mississippi embayment , 1964 .

[22]  J. Alexander,et al.  The origin and tectonic significance of asymmetrical meander belts , 1987 .

[23]  N. Pinter,et al.  Active Tectonics: Earthquakes, Uplift, and Landscape , 1995 .

[24]  B. Gomez,et al.  Neotectonic effects on sinuosity and channel migration, Belle Fourche River, Western South Dakota , 1991 .

[25]  L. Mcginnis,et al.  Reelfoot Rift: Reactivated Precursor to the Mississippi Embayment , 1975 .

[26]  G. Osborn,et al.  Lateral planation of rivers as a geomorphic agent , 1991 .

[27]  A. Johnston,et al.  Seismicity of the Southeastern Margin of Reelfoot Rift, Central United States , 1997 .

[28]  Stanley A. Schumm,et al.  Active Tectonics and Alluvial Rivers , 2002 .

[29]  R. V. Arsdale,et al.  Neotectonics of the upper Mississippi embayment , 1996 .

[30]  M. Zoback,et al.  Stress field constraints on intraplate seismicity in eastern North America , 1992 .

[31]  R. V. Arsdale.  Seismic Hazards of the Upper Mississippi Embayment , 1998 .

[32]  R. Cox.  Analysis of drainage-basin symmetry as a rapid technique to identify areas of possible Quaternary tilt-block tectonics: An example from the Mississippi Embayment , 1994 .

[33]  P. Johnson,et al.  Possible Neoproterozoic-early Paleozoic grabens in Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee , 1994 .

[34]  R. V. Arsdale,et al.  Hotspot origin of the Mississippi embayment and its possible impact on contemporary seismicity , 1997 .

[35]  R. V. Arsdale,et al.  The Mississippi Embayment, North America: a first order continental structure generated by the Cretaceous superplume mantle event , 2002 .

[36]  R. Yeats,et al.  Geomorphic indicators of active fold growth: South Mountain-Oak Ridge anticline, Ventura basin, southern California , 2002 .