Highlights – A Flysch-y Story

Stratigraphy records the plate tectonic history of the Earth.  In this paper, Shaulis et al. describe the nature, timing and rates of orogenic flysch deposition in the late Paleozoic Ouachita trough on the southeastern Laurentian margin using U-Pb dates of zircon.  The results document late Mississippian tectono-sedimentary dynamics, including changing rates of accumulation related to a submarine fan complex interpreted to have built longitudinally along the basin axis.  These results provide new insights into the character and dynamics of flysch sedimentation in closing remnant ocean basins.

Timing and rates of flysch sedimentation in the Stanley Group, Ouachita Mountains, Oklahoma and Arkansas, U.S.A.: constraints from U-Pb zircon ages of subaqueous ash-flow tuffs by Barry J. Shaulis, Thomas J. Lapen, John F. Casey, and Douglas R. Reid