Regional seismic lines across the Rome Trough and Allegheny Plateau of northern West Virginia, western Maryland, and southwestern Pennsylvania

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Abstract

having thin-skinned structures with greater tectonic shortening. These provinces meet at a physiographic and structural boundary called the Allegheny structural front. The Rome trough, a north­ east-trending graben that involves basement, underlies the Allegheny Plateau (fig. 2). Commonly, basement rocks in the Rome trough are buried beneath at least 20,000 feet (ft) of Paleozoic strata (Shumaker, 1996). Little has been published that is related to the deep structure of the Rome trough in northern West Virginia, western Maryland, and southwestern Pennsylvania. Wells drilled to basement are absent here and most of the multi-fold seismic data are propri­ etary. Although Ryder (1991) and Ryder and others (1992) con­ structed several detailed stratigraphic cross sections of Cambrian and Ordovician strata across parts of the Rome trough and Shumaker (1996) mapped basement structure along the entire Rome trough from central Kentucky to northeastern Pennsylvania, few interpreted, regional seismic-based geologic cross sections have been published in this area. The objective of this investigation is to interpret the structure and stratigraphy of the Rome trough and Allegheny Plateau of northern West Virginia, western Maryland, and southwestern Pennsylvania based on three multi-fold seismic lines acquired by Amoco in the early 1980s. Of major importance are geologic structures and stratigraphic intervals that may influence deep gas entrapment, crustal-scale fluid flow, and coal quality. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) purchased the license for the digital data used in this investigation from Seismic Exchange Inc. (SEI). If further access to these data is needed, please contact SEI. These data display a wide variety of geological information that includes interbedded carbonates, evaporites, and siliciclas­ tics, strong marker reflections, subtle unconformities, complex fault and fold geometries, and marked thickness changes of sev­ eral stratigraphic intervals. The seismic sections were reprocessed and are displayed in the report both as interpreted and uninterpreted versions.

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