Investigation of the Meers fault in southwestern Oklahoma

The Meers fault is part of a major system of NW-trending faults that form the boundary between the Wichita Mountains and the Anadarko basin in southwestern Oklahoma. A portion of the Meers fault is exposed at the surface in northern Comanche County and strikes approximately N. 60/sup 0/ W. where it offsets Permian conglomerate and shale for at least 26 km. The scarp on the fault is consistently down to the south, with a maximum relief of 5 m near the center of the fault trace. Quaternary stratigraphic relationships and 10 /sup 14/C age dates constrain the age of the last movement of the Meers fault. The last movement postdates the Browns Creek Alluvium, late Pleistocene to early Holocene, and predates the East Cache Alluvium, 100 to 800 yr B.P. Fan alluvium, produced by the last fault movement, buried a soil that dates between 1400 and 1100 yr B.P. Two trenches excavated across the scarp near Canyon Creek document the near-surface deformation and provide some general information on recurrence. Trench 1 was excavated in the lower Holocene part of the Browns Creek Alluvium, and trench 2 was excavated in unnamed gravels thought to be upper Pleistocene. Flexing and warping wasmore » the dominant mode of deformation that produced the scarp. The stratigraphy in both trenches indicates one surface-faulting event, which implies a lengthy recurrence interval for surface faulting on this part of the fault. Organic-rich material from two samples that postdate the last fault movement yielded /sup 14/C ages between 1600 and 1300 yr B.P. These dates are in excellent agreement with the dates obtained from soils buried by the fault-related fan alluvium.« less