Katana VentraIP

Mississippi embayment

The Mississippi embayment is a physiographic feature in the south-central United States, part of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain. It is essentially a northward continuation of the fluvial sediments of the Mississippi River Delta to its confluence with the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois. The current sedimentary area was formed in the Cretaceous and early Cenozoic by the filling with sediment of a pre-existing basin. An explanation for the embayment's formation was put forward by Van Arsdale and Cox in 2007: movement of the Earth's crust brought this region over a volcanic "hotspot" in the Earth's mantle causing an upthrust of magma which formed the Appalachian-Ouachita range. Subsequent erosion caused a deep trough that was flooded by the Gulf of Mexico and eventually filled with sediment from the Mississippi River.

Significant shorelines along the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic Coasts since the Cretaceous Period

Significant shorelines along the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic Coasts since the Cretaceous Period

Mississippi Embayment Top Cretaceous Contour Map

Mississippi Embayment Top Cretaceous Contour Map

Mississippi Embayment Structural Map

Mississippi Embayment Structural Map

 – Natural region of Arkansas

Arkansas Delta

 – Southeastern portion of Missouri mostly extending below 30°30' north lattitude

Missouri Bootheel

 – Geological formation in the U.S. states of Arkansas and Missouri

Crowley's Ridge

 – Northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi

Mississippi Delta

Imlay, R.W., 1949. Lower Cretaceous and Jurassic formations of southern Arkansas and the oil and gas possibilities. Arkansas Resource and Development Commission, Division of Geology, Information Circular 12, 64.

Jason Morgan, W. (1983). "Hotspot tracks and the early rifting of the Atlantic". Tectonophysics. 94 (1–4): 123–139. :10.1016/0040-1951(83)90013-6.

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