Structural style of the Appalachian Plateau fold belt, north-central Pennsylvania

New seismic and well data from hydrocarbon exploration and development activity associated with the Marcellus Formation shale gas play in north-central Pennsylvania provide insight to the structural style of the Appalachian Plateau fold belt in the region north and northwest of the Allegheny structural front in Potter, Tioga, Bradford, Sullivan, Lycoming, Clinton and Centre counties. The Plateau fold belt in this area developed over a detachment in Upper Silurian Salina Group evaporites during the Permian Alleghanian Orogeny in response to north-northwest directed shortening. At the Allegheny structural front, a deep detachment in Cambrian shales that underlies the Valley and Ridge province to the south-southeast, ramps up-section through Cambro-Ordovician carbonates and Lower-Middle Silurian clastics to a shallow detachment in Upper Silurian evaporites. At the northeastern plunge of the Nittany Anticline (south and east of Williamsport, PA), only a small amount of slip is interpreted to have been transmitted into the foreland on the shallow Upper Silurian detachment. Instead most slip was consumed in fault-propagation folds immediately north of the Allegheny structural front. The Plateau fold belt, developed above the Upper Silurian evaporites, can be divided into structural domains based on fold characteristics. Domain 1 folds have short wavelengths and low amplitudes. Domain 2 salt-cored anticlines have long wavelengths and large amplitudes. Domain 3 comprises large synclines, located between Domain 2 anticlines. Halite originally beneath Domain 3 synclines is interpreted to have been mobilized, or evacuated, into the cores of adjacent Domain 2 anticlines during folding. Seismic data indicate that the base of the salt detachment underlying Plateau folds is a non-planar, stepped surface. Possible scenarios for the development of the non-planar detachment include: 1) mobilization of halite from an evaporite sequence that contained an originally non-uniform distribution of halite, 2) it is an erosion surface that existed prior to deposition of the evaporite sequence, or 3) it developed in response to buckle folding of the stratigraphic layer overlying the evaporite sequence.