Shear‐wave seismic reflection images of the Big Creek fault zone near Helena, Arkansas

Abstract

Two shear‐wave seismic reflection profiles were collected across the Big Creek escarpment (eastern Arkansas) to characterize neotectonic deformation associated with the Big Creek fault zone. The interpreted seismic profiles show that the topographic scarp is underlain by high‐angle faults that extend upward into Quaternary sediments (shallower than ∼40 m). The structural style of the faults, and warping of shallow reflectors, indicates compression and suggests that the faults may have been reactivated as reverse or transpressional faults in the Lower Mississippi Valley's contemporary (east‐west compressional) stress field.