Sedimentation and deformation in the Southern Sevier Foreland, Red Hills, Southwestern Utah

The Red Hills is the easternmost range within the Basin-and-Range province at the latitude of Parowan in southwestern Utah. It exposes two important late Mesozoic geologic margins: the westernmost deposits of the Cretaceous Interior Seaway and the easternmost thrusts of the Sevier orogenic belt. Jurassic to Eocene sedimentary strata, overlain by Tertiary pyroclastic deposits, record Sevier contractional deformation and foreland sedimentation overprinted by Miocene to present Basin-and-Range extensional deformation. Three east-vergent Sevier thrusts exposed in the Red Hills juxtapose, from west to east, the Lower Jurassic Navajo Sandstone over isoclinally folded Middle Jurassic Carmel Formation, the Carmel Formation over overturned Late Cretaceous Straight Cliffs Formation, and the Straight Cliffs section over the subhorizontal Late Cretaceous Iron Springs Formation. These thrust faults will respectively be referred to as the western, central, and Iron Springs thrusts.