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Table of Contents - Special Paper 455

Adventures Through Deep Time: The Central Mississippi River Valley and Its Earthquakes

by Roy Van Arsdale

Preface v
Acknowledgments vii
Abstract 1
1. Geologic history of the central Mississippi River Valley area in a nutshell 3
2. Precambrian rocks — Foundation to the central Mississippi River Valley 17
3. Late Proterozoic and Early Cambrian rifting of the southeastern United States 29
4. Paleozoic time in the Mississippi River Valley 33
5. Appalachian–Ouachita Mountains and their foreland basins 39
6. Pangea rips apart — The formation of the Gulf of Mexico 53
7. Cretaceous-Tertiary formation of the Mississippi Embayment and Mississippi River 65
8. Sediments of the Mississippi Embayment 73
9. The central Mississippi River Valley and its great earthquakes of 1811–1812 83
10. What’s next? 103
Epilogue 107