Role of contemporaneous faulting during basinal subsidence

A study of faulting in the Los Angeles, Hanna, and Ardmore basins, and in the Ouachita and Gulf Coast geosynclines, indicates that most depositional basins subside primarily by contemporaneous faulting. Subsidence occurs along faults originating in the basement, and movement along them proceeds regardless of depositional framework. Faults affecting only the sedimentary fill of a geosyncline form in brittle sediments where they overlie a thick sequence of ductile beds.