The Nemaha Ridge (also called the Nemaha Uplift and the Nemaha Anticline) is located in the Central United States. It is a buried structural zone associated with a

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

high in the

Pre-Cambrian The Precambrian ( ; or pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pC, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of the ...

basement A basement is any Storey, floor of a building that is not above the grade plane. Especially in residential buildings, it often is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the Furnace (house heating), furnace, water heating, ...

that extends from approximately

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the List of cities in Nebraska, most populous city in the U.S. state of Nebraska. It is located in the Midwestern United States along the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's List of United S ...

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Oklahoma, most populous city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat ...

. The ridge is associated with the seismically active Humboldt Fault zone. It is also associated with the

Proterozoic The Proterozoic ( ) is the third of the four geologic eons of Earth's history, spanning the time interval from 2500 to 538.8 Mya, and is the longest eon of Earth's geologic time scale. It is preceded by the Archean and followed by the Phanerozo ...

Midcontinent Rift System The Midcontinent Rift System (MRS) or Keweenawan Rift is a long geological rift in the center of the North American continent and south-central part of the North American plate. It formed when the continent's core, the North American craton, b ...

, which extends into northern Kansas about fifty miles west of the Nemaha.Kansas Geological Survey, Current Research in Earth Sciences, Bulletin 250, part 1
"Review of the Nemaha Ridge: A New Look at an Old Structure" Along the Nemaha Ridge is a series of faults referred to as the "Nemaha Fault Zone". The long term uplift along the ridge has been attributed to

isostatic uplift Post-glacial rebound (also called isostatic rebound or crustal rebound) is the rise of land masses after the removal of the huge weight of ice sheets during the last glacial period, which had caused isostatic depression. Post-glacial rebound a ...

due to the anomalously thick crust adjacent to the Midcontinent Rift.''Old Rifts Never Die: Crustal Thickening Across the Midcontinent Rift and Its Possible Role in Post-Rifting Tectonics''
Gao, Stephen S., et al., Structure and Tectonics of the Midcontinent, North America, GSA 2002 Denver Annual Meeting

References

Landforms of the United States Geology of Kansas Geology of Oklahoma {{Oklahoma-geo-stub

See also

References