The Carbon Creek and Awuna anticlines

At the interim meting of the Technical Committee in Fairbanks, Alaska, in September 1949, the Navy Oil Unit was requested to make photo-geologic analysis of the Driftwood, Awuna, and Carbon Creek anticlines before the November meeting. A report on the photogeology of the Driftwood anticline, based on available air photos, has already been distributed. The present report considers the geology of the Carbon Creek and Awuna anticlines.

The central part of the Carbon Creek anticline was studied in the field by party No. 2 during the 1949 season. A geologic report on this part of the anticline, by C. L. Whittington and Samuel A. Keller, will be distributed at the November meeting. The present photogeologic report covers the part of the Carbon Creek anticline from the western end of Whittington and Keller's area westward to the point where the Carbon Creek anticline plunges and disappears. A photogeologic map (fig. 1) accompanies this report and incorporates all available data both from the aerial photographs and from earlier field geologic studies of a part of the anticline by Thompson and Barksdale.

The Awuna anticline has been mapped in the field by C. L. Whittington. A field geologic map of the anticline will be distributed at the November meeting. The discussion on the Awuna anticline in the present report is based in part on the field observations of Whittington and in part on a new study of the aerial photographs which had previously been studied by Whittington. In reading this section on the Awuna anticline, reference should be made to Whittington's geologic map, which will be available at the November meeting.

At the present time, only trimetrogon photography is available for study of the western part of Carbon Creek and the Awuna anticline areas. Hence quantitative analysis of the structures is not possible, although rough estimates of the amount of plunge and of closures can be made. Accurate calculations of closure and plunge by photogrammetric methods must await the arrival of the vertical photographs of the area