Sedimentation in a tectonically partitioned, non-marine foreland basin: the Lower Cretaceous Kootenai Formation, southwestern Montana ( USA).

The Lower Cretaceous Kootenai Formation in southwestern Montana was deposited in the nonmarine, Cordilleran foreland basin during a period of intensified uplift in the westward adjacent Sevier fold-thrust belt. Concurrently, the foreland basin was partitioned by uplift of intra-foreland structural elements and incipient plutonism. Kootenai fluvial and fluviolacustrine depositional systems developed and evolved in response to changing basin architecture. The Kootenai thus provides a case study of nonmarine sedimentary responses to tectonic partitioning in a foreland basin. Criteria for recognition of tectonic partitioning of nonmarine foreland basin are described. -from Author