Detection of buried basement highs by airphoto drainage pattern analysis, Reynolds and Wayne counties, Missouri

Purpose and Scope: The purpose of this study is to determine if it is possible to detect buried Precambrian igneous hills in Wayne County and the larger part of Reynolds County in southeast Missouri by the use of aerial photo drainage pattern analysis. The St. Francis Mountains are located in southeast Missouri. They form a part of the Precambrian basement complex, and have been exposed at the surface by the erosion of the lower Paleozoic sediments which covered them. Some of the hills which make up the St. Francis Mountains are exposed to a great degree, while others still have their greater bulk concealed by the sediments. It would be expected that there are hills still completely buried under the sediments. To detect those buried hills in the above stated manner, Wayne and Reynolds counties (Plate IA) are chosen because they lie just south and southwest of the St. Francis Mountains and are expected to include buried basement topographic highs. Detection of basement structural highs is generally of economic value since ore deposits (Ohle and Brown., editors, 1954) and petroleum are often associated with such features --Introduction, page 1