Late Cenozoic basins of Arizona

Scarborough, R.B.; Peirce, H.W.

doi:10.56577/ffc-29.253

Cited by 8 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…The bedrock was further deformed during the Basin and Range extension, which took place ~15-10 million years ago during the Miocene Epoch. This crustal extension produced large-scale, deep, pervasive fracturing that manifested at the surface as generally north-south-trending faults, which in turn created a series of irregularly shaped and only partially connected basins (Scarborough and Peirce, 1978), one of which is the Sonoita basin. Many of these faults are buried beneath basin-fill sediments that eroded from the surrounding mountain ranges, so only their approximate locations have been mapped (Finnell, 1971;Boggs, 1980;Spencer and others, 2010;Cook and Ferguson, 2019), if they are mapped at all.…”

Section: Bedrock and Structural Geologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Water resources inventory of the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area, southeastern Arizona

Mason

2024

Scientific Investigations Report

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Tables1. Estimates of recharge for upper Cienega groundwater basin (Las Cienegas National Conservation Area, southeastern Arizona) from selected previous studies ....10 2. Estimates of discharge for upper Cienega groundwater basin (Las Cienegas National Conservation Area, southeastern Arizona) from selected previous studies ....10 3. Data for streamflow, base flow, precipitation runoff, base-flow percentage ratio, and base-flow index for calendar

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Section: Bedrock and Structural Geologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Water resources inventory of the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area, southeastern Arizona

Mason

2024

Scientific Investigations Report

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Transverse canyon incision and sedimentary basin excavation driven by drainage integration, Aravaipa Creek, AZ, USA

Jungers

Heimsath

2019

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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Drainage reorganization events have the potential to drive incision and erosion at high rates normally attributed to tectonic or climatic forcing. It can be difficult, however, to isolate the signal of transient events driven by drainage integration from longer term tectonic or climatic forcing. We exploit an ideal field setting in Aravaipa Creek Basin of southeastern Arizona, USA, to isolate just such a signal. Aravaipa Creek Basin underwent a period of transient incision that formed Aravaipa Canyon, evacuating a significant volume of sedimentary basin fill and Tertiary bedrock from the previously internally drained basin. We use digital terrain analyses to reconstruct the pre‐incision landscapes of both Aravaipa Creek Basin and the adjacent Lower San Pedro Basin, which we use to quantify the magnitude of incision and erosion since the drainage basins integrated. Terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide burial dates from 10Be and 26Al concentrations in latest stage basin fill in Aravaipa Creek enable us to calculate long‐term incision and erosion rates from 3 Myr to the present. A 10Be concentration–depth profile from the Lower San Pedro Basin confirms that the San Pedro River incised into its high stand deposits prior to 350 000–400 000 years ago. Combining our landscape reconstructions with these age constraints, we determine that the transient rates of incision that created Aravaipa Canyon were 150 m/Myr or more, but that the background rate of erosion since integration is an order of magnitude lower, between 10 and 20 m/Myr. These results support our growing understanding that tectonic and climatic forcings need not apply for all episodes of rapid, transient incision and erosion during landscape evolution. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Post-tectonic landscape evolution of a coupled basin and range: Pinaleño Mountains and Safford Basin, southeastern Arizona

Jungers

Heimsath

2015

Geological Society of America Bulletin

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The Pinaleño Mountains and adjacent Safford Basin are a landscape defined by the extensional tectonics of the Basin and Range physiographic province. However, over the last ~4 m.y., this coupled basin and range have been actively degrading in the absence of widespread regional extension. While rates of relief generation and upland erosion during active subsidence ca. 12-5 Ma are reflected in the geometry of the basin's structure and the stratigraphy it contains, rates of post-tectonic landscape evolution from the Pliocene to the present have been heretofore unknown. We combined topographic analyses of the Pinaleño Mountains with cosmogenic nuclide-derived catchmentaveraged erosion rates and burial dates of axial and piedmont deposits to quantify rates of post-tectonic landscape evolution and define a chronology for the last stages of deposi tion and subsequent incision in Safford Basin. In addition to constraining the timing of a deposit's formation, cosmogenic nuclide burial dates provide paleo-upland erosion rates at the time of deposition. Erosion rates in the Pinaleño Mountains have been generally moderate over the past 4 m.y., ranging between ~30 and 60 m/m.y. with no strong relationship to the drainage basins' modern topography. A potential acceleration of erosion rates to 100-250 m/m.y. between 3.5 and 2 Ma correlates with an inferred period of enhanced precipitation as well as the arrival from upstream of the Gila River in Safford Basin sometime shortly before 2.8 Ma. Widespread incision of Safford Basin was under way by ca. 2 Ma, as recorded by the dissection of piedmont basin highstand deposits (Frye Mesa) and two intermediate Gila River terraces on the northeast margin of Safford Basin (dated to 1.8 Ma and 0.64 Ma). Gila River incision rates have ranged from 30 to 60 m/m.y. over the past 3 m.y. Paleo-upland erosion rates and modern millennial-scale upland erosion rates fall within the same range as incision rates of the Gila River in Safford Basin, suggesting that upland erosion rates are predominantly a function of baselevel fall driven by axial incision. However, based on similarities between catchmentaveraged erosion rates and topography from basins draining into the integrated Safford Basin and the still internally drained Sulphur Springs Basin to the south, it appears that upland erosion rates during the Quaternary are not being driven exclusively by regional incision rates.

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Late Cenozoic basins of Arizona

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Water resources inventory of the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area, southeastern Arizona

Water resources inventory of the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area, southeastern Arizona

Transverse canyon incision and sedimentary basin excavation driven by drainage integration, Aravaipa Creek, AZ, USA

Post-tectonic landscape evolution of a coupled basin and range: Pinaleño Mountains and Safford Basin, southeastern Arizona

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