Late Precambrian tectonism in the Kingston Range, southern California

Detrital zircon provenance and paleogeography of the Pahrump Group and overlying strata, Death Valley, California

“…Multiple unconformities occur within these units, some of which show angular discordance (Prave, 1999;MacDonald et al, 2013). These surfaces, along with large-scale buried Proterozoic normal faults in association with tholeiitic basalts and feeder dikes, indicate a rift tectonic setting (Troxel, 1967;Hammond, 1983Hammond, , 1986Walker et al, 1986;Prave, 1999). Carbonate facies within the Kingston Peak Formation have variable origins, one of which is considered to be a cap carbonate deposited during deglaciation from a Snowball Earth glacial event (Sourdough Limestone; Prave, 1999) …”

A slippery slope for Cryogenian diamictites?

“…Despite the operation of comparable depositional processes in the Saddle Peak and Alexander Hills, coupled with apparently identical stratigraphic context and position, caution should be employed against any assumption that the two were deposited coevally. The idea that megaclast‐bearing diamictites are locally derived and result from carbonate platform collapse, perhaps involving major faults in the Alexander Hills, has previously been suggested in the Kingston Range (Walker et al., ) and Silurian Hills (Le Heron et al., ). Moreover, it is widely accepted that Precambrian syn‐sedimentary faults within the Kingston Peak Formation record the rifting of Rodinia (Le Heron et al., ; Mahon, Dehler, Link, Karlstrom, & Gehrels, ; Macdonald et al., ; Prave, ; Walker et al., ).…”

“…The idea that megaclast‐bearing diamictites are locally derived and result from carbonate platform collapse, perhaps involving major faults in the Alexander Hills, has previously been suggested in the Kingston Range (Walker et al., ) and Silurian Hills (Le Heron et al., ). Moreover, it is widely accepted that Precambrian syn‐sedimentary faults within the Kingston Peak Formation record the rifting of Rodinia (Le Heron et al., ; Mahon, Dehler, Link, Karlstrom, & Gehrels, ; Macdonald et al., ; Prave, ; Walker et al., ). During rifting, time‐transgressive evolution of fault systems (Alves et al., ; Eyles & Januszczak, ) would be expected at the margins of the Death Valley basin, and thus correlating deposits laid down in the lee of degrading fault scarps is fraught with difficulty.…”

“…In the Alexander Hills, it can be speculated that because the thickest occurrence of the pꞒk4 succession abuts against the major NW–SE striking Sheephead Fault and pinches out to the north, this deposit derives from palaeo‐fault movement, with the deposits recording accumulation on the hangingwall. About 10 km to the NE, well‐established syn‐sedimentary fault scarps crosscut the Kingston Peak Formation (Walker, Klepacki, & Burchfiel, ): a major olistostrome complex was shed from these extensional fault arrays (Le Heron, Busfield, & Prave, ). Likewise, pronounced lateral thickness variations in the Kingston Peak Formation of the Panamint Range attest to syn‐depositional tectonics (Miller, ).…”

A complex microbiota from snowball Earth times: Microfossils from the Neoproterozoic Kingston Peak Formation, Death Valley, USA

“…Facies and thickness of units change rapidly across the basin, indicating deposition in an actively extending (15) and͞or transpressional (16) tectonic environment probably related to the rifting of western North America in Neoproterozoic time. Olistoliths in excess of 1.5 km in length from underlying units occur in the Kingston Peak Formation; their origin is controversial (15)(16)(17). In the Panamint Range, the Kingston Peak Formation clearly contains two separate, glacially derived units (15).…”