Slip rates on the Fish Springs fault, Owens Valley, California, deduced from cosmogenic 10Be and 26Al and soil development on fan surfaces

Cosmogenic Be-10 and the Solid Earth: Studies in Geomagnetism, Subduction Zone Processes, and Active Tectonics

“…Instead, it is possible to bracket the timing of single or multiple slip events by exposure dating surfaces of two or more alluvial fans, moraines, or beaches that were deposited before and after the strain event. The success of alluvium chronologies by Bierman et al (1995), Brown et al (1998a), Siame et al (1997, Van der Woerd et al (1998, Zehfuss et al (2001), and Spies et al (submitted) attest to the plausibility of surface clast exposure dating of offset alluvial surfaces. Slip rate analyses require highly precise chronologies and a means of distinguishing single event from multiple event histories.…”

“…Using combinations of radiocarbon and in situ isotopes, they calculated that the slip rates over different periods throughout this duration have been remarkably similar (average 11.5±2 mm a -1 over the past 600 kyr). In North America, over 30 26 Al and 10 Be exposure ages on large surface boulders in glacial debris flows on fans in Owens Valley were used to calculate a 0.24±0.04 mm a -1 slip rate over the past 300 kyr, consistent with rates determined previously (Zehfuss et al 2001). …”

Tectonic geomorphology of the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains (California): Evidence for uplift and basin formation

“…Rockwell et al (1985) found that mountain fronts with a tectonic activity class of 1 and similar valley floor height-to-width ratios and mountain front sinuosity had uplift rates of 0.4 to 2-8 mm/ y. This broad range overlaps with uplift rates for faults along the eastern Sierra where geologic slip rates range from 0.1-2.5 mm/yr (e.g., Zehfuss et al, 2001;Le et al, 2007) and the overall late Cenozoic uplift estimates of 0.2-0.4 mm/yr for the Sierra (Huber, 1981;Graham et al, 1988;Unruh, 1991;Wakabayashi and Sawyer, 2001;Clark et al, 2005).…”

Factors controlling sequence development on Quaternary fluvial fans, San Joaquin Basin, California, USA

“…Additionally, the sequence stratigraphic approach provides an important framework for modelling facies distributions in fluvial fans (Weissmann & Fogg 1999). Future work will focus on testing the (Ritter et al 1993) and on fans in the Owens Valley, located on the east side of the Sierra Nevada (Zehfuss et al 2001). In all of these examples, river systems feeding the fans were directly tied to glaciated drainage basins, thus sediment supply increased significantly with sediment discharge from glaciers.…”