Uniqueness of geological correlations: An example from the Death Valley extended terrain

Snow, J. Kent; Wernicke, Brian P.

doi:10.1130/0016-7606(1989)101<1351:uogcae>2.3.co;2

Cited by 69 publications

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“…1) has long accounted for as much as two-thirds of the approximately 250 -300 km estimate of WNW motion of the Sierra Nevada away from the Colorado Plateau, and for the fraction of the total that, on the face of it, is best constrained from restorations of Neoproterozoic and Palaeozoic isopachs and facies transitions, Mesozoic thrust faults and folds, and palaeoisothermal surfaces (Stewart 1983;Wernicke et al , 1993Snow & Wernicke 1989). The very large inferred strain has also served to explain as much as 10-15 km of middle and late Miocene exhumation of the Black Mountains on the east side of Death Valley, placing Neogene volcanic and sedimentary rocks in low-angle normal fault contact with rocks as old as 1.7 Ga as a result of tectonic removal of more than 10 km of Neoproterozoic and Palaeozoic strata that is still preserved in surrounding ranges Topping 1993).…”

Section: Eagle Mountain Formationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Snow & Wernicke 1989), such reconstructions are subject to significant uncertainties: in structural correlation (of late Palaeozoic-Mesozoic thrust faults and folds), in the spatial variability of stratigraphic thickness that limits confidence in reconstructing both the location and orientation of isopachs, and in matching imprecisely defined facies transitions (e.g. Stewart 1983Stewart , 1986Prave & Wright 1986a, b;Wernicke et al , 1990Corbett 1990;Stevens et al 1991Stevens et al , 1992Snow 1992a, b;Stone & Stevens 1993).…”

Section: Eagle Mountain Formationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1) (Stewart 1983;Wernicke et al , 1993Snow & Wernicke 1989Holm et al 1992;Topping 1993;Brady et al 2000b;Niemi et al 2001; for contrasting interpretations of available data, see Stewart 1967Stewart , 1986Wright & Troxel 1967, 1970Stewart et al , 1970Prave & Wright 1986a, b;Corbett 1990;Wernicke et al 1990;Stevens et al 1991Stevens et al , 1992Snow 1992b;Stone & Stevens 1993;Serpa & Pavlis 1996). Re-examination of the most important individual piece of evidence, a middle Miocene succession of breccia, conglomerate, sandstone, siltstone, limestone and tephra (Eagle Mountain Formation; E in Fig.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Observations from the Basin and Range Province (western United States) pertinent to the interpretation of regional detachment faults

Christie‐Blick

Anders

Wills

et al. 2007

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This paper summarizes the results of completed and ongoing research in three areas of the Basin and Range Province of the western United States that casts doubt on the interpretation of specific regional detachment faults and the large extensional strains with which such faults are commonly associated. Given that these examples were influential in the development of ideas about low-angle normal faults, and particularly in making the case for frictional slip at dips of appreciably less than the 308 lock-up angle for m 0.6 (where m is the coefficient of friction), we advocate a critical re-examination of interpreted detachments elsewhere in the Basin and Range Province and in other extensional and passive margin settings.The Sevier Desert 'detachment' of west-central Utah is reinterpreted as a Palaeogene unconformity that has been traced to depth west of the northern Sevier Desert basin along an unrelated seismic reflection (most probably a splay of the Cretaceous-age Pavant thrust). The absence of evidence in well cuttings and cores for either brittle deformation (above) or ductile deformation (below) is inconsistent with the existence of a fault with as much as 40 km of displacement. The Pavant thrust and the structurally higher Canyon Range thrust are erosionally truncated at the western margin of the southern Sevier Desert basin, and are not offset by the 'detachment' in the manner assumed by those inferring large extension across the basin.The Mormon Peak detachment of SE Nevada is reinterpreted as a series of slide blocks on the basis of detachment characteristics and spatially variable kinematic indicators that are more closely aligned with the modern dip direction than the inferred regional extension direction. A particularly distinctive feature of the detachment is a basal layer of up to several tens of centimetres of polymictic conglomerate that was demonstrably involved in the deformation, with clastic dykes of the same material extending for several metres into overlying rocks in a manner remarkably similar to that observed at rapidly emplaced slide blocks. The Castle Cliff detachment in the nearby Beaver Dam Mountains of SW Utah is similarly regarded as a surficial feature, as originally interpreted, and consistent with its conspicuous absence in seismic reflection profiles from the adjacent sedimentary basin.The middle Miocene Eagle Mountain Formation of eastern California, interpreted on the basis of facies evidence and distinctive clast provenance to have been moved tectonically more than 80 km ESE from a location close to the Jurassic-age Hunter Mountain batholith of the Cottonwood Mountains, is reinterpreted as having accumulated in a fluvial-lacustrine rather than alluvial fanlacustrine setting, with no bearing on either the amount or direction of tectonic transport. The conglomeratic rocks upon which the provenance argument was based are pervasively channelized, with erosional relief of less than 1 m to as much as 15 m, fining-upwards successions at the same scale and abundant trough ...

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Section: Eagle Mountain Formationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Eagle Mountain Formationmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Observations from the Basin and Range Province (western United States) pertinent to the interpretation of regional detachment faults

Christie‐Blick

Anders

Wills

et al. 2007

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“…They correlated this unique zone of antithetic deformation with structures in the Nevada Test Site area on the basis of map relations and published cross sections (Snow and Wernicke, 1989). Caskey (1991) remapped parts of the CP Hills and established that the apparent westward vergence in late Paleozoic rocks depicted by McKeown and others (1976) was real, and he identified other Nevada Test Site locations with the same sense of folding (Caskey and Schweickert, 1992).…”

Section: Cp Thrust and Related Hinterland Vergencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…1) and, farther west in the Cottonwood Mountains, with the Last Chance thrust northwest of Death Valley (Snow and Wernicke, 1989;Snow, 1992). The correlation is based on stratigraphic juxtaposition of Upper Proterozoic on Mississippian sections, the local presence of hanging-wall ramps, and regional structural position.…”

Section: Belted Range Thrustmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structural relationships of pre-Tertiary rocks in the Nevada Test Site region, southern Nevada

Cole

Cashman

1999

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Tectonic Analysis of the Pennsylvanian Ely‐Bird Spring Basin: Late Paleozoic Tectonism on the Southwestern Laurentia Margin and the Distal Limit of the Ancestral Rocky Mountains

2018

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During Pennsylvanian to Early Permian time, much of southwestern Laurentia experienced broad deformation far from the nearest plate boundaries. The bulk of this deformation is known as the Ancestral Rocky Mountains orogeny, which consists of several basement uplifts and proximal basins north and northwest of the Ouachita‐Marathon suture. The Ely‐Bird Spring basin formed during this time, located between the classic Ancestral Rocky Mountains and the complex and poorly constrained western Laurentian margin. In this study, we used tectonic subsidence curve analyses to evaluate the tectonic style of basin subsidence in this basin and several northern Ancestral Rocky Mountains basins. The Ely‐Bird Spring and Wood River basins have convex upward and stair‐stepped tectonic subsidence curves similar to curves from migrating foreland basins. These curves, combined with sedimentological and structural data, are consistent with these basins forming due to loading from the west and northwest as part of the complex western Laurentian plate boundary, not due to classic Ancestral Rocky Mountains tectonics. The other northern Ancestral Rocky Mountains basins have much steeper and more linear subsidence curves, similar to foreland basins with fixed loads. However, the Oquirrh basin, in particular, displays a large amount of subsidence far from hypothesized tectonic drivers of deformation. A combination of transmitted stress from both the western Laurentia margin and traditional Ancestral Rocky Mountains tectonism explains the anomalously large subsidence in the Oquirrh basin. Therefore, transmitted stresses from more than one side of western and southern Laurentia are required to explain the observed pattern of deformation.

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Uniqueness of geological correlations: An example from the Death Valley extended terrain

Cited by 69 publications

References 0 publications

Observations from the Basin and Range Province (western United States) pertinent to the interpretation of regional detachment faults

Observations from the Basin and Range Province (western United States) pertinent to the interpretation of regional detachment faults

Structural relationships of pre-Tertiary rocks in the Nevada Test Site region, southern Nevada

Tectonic Analysis of the Pennsylvanian Ely‐Bird Spring Basin: Late Paleozoic Tectonism on the Southwestern Laurentia Margin and the Distal Limit of the Ancestral Rocky Mountains

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