The Gzhelian (Upper Pennsylvanian) to Kungurian (Lower Permian) succession around Carlin Canyon, northern Nevada, in the Basin and Range province of the western USA is a relatively undeformed wedge of fossiliferous marine carbonate and fine-grained calcareous and cherty clastic rocks that rests with profound angular unconformity on Mississippian to mid-Pennsylvanian sedimentary rocks that had been uplifted, faulted, folded, and eroded prior to the Late Pennsylvanian transgression. This wedge of sediments, which tapers over less than 2 km from 1341 m in the west to 588 m in the east, comprises the Strathearn, Buckskin Mountain, and lower part of the Beacon Flat formations. These units form a second-order sequence within which five third-order unconformity-bounded transgressive–regressive sequences are nested. These sequences are Gzhelian, early to late Asselian, latest Asselian to late Sakmarian, latest Sakmarian to late Artinskian, and latest Artinskian to late Kungurian in age based on the determination and biostratigraphic interpretation of 26 conodont taxa, including two new species ( Adetognathus carlinensis n. sp. and Sweetognathus trexleri n. sp.). Each sequence records sedimentation on a westward-dipping ramp along which significant facies change occurs with inner-ramp coarse-grained algal and bioclastic photozoan grainstone to the east passing westward into mid- to outer-ramp heterozoan carbonate, and ultimately into deep-water fine-grained mixed clastic–carbonate facies with no fossils except sponge spicules, representing deep-water sedimentation in a basinal area that underwent repeated episodes of rapid subsidence associated with each sequence. Accommodation during sedimentation of Gzhelian–Kungurian sequences around Carlin Canyon was repeatedly created in response to flexural subsidence caused by tectonic loading west of the study area. Each sequence recorded the simultaneous foundering of the basinal area in the west and uplift of the basin margin in the east. Individual sequences overlap the underlying sequence to the east, while flexural subsidence from the Gzhelian to the earliest Artinskian led to a basin in the west that became deeper over time. A lull in tectonic activity associated with each sequence allowed carbonates to prograde from east to west, partially filling the basinal area until the early Artinskian, and completely filling it to sea level during the late Artinskian and then again in the late Kungurian. The Gzhelian–Kungurian carbonate succession of the Carlin Canyon area bears much resemblance with the coeval succession that occurs all along the northwest margin of Pangea, from Nevada in the south to the Canadian Arctic islands in the north, and down from the Barents Sea to the central Urals to the east. That broad area was affected by the same oceanographic events, the most significant of which was the earliest Sakmarian closure of the Uralian seaway, which prevented warm water from the Tethys Ocean from reaching the northwestern Pangea margin as it did before; this led to much cooler oceanic conditions all along western North America, even in the low tropical paleolatitudes where northern Nevada was located, in spite of a globally warming climate following the end of the late Paleozoic ice age.

Detailed mapping and reevaluation of biostratigraphic data provide new insights into the regional stratigraphic significance of the Ordovician Comus Formation at its type locality at Iron Point, Edna Mountain, Humboldt County, Nevada. Mapping of the internal stratigraphy of the Comus Formation yielded six new subunits and a previously unrecognized formation that is potentially correlative to the Middle Ordovician Eureka Quartzite. The age designation of the Comus Formation was reexamined, using the most current understanding of Ordovician graptolite biostratigraphy. The species of graptolites found in the Comus strata at Iron Point are Late Ordovician, in contrast to the Middle Ordovician age assignment in previous studies. Structural analyses using the new detailed mapping revealed six deformational events at Iron Point. The first fold set, F 1 , is west-vergent and likely correlative to mid-Pennsylvanian folds observed nearby at Edna Mountain. The second fold set, F 2 , records north–south contraction and is likely correlative to Early Permian folds observed at Edna Mountain. The King fault is a normal fault that strikes north and dips east. It truncates the F 1 and F 2 fold sets and has not been active since the Early Permian. The Silver Coin thrust strikes east, places the Ordovician Vinini Formation over the Comus Formation, truncates the King fault, and is not affected by the F 1 and F 2 fold sets. Timing of the Silver Coin thrust is unknown, but it is likely post-Early Permian based on crosscutting relationships. The West fault strikes southeast and dips southwest. It truncates the Silver Coin thrust on the west, and the fault surface records several phases of motion. Finally, Iron Point is bounded on the east side by the Pumpernickel fault, a normal fault that strikes north and dips east. The movement on this structure is likely related to Miocene to Recent Basin and Range faulting. Several key findings resulted from this detailed study of the Ordovician rocks at Iron Point. (1) Based on detailed mapping of the internal stratigraphy of the Comus Formation at Iron Point, it is here interpreted to be correlative with the autochthonous Late Ordovician Hanson Creek Formation rather than the well-known “Comus Formation” that hosts Carlin-style gold mineralization in the Osgood Mountains to the north. (2) The Comus Formation at Iron Point is autochthonous, and the Roberts Mountains thrust is not present at Iron Point, either at the surface or in the subsurface. (3) The stratigraphic mismatch between Iron Point and Edna Mountain requires a fault with significant lateral offset between the two areas; its current expression could be the West fault. (4) West- and southwest-vergent structures at Iron Point and Edna Mountain are rotated counterclockwise relative to northwest-vergent structures at Carlin Canyon and elsewhere in northern Nevada. This relationship is consistent with large-scale sinistral slip along the continental margin to the west.

Analysis and correlation of strata in ancient basins are commonly difficult due to a lack of high-resolution age control. This study tackled this problem for the latest Mississippian to middle Pennsylvanian Ely–Bird Spring basin. Here, 1095 new carbon isotope analyses combined with existing biostratigraphy at six sections throughout the basin constrain changes in relative sediment accumulation rates in time and space. The Ely–Bird Spring basin contains dominantly shallow-water carbonates exposed in eastern and southern Nevada, western Utah, and southeastern California. It formed as part of the complex late Paleozoic southwestern Laurentian plate margin. However, the detailed evolution of the basin, and hence the tectonic driver(s) of deformation, is poorly understood. The combined isotopic and biostratigraphic data were correlated using the Match-2.3 dynamic programming algorithm. The correlations show a complex picture of sediment accumulation throughout the life of the Ely–Bird Spring basin. Initially, the most rapid sediment accumulation was in the eastern part of the basin. Throughout Morrowan time, the most rapid sediment accumulation migrated to the northwestern part of the basin, culminating in a peak of sediment accumulation in Atokan time. This peak records tectonic loading at the north or northwest margin of the basin. Basin sedimentation was interrupted by early Desmoinesian time in the north by formation of northwest-directed thrust faults, folds, uplift, and an associated unconformity. Deposition continued in the south with a correlative conformity and increased clastic input. The combination of isotopic and biostratigraphic data for correlation is therefore a valuable tool for elucidating temporal basin evolution and can be readily applied to tectonically complex carbonate basins worldwide.

The Late Permian to earliest Triassic Sonoma orogeny has long been envisioned as the result of an arc-continent collision that closed the Havallah oceanic basin, creating the Golconda allochthon, which was emplaced eastward onto the western edge of the continental margin along the Golconda thrust. Critical reevaluation of available stratigraphic, biostratigraphic, and structural data raise some fundamental issues with this scenario, including: (1) The Golconda allochthon experienced multiple phases of deformation both older and younger than the Sonoma orogeny; (2) the tectonostratigraphic successions in the Golconda allochthon record a disrupted depositional history; (3) these punctuated events and unconformities are mirrored by simultaneous punctuated tectonic disruptions of the adjacent continental margin; (4) some of the lithotectonic units within the Golconda allochthon have clear ties to a magmatic arc. These observations indicated that the Havallah basin did not originate as a simple, post-Antler orogeny rift basin, nor is the Mediterranean model for opening of a basin a solution to the initiation of this basin. Instead they imply a more complex paleogeography for the Havallah basin. The Late Permian–earliest Triassic closure of the Havallah basin did result in the development of the Golconda allochthon sensu stricto , but final emplacement of the Golconda allochthon was likely an Early–Middle Jurassic event.

ABSTRACT The paleogeographic evolution of the western U.S. Great Basin from the Late Cretaceous to the Cenozoic is critical to understanding how the North American Cordillera at this latitude transitioned from Mesozoic shortening to Cenozoic extension. According to a widely applied model, Cenozoic extension was driven by collapse of elevated crust supported by crustal thicknesses that were potentially double the present ~30–35 km. This model is difficult to reconcile with more recent estimates of moderate regional extension (≤50%) and the discovery that most high-angle, Basin and Range faults slipped rapidly ca. 17 Ma, tens of millions of years after crustal thickening occurred. Here, we integrated new and existing geochronology and geologic mapping in the Elko area of northeast Nevada, one of the few places in the Great Basin with substantial exposures of Paleogene strata. We improved the age control for strata that have been targeted for studies of regional paleoelevation and paleoclimate across this critical time span. In addition, a regional compilation of the ages of material within a network of middle Cenozoic paleodrainages that developed across the Great Basin shows that the age of basal paleovalley fill decreases southward roughly synchronous with voluminous ignimbrite flareup volcanism that swept south across the region ca. 45–20 Ma. Integrating these data sets with the regional record of faulting, sedimentation, erosion, and magmatism, we suggest that volcanism was accompanied by an elevation increase that disrupted drainage systems and shifted the continental divide east into central Nevada from its Late Cretaceous location along the Sierra Nevada arc. The north-south Eocene–Oligocene drainage divide defined by mapping of paleovalleys may thus have evolved as a dynamic feature that propagated southward with magmatism. Despite some local faulting, the northern Great Basin became a vast, elevated volcanic tableland that persisted until dissection by Basin and Range faulting that began ca. 21–17 Ma. Based on this more detailed geologic framework, it is unlikely that Basin and Range extension was driven by Cretaceous crustal overthickening; rather, preexisting crustal structure was just one of several factors that that led to Basin and Range faulting after ca. 17 Ma—in addition to thermal weakening of the crust associated with Cenozoic magmatism, thermally supported elevation, and changing boundary conditions. Because these causal factors evolved long after crustal thickening ended, during final removal and fragmentation of the shallowly subducting Farallon slab, they are compatible with normal-thickness (~45–50 km) crust beneath the Great Basin prior to extension and do not require development of a strongly elevated, Altiplano-like region during Mesozoic shortening.

ABSTRACT Sedimentary records were analyzed from three lakes in the Ruby Mountains and East Humboldt Range of northeastern Nevada. Lakes are rare in the arid Great Basin, and these represent the highest-elevation lacustrine records from this region. The three cores cover overlapping time intervals: One, from a lake located just beyond a moraine, is interpreted to represent the Last Glacial Maximum, extending back to 26 cal ka; another extends to deglaciation ca. 14 cal ka; and the third extends to deposition of the Mazama ash, ca. 7.7 cal ka. Multiproxy analysis focused on measurements of bulk density, organic matter content, C:N ratio, biogenic silica abundance, and grain-size distribution. Depth-age models were developed using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating, along with accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14 C dating of terrestrial macrofossils (wood and conifer needles), charcoal, and pollen concentrates (for deep sediment in one lake). Collectively, the three lakes record a series of discrete intervals spanning an unusually long stretch of time. These include the local Last Glacial Maximum (26.0–18.5 cal ka), local deglaciation (18.5–13.8 cal ka), the onset of biologic productivity (13.8–11.3 cal ka), early Holocene aridity (11.3–7.8 cal ka), deposition and reworking of the Mazama ash (7.8–5.5 cal ka), a neopluvial interval (5.5–3.8 cal ka), a variable late Holocene climate (3.8–0.25 cal ka), and a latest Holocene productivity spike (250 yr B.P. to the present) that may be anthropogenic. Data from all three lakes are presented, and the collective record of climate and environmental change for the Ruby Mountains and East Humboldt Range is compared with other paleorecords from the Great Basin.