The eastern Lake Mead region, central Basin and Range Province, contains an abrupt boundary between the Colorado Plateau and Basin and Range, west of which decades of tectonic studies have documented extreme (at least 60 km) westerly translation of the Frenchman Mountain structural block away from the boundary, currently at a distance of ~95 km. Detachment-style faulting and large lengthening in the eastern Lake Mead region are generally accepted (eight of ten papers in a 2010 compilation of recent research) as integral to the large province-wide lengthening at this latitude. Presented here is field geologic evidence of the contribution of karsting and tilting on multiple fixed axes to the Miocene strain history. Together with newly recognized strike slip on northerly striking faults, associated steep-axis bending, and evidence against fault listricity, the region probably contributes little to Province-wide lengthening, but estimates of westerly translation of the Frenchman Mountain block remain unchanged.

Structural, stratigraphic, and thermochronologic studies provide insight into the formation of basement-cored uplifts within the Colorado Plateau–Basin and Range transition zone in the Lake Mead region. Basement lithologic contacts, foliations, and ductile shear zones preserved in the core of the Virgin Mountain anticline parallel the trend of the anticline and are commonly reactivated by brittle fault zones, implying that basement anisotropy exerted a strong influence on the uplift geometry of the anticline. Potassium feldspar 40 Ar/ 39 Ar thermochronology indicates that basement rocks cooled from ≥250–325 °C to ≤150 °C in the Mesoproterozoic and remained at shallow crustal levels (<5–7 km) until they were exhumed to the surface. Apatite fission-track ages and track length measurements reveal a transition from slow cooling beginning at 30–26 Ma to rapid cooling at ca. 17 Ma, which we interpret to mark the change from regional post-Laramide denudational cooling to rapid extension-driven exhumational cooling by ca. 17 Ma. Middle Miocene conglomerates (ca. 16–11 Ma) flanking the anticline contain locally derived basement clasts with ca. 20 Ma apatite fission-track ages, implying rapid exhumation rates of ≥500 m m.y. −1 . The apparently complex geometry of the anticline resulted from the superposition of first-order processes, including isostatic footwall uplift and extension-perpendicular shortening, on a previously tectonized and strongly anisotropic crust. A low-relief basement-cored uplift may have formed during the Late Cretaceous–early Tertiary Laramide orogeny; however, the bulk of uplift, exhumation, and deformation of the Virgin Mountain anticline occurred during middle Miocene crustal extension.

This paper reevaluates the geometry and processes of extension in the boundary zone between the western Colorado Plateau and the Basin and Range Province. Based on new mapping of extensional detachment faults, restored cross sections, and 40 Ar/ 39 Ar K-feldspar thermochronology, we present an alternative to the previously published model that the Gold Butte block is a tilted 15–18-km-thick intact basement crustal section. Mapping of windows of crystalline basement at 1:12,000 scale delineates a bedding-parallel detachment fault system that parallels the Great Unconformity in the Tramp Ridge block, just north of the Gold Butte block. Above this detachment fault, extensional allochthons containing Upper Paleozoic through Tertiary (>18 Ma) rocks exhibit tilting due to westward translation and tilting. We project this geometry above the Gold Butte block itself based on restoration of slip across the Gold Butte fault. This reconstruction suggests that the detachment system extended over lateral distances of >1000 km 2 , helping define a region of relatively modest extension (~25% for cover; 10% for basement) within the Nevada transition zone between the Colorado Plateau and Basin and Range. In agreement with previously published mapping and structural cross sections, our restored cross sections suggest that extensional deformation initiated with formation of hanging-wall anticlines above a listric Grand Wash fault system and evolved via a combination of both listric faulting and domino-block translation and tilting. New data presented in this paper document that extension was also facilitated by slip on bedding-subparallel detachment zones in the Bright Angel Shale, along the basement unconformity, and along other zones of weakness, such that the extended Paleozoic cover was partly decoupled from less-extended basement. This detachment system ramps down into basement to merge with the South Virgin–White Hills detachment at the west end of Gold Butte, the principal extensional detachment of the region. Our mapping and structural model suggest that movement on these detachment faults initiated at low angle. Further, using the geometry from restored cross sections, we infer that the deepest rocks now exposed in the western Gold Butte block resided at depths of ~4 km below the Great Unconformity (~8 km below the surface) rather than the previously published 15 km below the unconformity (~19 km below the surface). New 40 Ar/ 39 Ar K-feldspar thermochronology from the Gold Butte block, added to a compilation of published thermochronologic data, is used to help evaluate alternative models. K-feldspar multiple diffusion domain (MDD) modeling suggests that rocks throughout all but the westernmost part the block had cooled through 150–200 °C before the Phanerozoic and resided at temperatures <200 °C prior to onset of rapid Miocene extension at 17 Ma. Pre-extensional (pre–17 Ma) 100 °C and 200 °C isotherms were located near the east and west ends of the basement block, respectively. Muscovite, biotite, and K-feldspar from a 70 Ma Laramide pluton deep in the block give 40 Ar/ 39 Ar ages of 70, 50, and 30 Ma, respectively. MDD modeling of K-feldspar from this sample is compatible with cooling the westernmost part of the block from 225 °C to 150 °C between 17 and 10 Ma. Available thermochronology can be explained by either structural model: our model requires pre-extensional geothermal gradients of ~25 °C/km, rather than 15–20 °C/km as previously published.

The eastern Lake Mead region, to the north of the belt of metamorphic core complexes that define the Colorado River extensional corridor, underwent large-magnitude extension in the middle to late Miocene. We present two speculative new models for extension in this area that resolve several puzzling and paradoxical relations. These models are based on new field mapping and structural, geochronologic, and thermochronologic data from the northern White Hills, Lost Basin Range, and south Wheeler Ridge. The Meadview fault, a previously underappreciated structure, is an east-side-down normal fault that separates the northern Lost Basin Range to the west from south Wheeler Ridge to the east. Proterozoic crystalline rocks of the northern Lost Basin Range yielded an apatite fission-track (AFT) age of 15 Ma, whereas 2 km to the east, across the Meadview fault, crystalline rocks of south Wheeler Ridge yielded a 127 Ma AFT age. Similarly, at the south end of the Lost Basin Range, crystalline rocks with ca. 15 Ma AFT ages lie within 5 km of crystalline rocks of Garnet Mountain that yielded a 68 Ma AFT age across the Grand Wash fault. Neither of these relations can be explained by existing tilted crustal section or tilt-block models. In our “classic” metamorphic core complex model, the Grand Wash fault (breakaway), the Meadview fault, and the South Virgin–White Hills detachment represent different structural levels of a single, regional detachment that was active between ca. 16 and 11 Ma. The hanging wall of the detachment consists of rocks at south Wheeler Ridge, the Paleozoic ridges, and possibly part of the crystalline basement of the Gold Butte block, sedimentary and volcanic rocks in the hanging walls of the Salt Spring and Cyclopic Mine faults, and possibly stranded tilt blocks beneath the Grand Wash Trough supradetachment basin. The footwall, exhumed by subvertical simple shear and characterized by middle Miocene AFT ages, includes the central and western Gold Butte block, Hiller Mountains, and crystalline rocks of the White Hills and the Lost Basin Range. The east-dipping Meadview fault bounds the crystalline core on the east; the west-dipping South Virgin–White Hills detachment bounds the core on the west. Therefore, the Grand Wash fault represents the structurally highest part of the detachment, and the South Virgin–White Hills detachment represents the structurally deepest exposed part of the detachment. In the modified core complex model, the Grand Wash, Meadview, and South Virgin–White Hills detachment faults are separate structures, and the Grand Wash Trough is a “trailing-edge” basin bound on the east by the Grand Wash fault and on the west by the Meadview fault. The South Virgin–White Hills detachment is the main detachment along which extension was accommodated, and the Meadview fault is a major antithetic normal fault that facilitated exhumation of the core at the trailing edge of the detachment system.

New studies of selected basins in the Miocene extensional belt of the northern Lake Mead domain, southern Nevada, suggest refinements on previous models for the early extensional history of the region. Critical data come from (1) the Longwell Ridges area, west of Overton Arm and within the Lake Mead fault system; (2) the Salt Spring Wash Basin, in the hanging wall of the South Virgin Mountains–White Hills detachment fault; and (3) previously studied subbasins of the South Virgin Mountains in the Gold Butte step-over region. Our model focuses on the early history of extension and involves analysis of the lower Horse Spring Formation and correlative strata. The basins and fault patterns suggest two stages of basin development related to two distinct faulting episodes, an early period of detachment faulting, followed by a switch to faulting mainly along the Lake Mead transtensional fault system while detachment faulting waned. Apatite fission-track ages suggest that the footwall block of the detachment fault began cooling at 18–17 Ma. The 18–17 Ma time period appears to be the age of the upper limestone of the Rainbow Gardens Member of the Horse Spring Formation, which is interpreted to be a pre-extensional unit deposited only north of Gold Butte block in the Gold Butte step-over basin, where facies patterns and slow rates of sedimentation make faulting uncertain. The first definite basin stage occurred ca. 16.5–15.5 Ma, during which there was slow to moderate faulting and basin subsidence in a contiguous basin along the South Virgin Mountains–White Hills detachment fault and in the Gold Butte step-over basin; the step-over basin had complex fluvial and lacustrine facies and was synchronous with landslides and debris flows in the basin in the hanging wall of the detachment fault. At ca. 15.5–14.5 Ma, there was a dramatic increase in sedimentation rate related to formation or increased activity on the Gold Butte fault, a change from lacustrine to widespread fluvial, playa, and local landslide facies in the step-over basin, and the peak of exhumation and faulting rates on the detachment fault. The simple early Gold Butte step-over basin broke up into numerous subbasins at ca. 15.5–14.5 Ma as initial faults of the Lake Mead fault system formed. From 14.5 to 14.0 Ma, a major change occurred from dominantly detachment faulting to dominantly transtensional (strike-slip + normal) faulting in the Lake Mead fault system as detachment faulting waned. At this time, the Lake Mead fault system began to propagate to the west, and activity on faults and in subbasins north of Gold Butte slowed or ceased, accompanied by major progradation of alluvial conglomerates over the step-over basin. The geometry of the South Virgin Mountains–White Hills detachment fault that dominated the early Lake Mead extension history fundamentally controlled patterns of faulting and magmatism throughout the rest of the extensional history, even as the detachment faulting itself slowed from 14 to 11 Ma, when it ceased to be active. In a regional view, the detachment faulting in eastern Lake Mead is linked to and forms the northern end of the ca. 20–11 Ma northern Colorado River extension corridor. Similar to the rest of the corridor, faulting and exhumation peaked at 15 Ma, but at the north end of the corridor in eastern Lake Mead, detachment faulting changed rapidly to dominantly transtensional left-lateral faulting of the Lake Mead fault system. Eastern Lake Mead shows evidence for a spatial boundary between the southern and central Basin and Range that is best thought of as a northeast-southwest–trending feature located on numerous older tectonic boundaries. The area also records a temporal change from detachment to transtensional faulting characteristic of the central Basin and Range after 15 Ma.

Scattered remnants of highly diverse stratigraphic sections of Tertiary lacustrine limestone, andesite flows, and 23.8–18.2 Ma regional ash-flow tuffs on the north flank of the Mormon Mountains record previously unrecognized deformation, which we interpret as pre–17 Ma uplift and possibly weak extension on the north flank of a growing dome. Directly to the north of the Mormon dome, 17–14 Ma ash-flow tuffs and rhyolite are interstratified with landslides, debris avalanches, debris flows, and alluvial-fan deposits that accumulated to a thickness of more than 2 km in an extension-parallel basin. The source for the landslides and debris avalanche deposits is unknown, but it was probably an adjacent scarp along a transverse fault bounding an early part of the Mormon dome. An average 45° of easterly tilt of the entire Tertiary basin-fill succession represents the major post–14 Ma deformation event in the region. We question the basis for the published estimate of 22 km of westerly displacement on the Mormon Peak detachment fault and, on the basis of landslides in the upper plate having a probable source in the adjacent Mormon dome, constrain the heave to ~4 km. We interpret the dome and basin as coupled strains similar to others in the region and suggest that these strains reflect a waveform pattern of extension-normal lateral midcrustal ductile flow. Previously, doming was interpreted as an isostatic response to tectonic unloading by large-displacement detachment faults or as pseudo-structural highs stranded by removal of middle crust from adjacent areas. Moreover, we argue that the strong thinning of upper-plate rock successions throughout the Mormon Mountains and Tule Springs Hills resulted from a loss of rock volume by protracted fluid flow, dissolution, and collapse, seriously limiting the usefulness of upper-plate strain in evaluating extension magnitude. We present a geohydrologic model that couples uplift driven by ductile inflow with dissolution driven by fluid infiltration, possibly augmented by mantle-derived CO 2 -rich fluids. Karsting in the uplands led to carbonate sedimentation in adjacent lowlands. Whether or not our downward revision of extension in the Mormon Mountains is valid, extension at that latitude is isolated from extension in the Lake Mead area by a low-strain corridor between the two areas. Recognition of the isolated and potentially diminished strain impacts estimates of maximum finite elongation of the Basin and Range Province because one of three vector paths used in those estimates passes through the Mormon Mountains.

The Lake Mead region contains major Miocene disruptions of structures formed during Mesozoic tectonic shortening. Erosion by the Colorado River and its tributaries has produced exceptional exposures of diverse structures and basin deposits recording the disruptions. Here we provide an overview of the results of studies of these features that started in earnest in 1934 when Chester Longwell began assessing the geology of the reservoir floor prior to impoundment of Lake Mead. The analysis was reinvigorated in the 1970s and early 1980s with geological mapping and structural and stratigraphic studies by Ernie Anderson and Bob Bohannon, as well as geochemical and volcanological studies by Gene Smith and his students, and has culminated in numerous subsequent studies.

Regional stratigraphic units and structural features of the Lake Mead region are presented as a 1:250,000 scale map, and as a Geographic Information System database. The map, which was compiled from existing geologic maps of various scales, depicts geologic units, bedding and foliation attitudes, faults and folds. Units and structural features were generalized to highlight the regional stratigraphic and tectonic aspects of the geology of the Lake Mead region. This map was prepared in support of the papers presented in this volume, Special Paper 463, as well as to facilitate future investigations in the region. Stratigraphic units exposed within the area record 1800 million years of geologic history and include Proterozoic crystalline rocks, Paleozoic and Mesozoic sedimentary rocks, Mesozoic plutonic rocks, Cenozoic volcanic and intrusive rocks, sedimentary rocks and surficial deposits. Following passive margin sedimentation in the Paleozoic and Mesozoic, late Mesozoic (Sevier) thrusting and Late Cretaceous and early Tertiary compression produced major folding, reverse faulting, and thrust faulting in the Basin and Range, and resulted in regional uplift and monoclinal folding in the Colorado Plateau. Cenozoic extensional deformation, accompanied by sedimentation and volcanism, resulted in large-magnitude high- and low-angle normal faulting and strike-slip faulting in the Basin and Range; on the Colorado Plateau, extension produced north-trending high-angle normal faults. The latest history includes integration of the Colorado River system, dissection, development of alluvial fans, extensive pediment surfaces, and young faulting.

The northern Colorado River extensional corridor and Lake Mead region are characterized by prominent gravity and magnetic anomalies that provide insight into the geometry of extensional basins, amount of vertical and strike-slip offset on faults that bound these basins, and composition of major basement blocks. Although large-magnitude extension throughout the extensional corridor and major strike-slip faulting north of Lake Mead have highly disrupted many basins, most of the older basins (middle to late Miocene) are not associated with prominent geophysical anomalies. Instead, the most conspicuous anomalies (e.g., gravity lows) generally correspond to the younger (late Miocene to recent), structurally more coherent basins. Most of the geophysically expressed basins lie north of Lake Mead and are bounded by Quaternary normal and/or strike-slip fault zones. Both Quaternary faults and geophysically conspicuous basins are largely absent south of Lake Mead, where the only prominent gravity low corresponds to a structurally intact basin filled primarily with halite along the less extended, eastern margin of the corridor. Relatively continuous northeast-trending magnetic anomalies south of Lake Mead, presumably caused by Proterozoic basement rocks, suggest that strike-slip displacement is negligible on many of the major normal faults. In contrast, magnetic anomalies are smeared along the Lake Mead fault system and Las Vegas Valley shear zone. Offset anomalies suggest left-lateral displacement of 12–20 km for the Hamblin Bay fault zone, 12–15 km for the Lime Ridge fault, and 12 km on the Gold Butte fault. These values are compatible with or lower than published estimates based on geologic mapping.

The Lake Mead region of northwest Arizona and southeast Nevada contains exceptional exposures of extensional basins and associated normal and strike-slip faults of mainly Miocene age. The Salt Spring Wash Basin is located within the hanging wall of a major detachment fault in the northern White Hills in northwest Arizona, the South Virgin–White Hills detachment fault. The basin is the focus of a detailed basin analysis designed to investigate its three-dimensional structural and stratigraphic evolution in order to determine how a major reentrant in the detachment fault formed. Geochronology and apatite fission-track thermochronology from other studies constrain movement on this detachment fault system to ca. 18–11 Ma, while our study suggests faulting from ca. 16.5 to 11 Ma. Salt Spring Wash Basin consists of variably tilted proximal rock avalanche and alluvial-fan deposits shed from uplifting hanging-wall and predominantly footwall blocks. The basinal strata were deformed during early to middle Miocene faulting on the detachment fault, normal faults, and a faulted rollover fold within the basin. New and existing 40 Ar/ 39 Ar ages on tilted volcanic tuffs and basalt lava flows within the basin strata constrain deposition of these deposits from 15.19 to 10.8 Ma. An apparent lag between the initiation of footwall uplift at 18–17 Ma (based on thermochronology) and basin subsidence at 16.5–16 Ma in the eastern Lake Mead region may be explained by the influences of preexisting paleotopography, or it may be an artifact of lack of exposure of the base of the basin. An early phase of faulting and basin sedimentation from 16.5–16 to 14.6 Ma generated the relief to produce a 500+-m-thick lower section of megabreccia (landslide) and conglomerate (debris flows). Salt Spring Wash Basin experienced relatively high sedimentation rates of 200–600 m/m.y. during its early history. A 14.64 Ma basalt lies at a facies change to 650 m of conglomerate of the middle sequence that was deposited in an alluvial-fan to braid-plain setting. Changes in basin geometry included the development of the reentrant in the northern Salt Spring Wash Basin with the rollover fold at its southern margin. The middle sequence records a significant decrease in sedimentation rates from hundreds of meters per million years to ~60–30 m/m.y., major facies changes, and decreased rate of uplift of footwall rocks. The upper sequence of the basin includes ca. 11–8 Ma basalts interbedded with conglomerate. The ca. 6 Ma lacustrine Hualapai Limestone caps the section and indicates a profound change in sedimentation. The history of the Salt Spring Wash Basin indicates that there was a step-over geometry in the detachment fault that was linked across the southern margin of the reentrant in the basin during deposition of the middle sequence.

In northwestern Arizona, the high-standing, relatively unextended Colorado Plateau abruptly gives way across a system of major west-dipping normal faults to a highly extended part of the Basin and Range province known as the northern Colorado River extensional corridor. The transition from unextended to highly extended upper crust is unusually sharp within this region, contrasting with a broad transition zone elsewhere. The southern White Hills lie near the eastern margin of the extensional corridor in northwestern Arizona and contain a large east-tilted half graben that chronicles Miocene extension and constrains the timing of structural demarcation between the Colorado Plateau and Basin and Range province during Neogene time. This growth-fault basin is bounded on the east by the west-dipping Cyclopic and Cerbat Mountains fault zones. Greater tilts in the hanging walls suggest that these faults have listric geometries. The stratigraphy in the half graben consists of Miocene vol canic rocks intercalated with an eastward-thickening wedge of synextensional fanglomerates. Tilts in the Miocene units decrease up section from ~75° to 5°. Recent 40 Ar/ 39 Ar dating (11 new dates) of variably tilted volcanic rocks in the growth-fault basin and regional relations constrain the timing of east-west extension between ca. 16.6 and <9 Ma, with peak extension from ca. 16.6 to 15.2 Ma. Capping 8.7 Ma basalts are tilted 5°–10° and record the waning stages of extension. Thus, the sharp boundary between the Colorado Plateau and Basin and Range began developing by ca. 16.5 Ma and has changed little since ca. 9 Ma. Major extension and basin development significantly lowered base level within the extensional corridor and induced headward erosion into the western margin of the Colorado Plateau, which ultimately facilitated development of the western Grand Canyon. Abundant clasts of 1.7 Ga megacrystic granite in the eastward-thickening fanglomerates within the growth-fault basin suggest a partial provenance from the Garnet Mountain area along or near the western margin of the Colorado Plateau beginning as early as ca. 16 Ma and continuing to ca. 9 Ma.

The Oligocene-Miocene Horse Spring Formation consists of sedimentary strata that record the onset and evolution of Miocene extensional tectonics in the Lake Mead region. The sedimentary basins of this formation hold critical clues for evaluating and testing competing models that attempt to explain the tectonic evolution of this important part of the Basin and Range. Detailed sedimentology, stratigraphy, isotope geochem istry, and new geochronology of carbonates of the Horse Spring Formation shed light on the details of middle Miocene depositional systems and provide important paleoclimatic and paleotopographic data that further our understanding of the geological evolution of this area. We investigated four carbonate sections in detail, two from the Bitter Ridge Limestone Member (Slot Canyon section, near the Gale Hills, and the West Longwell section, at the Bitter Ridge), one from the Thumb Member (East Longwell section, near the Bitter Ridge), and one from the Rainbow Gardens Member (Rainbow Gardens Recreation Area section), to understand the evolution of carbonate lake systems, to extricate paleoclimatic from tectonic signals in the sedimentary record, and to develop a more clear picture of the evolution of Horse Spring sedimentary basins. New 40 Ar/ 39 Ar dates from the Bitter Ridge Limestone, combined with dates in the published literature, suggest that the Bitter Ridge Lake may have evolved time-transgressively from the White Basin area in the east to the Rainbow Gardens area in the west. Possibly contemporaneous with this evolution, the lake gradually shifted from an open to a closed lake system, most likely due to tectonic partitioning of the basin or the creation of a tectonic sill that cut off the overflow for the lake. Stable isotope and lithofacies analyses provide one of the first detailed proxy records of paleoclimate for the Miocene of the Basin and Range and show strong evidence for an orbitally forced climate signal that represents changes in the precipitation/evaporation ratio for the Bitter Ridge Lake system. Because we can effectively show a climatic signal in the Bitter Ridge Limestone units over 100 k.y. and, likely, 40 k.y. time cycles, longer time-scale shifts in isotopic ratios are more likely due to tectonic processes. Based on a strong negative shift in oxygen isotopic ratios, previous researchers have suggested that the Lake Mead region experienced an increase in paleoelevation during Horse Spring time, while the remainder of the central Basin and Range to the north experienced a decrease in elevation for the same time period. Our data, when compared with data from the Pliocene Hualapai Limestone and those presented by previous researchers, appear to constrain the timing of this isotopic shift to between 15 and 13 Ma, coincident with the timing of the onset of rapid extension in this part of the Basin and Range. We hypothesize that this isotopic shift was due not to a change in paleoelevation due to magmatic activity alone, but was influenced by either (1) longer travel distances of air masses and the development of increased topographic corrugation as the Lake Mead region experienced accelerated rates of extension or (2) drainage reorganization of the early Colorado Plateau and the infusion of isotopically lighter waters from this emergent source.

The provenance and stratigraphic architecture of basin-filling Miocene sediments around the Gold Butte area, southern Nevada, and adjacent highlands record the erosion of fault blocks that progressively tilted during extension. This study focuses especially on upper Miocene correlatives of the red sandstone unit and the Muddy Creek Formation that were deposited during waning stages of extension. Upper parts of the underlying middle Miocene Horse Spring Formation are also addressed. The large east-tilted South Virgin–White Hills block, including the Gold Butte block, was the primary source of coarse detritus into the adjacent half-graben basins on both sides. Voluminous, very coarse-grained sediments were shed eastward down the back slope of this tilt block into the Grand Wash Trough. This suggests that there were large middle and late Miocene catchments on that side of the block, possibly inherited from a gentler dip slope early in the tilting history. The block uplifted and tilted during slip on the west-dipping South Virgin–White Hills normal fault that bounds the west side of the block. Its exposed footwall shed coarse-grained debris to the west. While the fault was active, this debris included rock-avalanche megabreccias. Longitudinal transport of coarse-grained sediment also occurred along the axes of basins on both sides of the block. In the late Miocene, fault death at ca. 10 Ma followed rotation of the South Virgin–White Hills fault, and the along-strike Quail Spring fault, from initial dips >55° to dips <30°. This cessation of faulting coincided with and likely caused an eastward shift in locus of faulting to the steeper Wheeler fault system. Coarse sediment shed from the South Virgin–White Hills tilt block gradually declined as deformation waned and limestone-rich sedimentation expanded onto the basin margins against the block. Where the rising sedimentary fills eventually bridged across the block and connected basins on either side, these bridge sites served to focus later integrated regional drainage—the Pliocene Colorado River. Progressive Miocene tilting of the highland block would have broadened its structural footwall on the west and narrowed its east-dipping back slope. Migration of the drainage divide by erosion and piracy, influenced by changing tilt slopes, can explain the modern position of the divide in the Gold Butte block as one that separates drainage roughly equally down the two sides.

The central Basin and Range of the southwestern United States is known for large-magnitude Cenozoic extension and a unique combination of normal and major strike-slip faults. The Lake Mead region constitutes the eastern portion of this domain and has been the site of numerous mapping and detailed structural studies, which have led to several models explaining the complex faulting and folding of the region, as well as the tectonic drivers of this deformation. The syntectonic basin fill of the Oligocene-Miocene Horse Spring Formation records a considerable portion of this deformation. A more detailed understanding of the Horse Spring Formation is important to determining the deformation history of the area and to constraining regional tectonic reconstructions. In this study, we present results of detailed mapping and stratigraphic analyses of the Lower Horse Spring Formation in the Longwell Ridges area, Nevada. Detailed measured sections combined with 1:5,000 scale mapping allow us to recognize and document lithofacies and their detailed architecture within the Lower Horse Spring Formation and highlight the extreme lateral and vertical facies changes within this portion of the formation. New 40 Ar/ 39 Ar ages and volcanic ash geochemical data support these analyses. These data record deposition within a range of environments, including alluvial-fan, lacustrine, and fluvial settings. Deposition occurred within an asymmetric basin with a main bounding fault lying east of the modern Overton Arm of Lake Mead. Activity on this fault began around 17 Ma and increased significantly at ca. 15.5 Ma.

The McCullough Range preserves a unique record of Miocene volcanism in the western Lake Mead area of Nevada. The basal part of the volcanic section is composed of interbedded basalt and dacite of the McClanahan Spring, Cactus Hill, and McCullough Wash volcanoes (Eldorado Valley volcanic section), and the Colony volcano, which is age-equivalent to, but does not crop out within, the Eldorado Valley volcanic section (18.5–15.2 Ma). These units lie on Precambrian basement and locally on the Peach Springs Tuff (18.5 Ma). Over 400 m of andesite lava, agglomerate, and breccia of the Farmer Canyon volcanic section forms the McCullough stratovolcano. Eruptions occurring after 15.2 Ma were lower in volume and are mainly present on the flanks of the McCullough stratovolcano. These include the eruption of (1) the McCullough Pass caldera and outflow tuff (14.1 Ma), (2) Hidden Valley andesite, including 300 m of andesite lavas erupted from local centers (mainly cinder cones), (3) four Sloan volcanoes on the west flank of the McCullough stratovolcano (Mount Ian, Mount Sutor, Center Mountain, and Mount Hanna) (13.1 Ma), and (4) the Hender son dome complex on the northern flank of the McCullough stratovolcano. The volcanic rocks in the McCullough Range are calc-alkaline and vary in composition from rhyolite to basalt. Intermediate compositions (andesite and dacite) prevail, while basalt and rhyolite are rare. The trace-element signature (low Nb, Ti, Zr, and P compared to primitive mantle) is an indication of either a magma source in the continental lithosphere or lithospheric contamination. Rhyolite and dacite probably formed by partial melting of crust, while mafic magmas (basalt and andesite) either originated by melting of lithospheric mantle or reflect asthenospheric magmas contaminated in the lithosphere.

The Lost Basin Range in the eastern Lake Mead domain consists of Proterozoic rocks that bound the west side of the Grand Wash Trough. Exhumation of the Proterozoic rocks of the Lost Basin Range occurred from ca. 18 to 15 Ma based on seven apatite fission-track ages that range from 20 to 15 Ma. The Lost Basin Range fault lies along the west side of the Lost Basin Range and steps to the east to the southern end of the Wheeler fault, which then runs north for 60 km, where it joins the Grand Wash fault. The geometry of the southern Wheeler–Lost Basin Range fault system is that of a relay ramp between two, west-dipping, high-angle normal faults. The intervening area of the fault step over, Gregg Basin, is interpreted as a relay ramp basin. New interpreted ages from stratigraphic units on the north and east sides of the Lost Basin Range integrated with existing structural data from the eastern Lake Mead domain reveal that faulting, sedimentation, and tilting of hanging-wall and footwall blocks along the southern Wheeler–Lost Basin Range fault system began by 15.3 Ma. Sedimentation continued until after 13 Ma along the southeastern Lost Basin Range, while the age of continuing sedimentation in Gregg Basin is poorly constrained. A paleocanyon in the footwall of the southern Wheeler fault filled with conglomerate and minor breccia between ca. 15.3 and ca. 14 Ma and then overtopped to the south to cover the Paleozoic rocks of south Wheeler Ridge. The Paleozoic strata of the south Wheeler Ridge area tilted east 20°–30° more than the Miocene strata that overlie them, and therefore this tilting occurred before ca. 14 Ma. Upward-decreasing (fanning) bedding attitudes in the overlapping Miocene conglomerate indicate that Paleozoic strata were being tilted along with the Miocene strata by ca. 14 Ma. Gentle (5° and less) east dips in the lower beds of the Hualapai Limestone above and east of the paleocanyon suggest that most tilting in the western Grand Wash Trough ceased by ca. 11 Ma. The lower conglomerate of Gregg Basin lies below, and interfingers with, the limestone of Gregg Basin, which is undated but correlates with the 11–7 Ma Hualapai Limestone in the adjacent Grand Wash Trough. The syncline in upper Gregg Basin strata is linked spatially to the Wheeler and Lost Basin Range faults and indicates that these faults were likely active at 11–7 Ma. The two faults appear to cut the Gregg Basin limestone, and therefore post–7 Ma fault activity at lower rates is likely.

The Lake Mead fault system is a northeast-striking, 130-km-long zone of left-slip in the southeast Great Basin, active from before 16 Ma to Quaternary time. The northeast end of the Lake Mead fault system in the Virgin Mountains of southeast Nevada and northwest Arizona forms a partitioned strain field comprising kinematically linked northeast-striking left-lateral faults, north-striking normal faults, and northwest-striking right-lateral faults. Major faults bound large structural blocks whose internal strain reflects their position within a left step-over of the left-lateral faults. Two north-striking large-displacement normal faults, the Lakeside Mine segment of the South Virgin–White Hills detachment fault and the Piedmont fault, intersect the left step-over from the southwest and northeast, respectively. The left step-over in the Lake Mead fault system therefore corresponds to a right-step in the regional normal fault system. Within the left step-over, displacement transfer between the left-lateral faults and linked normal faults occurs near their junctions, where the left-lateral faults become oblique and normal fault displacement decreases away from the junction. Southward from the center of the step-over in the Virgin Mountains, down-to-the-west normal faults splay northward from left-lateral faults, whereas north and east of the center, down-to-the-east normal faults splay southward from left-lateral faults. Minimum slip is thus in the central part of the left step-over, between east-directed slip to the north and west-directed slip to the south. Attenuation faults parallel or subparallel to bedding cut Lower Paleozoic rocks and are inferred to be early structures that accommodated footwall uplift during the initial stages of extension. Fault-slip data indicate oblique extensional strain within the left step-over in the South Virgin Mountains, manifested as east-west extension; shortening is partitioned between vertical for extension-dominated structural blocks and south-directed for strike-slip faults. Strike-slip faults are oblique to the extension direction due to structural inheritance from NE-striking fabrics in Proterozoic crystalline basement rocks. We hypothesize that (1) during early phases of deformation oblique extension was partitioned to form east-west–extended domains bounded by left-lateral faults of the Lake Mead fault system, from ca. 16 to 14 Ma. (2) Beginning ca. 13 Ma, increased south-directed shortening impinged on the Virgin Mountains and forced uplift, faulting, and overturning along the north and west side of the Virgin Mountains. (3) By ca. 10 Ma, initiation of the younger Hen Spring to Hamblin Bay fault segment of the Lake Mead fault system accommodated westward tectonic escape, and the focus of south-directed shortening transferred to the western Lake Mead region. The shift from early partitioned oblique extension to south-directed shortening may have resulted from initiation of right-lateral shear of the eastern Walker Lane to the west coupled with left-lateral shear along the eastern margin of the Great Basin.

Three major low-angle normal faults in the eastern Lake Mead area, Nevada and Arizona, are segments of a regional, 55-km-long, detachment fault. This fault, the South Virgin–White Hills detachment, consists of the Lakeside Mine, Salt Spring, and Cyclopic Mine fault segments. All three segments dip gently west and record top-to-the-west displacement. Based on apatite fission-track and apatite and titanite (U-Th)/He thermochronology of footwall rocks, tilt relations, and 40 Ar/ 39 Ar dates on tuffs and basalts within hanging-wall synextensional sedimentary sequences, significant extension along the South Virgin–White Hills detachment occurred between 16.5 and 14 Ma. Minor extension continued until ca. 8 Ma. Displacement on the South Virgin–White Hills detachment decreases from a maximum of ~17 km at the Gold Butte block in the north to 5–6 km at the Cyclopic Mine in the south. The along-strike, southward decrease in displacement is accompanied by a change in type of fault rock from mylonite along the Lakeside Mine fault (northern segment), to chloritic cataclasite along the Salt Spring fault (central segment), to unconsolidated fault breccia along the Cyclopic Mine fault (southern segment). Differences in fault rock may reflect decreasing exhumation of footwall rocks as a result of decreased displacement to the south. About 40% of the displacement gradient can be accommodated along a series of left-slip faults in the upper plate of the detachment. The Golden Rule Peak lineament, an east-trending alignment of structural and topographic features, may be a transverse structure that accommodates differential displacement between the Salt Spring and Cyclopic Mine faults. The trace of the South Virgin–White Hills detachment is highly sinuous in map view and is marked by three prominent salients that define west-plunging antiformal warps in the detachment surface. We interpret the corrugations in the South Virgin–White Hills detachment to have formed by a process of linkage of originally separate en echelon fault segments followed by eastward tilting of the footwall. Depositional patterns, particularly between the Lakeside Mine and Salt Spring segments, support this interpretation. The Grand Wash fault forms the present-day physiographic boundary between the Colorado Plateau and the Basin and Range Provinces; however, based on greater amount of displacement and exhumation, we suggest that the South Virgin–White Hills detachment is the principal structure accommodating regional extension in the eastern Lake Mead extensional domain.

The hypothesized presence of a detachment underlying the Lake Mead region has created a dichotomy in the interpretations of the roles of strike-slip faults of the Lake Mead fault system in accommodating regional deformation. Our detailed field mapping reveals a previously unnamed left-lateral strike-slip segment of the Lake Mead fault system and a dense cluster of dominantly west-dipping and related normal faults located near Pinto Ridge. We suggest that the strike-slip fault that we refer to as the Pinto Ridge fault: (1) was kinematically related to the Bitter Spring Valley fault; (2) was responsible for the creation of the normal fault cluster at Pinto Ridge; and (3) utilized these normal faults as linking structures between separate strike-slip fault segments to create a longer, through-going fault. Results from numerical models demonstrate that the observed location and curving strike patterns of the normal fault cluster are consistent with the faults having formed as secondary structures as the result of the perturbed stress field around the slipping Pinto Ridge fault, regardless of whether or not the Pinto Ridge fault merges into a regional detachment at depth. Calculations of mechanical efficiency of various normal fault geometries within extending terranes suggest that a preferred west dip of normal faults likely reflects a west-dipping anisotropy at depth, such as a detachment. The apparent terminations of numerous strike-slip faults of the Lake Mead fault system into west-dipping normal faults suggest that a west-dipping detachment may be regionally coherent.

Abstract This field trip will visit the River Mountains volcanic section (12.17 ± 0.02 to 13.45 ± 0.02 Ma) and Wilson Ridge pluton (13.10 ± 0.11 Ma) in southern Nevada and northwestern Arizona. Although this volcanic-plutonic system was disrupted by the Saddle Island detachment fault during Miocene crustal extension, there are convincing lithological, mineralogical, geochemical and geochronological indicators that suggest a cogenetic relationship. The trip consists of 17 stops that emphasize evidence that links the volcanic and plutonic sections. In addition we will visit the Saddle Island detachment fault at its type locality on Saddle Island.