Fault Slip Transfer in the Eastern California Shear Zone-Walker Lane Belt

“The Eastern California Shear Zone and Walker Lane Belt define a broad zone of active deformation that straddles the boundary between dominantly east-west extension in the Basin and Range province and dominantly NW-dextral shear directed along the Pacific North American plate boundary to the west (Fig. 1). The interaction between extension and transcurrent shear has resulted in a complex array of NW-striking dextral faults, NW-striking and NE-striking normal faults, and ENE-striking sinistral faults that accommodate intraplate strain east of the Sierra Nevada and into western Nevada.

This field trip guide will focus on the kinematics of faulting across an extensional relay zone from the northern Eastern California Shear Zone into the southern Walker Lane Belt. We will review evidence for active dextral slip along the NW-striking White Mountains fault zone, normal slip along the NE-striking Queen Valley fault, and sinistral slip along the ENE-striking Coaldale fault, and the kinematics of fault slip transfer from one fault system to another (Fig. 3).”