Geologic Excursions in Southwestern North America
This volume, prepared as part of the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting in Phoenix, includes field guides covering aspects of the spectacular geology of southwestern North America. Field guides tackle the geology of the southern Colorado Plateau, from paleoenvironments of Petrified Forest National Park, to Jurassic sand dunes of southern Utah, to the San Francisco Volcanic Field, to awesome Grand Canyon. Appropriately for the 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing, one trip visits sites in northern Arizona that helped prepare astronauts for their missions. Several guides address aspects of the Proterozoic to Cenozoic tectonic development of the Transition Zone between the Colorado Plateau and the Basin and Range. Exploring the Basin and Range, guides feature Laramide tectonism and ore deposit development, features associated with large-magnitude Cenozoic extensional tectonism, large Miocene volcanic centers in northwestern Arizona, and tectonism and development of the lower Colorado River. Three field guides explore various aspects of northwestern Mexico, including tectonics and ore deposits of Sonora, fauna and paleoenvironments of Colorado River delta deposits, and volcanism in central Baja California. Finally, a guide analyzes anthropogenic earth fissures that have developed in the Phoenix metropolitan area.
Field-trip guide to the Catalina-Rincon metamorphic core complex, Tucson, Arizona
-
Published:September 04, 2019
ABSTRACT
The Santa Catalina and Rincon Mountains north and east of Tucson, Arizona, form one of the largest core complexes on Earth. Both ranges consist primarily of Eocene leucogranites that intrude Proterozoic and late Cretaceous granitoids, and two Oligocene plutons. Mylonitic fabrics are well developed on the southern flank of the Santa Catalina Mountains and the southwestern flank of the Rincon Mountains. The corrugated form of the two ranges reflects the grooved form of the ca. 15–30 Ma Catalina–San Pedro detachment fault exposed primarily at the foot of the ranges. Normal displacement on two younger high-angle normal faults is responsible for much of the substantial relief of the ranges. This field guide is focused on fault rocks and mylonitic fabrics in the footwalls of the detachment fault and the high-angle Pirate normal fault, and includes description and analysis of shear-zone kinematics and processes, U-Pb geochronology of leucogranites, and core-complex geomorphology.
- Arizona
- Cenozoic
- Cretaceous
- detachment faults
- faults
- field trips
- geochronology
- guidebook
- intrusions
- kinematics
- Mesozoic
- metamorphic core complexes
- normal faults
- Oligocene
- Paleogene
- Pima County Arizona
- plutons
- Precambrian
- Proterozoic
- Rincon Mountains
- Santa Catalina Mountains
- shear zones
- Tertiary
- Tucson Arizona
- U/Pb
- United States
- upper Precambrian