Regional Geology of Mount Diablo, California: Its Tectonic Evolution on the North America Plate Boundary
Mount Diablo and the geology of the Central California Coast Ranges are the subject of a volume celebrating the Northern California Geological Society’s 75th anniversary. The breadth of research illustrates the complex Mesozoic to Cenozoic tectonic evolution of the plate boundary. Recent faulting and folding along the eastern edge of the San Andreas system have exposed in the mountain a core of Franciscan accretionary wedge complex faulted against Cretaceous and Cenozoic forearc strata. The Memoir includes papers on structure, stratigraphy, tephrochronology, zircon provenance studies, apatite fission track analyses, and foraminifera and calcareous plankton assemblages tied to Cenozoic climate events. Chapters also address the history of geologic work in the area and the resource development of oil and gas, mercury, coal, and sand, and road aggregate.
Geologic framework of Mount Diablo, California
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Published:September 27, 2021
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CiteCitation
R.W. Graymer*, V.E. Langenheim, 2021. "Geologic framework of Mount Diablo, California", Regional Geology of Mount Diablo, California: Its Tectonic Evolution on the North America Plate Boundary, Raymond Sullivan, Doris Sloan, Jeffrey R. Unruh, David P. Schwartz
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ABSTRACT
The basic stratigraphic and structural framework of Mount Diablo is described using a revised geologic map, gravity data, and aeromagnetic data. The mountain is made up of two distinct stratigraphic assemblages representing different depocenters that were juxtaposed by ~20 km of late Pliocene and Quaternary right-lateral offset on the Greenville-Diablo-Concord fault. Both assemblages are composed of Cretaceous and Cenozoic strata overlying a compound basement made up of the Franciscan and Great Valley complexes. The rocks are folded and faulted by late Neogene and Quaternary compressional structures related to both regional plate-boundary–normal compression and a restraining step in the strike-slip fault system. The core of the mountain is made up of uplifted basement rocks. Late Neogene and Quaternary deformation is overprinted on Paleogene extensional deformation that is evidenced at Mount Diablo by significant attenuation in the basement rocks and by an uptilted stepped graben structure on the northeast flank. Retrodeformation of the northeast flank suggests that late Early to early Late Cretaceous strata may have been deposited against and across a steeply west-dipping basement escarpment. The location of the mountain today was a depocenter through the Late Cretaceous and Paleogene and received shallow-marine deposits periodically into the late Miocene. Uplift of the mountain itself happened mostly in the Quaternary.
- basement
- California
- Cenozoic
- Coast Range Ophiolite
- Contra Costa County California
- Cretaceous
- faults
- folds
- Franciscan Complex
- gravity anomalies
- Great Valley Sequence
- Jurassic
- magnetic anomalies
- mapping
- Mesozoic
- Miocene
- Neogene
- normal faults
- Paleogene
- Pleistocene
- Pliocene
- Quaternary
- regional anomalies
- reverse faults
- Salinian Block
- San Andreas Fault
- San Francisco Bay region
- sequence stratigraphy
- stratigraphic units
- strike-slip faults
- Tertiary
- thrust faults
- United States
- Upper Cretaceous
- upper Miocene
- Mount Diablo
- Knoxville Formation
- Meganos Formation
- Domengine Formation
- Tehama Formation
- Livermore Basin
- Cierbo Sandstone
- Tassajara Formation
- Neroly Sandstone
- Green Valley Formation
- Markley Sandstone
- Kirker Tuff
- Oro Loma Formation