Field Excursions from Las Vegas, Nevada: Guides to the 2022 GSA Cordilleran and Rocky Mountain Joint Section Meeting
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Prepared in conjunction with the 2022 GSA Cordilleran/Rocky Mountain Sections Joint Meeting, this Field Guide showcases trips to geologically interesting areas in Arizona, Nevada, and California. Enjoy a three-day trip to the Buckskin-Rawhide and northern Plomosa Mountains metamorphic core complexes in Arizona. In Nevada, learn about the geology of Frenchman Mountain and Rainbow Gardens and landslide deposits and mechanisms in the eastern Spring Mountains. Or learn about microbialites in Miocene and modern lakes near Las Vegas. When weather permits, unravel the geological history of southern Death Valley, and explore vertebrate paleontology and Cenozoic depositional environments in Death Valley, California.
Unraveling the multi-phase history of southern Death Valley geology
*Emails: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
*Emails: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
*Emails: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
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Published:March 14, 2022
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CiteCitation
Zachariah Fleming*, Terry Pavlis*, Ghislain Trullenque*, 2022. "Unraveling the multi-phase history of southern Death Valley geology", Field Excursions from Las Vegas, Nevada: Guides to the 2022 GSA Cordilleran and Rocky Mountain Joint Section Meeting, Ganqing Jiang, Carol Dehler
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ABSTRACT
This field trip is designed to highlight recent findings in regard to the tectonic history of the southern Death Valley region. During the first day, stops will take place in the Ibex Hills and adjacent Ibex Pass area. These stops were chosen to emphasize recent work that supports multiple phases of extension in the region, and is recorded by the interactions of complexly overprinted normal faults. Mapping of the Ibex Hills revealed an older set of normal faults that have a down-to-the-SW sense of movement and are cross-cut by down-to-the-NW style normal faults. Additionally, the Ibex Pass basin poses a number of questions regarding its stratigraphy and how it relates to the timing and kinematics of the region. Multiple stops within the basin will show the variation of volcanic and sedimentary units across Ibex Pass. The second day of the field trip is focused more so on the more recent transtensional and strike-slip history of southern Death Valley. In particular, recent mapping has correlated features in the Avawatz and Owlshead Mountains that indicate ~40k m of offset along the Southern Death Valley Fault Zone (SDVFZ). Stops will take place along traces of the SDVFZ in the Avawatz Mountains and the Noble Hills. The final stop of the trip is in the Mormon Point turtleback, where the implications of the SDVFZ offset are discussed, alongside the metamorphic rocks at the stop, suggesting the restoration of the Panamint Range partially atop the Black Mountains.
- Avawatz Mountains
- basement
- Black Mountains
- California
- Cambrian
- Death Valley
- extension
- extension tectonics
- faults
- field trips
- igneous rocks
- Inyo County California
- Johnnie Formation
- kinematics
- Kingston Peak Formation
- Lower Cambrian
- Neoproterozoic
- Noonday Dolomite
- normal faults
- Paleozoic
- Panamint Range
- Precambrian
- Proterozoic
- road log
- San Bernardino County California
- sedimentary rocks
- Stirling Quartzite
- tectonics
- transtension
- United States
- upper Precambrian
- volcanic rocks
- Wood Canyon Formation
- Zabriskie Quartzite
- Ibex Hills
- Ibex Pass
- Mormon Point
- Owlshead Mountains
- turtlebacks
- southern Death Valley
- Noble Hills
- Southern Death Valley Fault