Field Guide to Plutons, Volcanoes, Faults, Reefs, Dinosaurs, and Possible Glaciation in Selected Areas of Arizona, California, and Nevada
This guidebook, prepared in conjunction with the 2008 joint meeting of the GSA Cordilleran and Rocky Mountain Sections, contains background information and road logs for eleven field trips in Nevada, Arizona, and California. Southern Nevada and adjoining areas contain a rich geologic history spanning the interval from the Paleoproterozoic to the present. Las Vegas lies at or near several critical geological junctures and localities including the structural boundary between the Colorado Plateau and Basin and Range, the physiographic boundary between the Great Basin and the southern Basin and Range, the eastern margin of the Sevier fold-and-thrust belt, the tectonically active Death Valley area, tilted and faulted volcanic-plutonic systems exposing the upper part of the crust, and the enigmatic “amagmatic zone.” With guides in this volume spanning the geologic record from the Ediacaran (late Neoproterozoic) to the Holocene, covering ground from the middle crust to the surface, and looking at topics from tectonics to paleontology, volcanism to glaciation, this volume offers something for everyone.
Active tectonics of the eastern California shear zone
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Published:January 01, 2008
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CiteCitation
Kurt L. Frankel, Allen F. Glazner, Eric Kirby, Francis C. Monastero, Michael D. Strane, Michael E. Oskin, Jeffrey R. Unruh, J. Douglas Walker, Sridhar Anandakrishnan, John M. Bartley, Drew S. Coleman, James F. Dolan, Robert C. Finkel, Dave Greene, Andrew Kylander-Clark, Shasta Marrero, Lewis A. Owen, Fred Phillips, 2008. "Active tectonics of the eastern California shear zone", Field Guide to Plutons, Volcanoes, Faults, Reefs, Dinosaurs, and Possible Glaciation in Selected Areas of Arizona, California, and Nevada, Ernest M. Duebendorfer, Eugene I. Smith
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Abstract
The eastern California shear zone is an important component of the Pacific–North America plate boundary. This region of active, predominantly strike-slip, deformation east of the San Andreas fault extends from the southern Mojave Desert along the east side of the Sierra Nevada and into western Nevada. The eastern California shear zone is thought to accommodate nearly a quarter of relative plate motion between the Pacific and North America plates. Recent studies in the region, utilizing innovative methods ranging from cosmogenic nuclide geochronology, airborne laser swath mapping, and ground penetrating radar to geologic mapping, geochemistry, and U-Pb, 40Ar/39Ar, and (U-Th)/He geochronology, are helping elucidate slip rate and displacement histories for many of the major structures that comprise the eastern California shear zone. This field trip includes twelve stops along the Lenwood, Garlock, Owens Valley, and Fish Lake Valley faults, which are some of the primary focus areas for new research. Trip participants will explore a rich record of the spatial and temporal evolution of the eastern California shear zone from 83 Ma to the late Holocene through observations of offset alluvial deposits, lava flows, key stratigraphic markers, and igneous intrusions, all of which are deformed as a result of recurring seismic activity. Discussion will focus on the constancy (or non-constancy) of strain accumulation and release, the function of the Garlock fault in accommodating deformation in the region, total cumulative displacement and timing of offset on faults, the various techniques used to determine fault displacements and slip rates, and the role of the eastern California shear zone as a nascent segment of the Pacific–North America plate boundary.
- accommodation zones
- Basin and Range Province
- California
- Cenozoic
- Clark County Nevada
- Eastern California shear zone
- faults
- field trips
- Garlock Fault
- guidebook
- Inyo County California
- neotectonics
- Nevada
- North America
- North American Plate
- Nye County Nevada
- outcrops
- Owens Valley
- Pacific Plate
- plate boundaries
- plate tectonics
- road log
- San Andreas Fault
- San Bernardino County California
- shear zones
- slip rates
- strain
- tectonics
- United States
- Lenwood Fault
- Fish Lake valley