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.
The Spirit Mountain batholith and Secret Pass Canyon volcanic center: A cross-sectional view of the magmatic architecture of the uppermost crust of an extensional terrain, Colorado River, Nevada-Arizona
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Published:January 01, 2008
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CiteCitation
Nicholas P. Lang, B.J. Walker, Lily L. Claiborne, Calvin F. Miller, Richard W. Hazlett, Matthew T. Heizler, 2008. "The Spirit Mountain batholith and Secret Pass Canyon volcanic center: A cross-sectional view of the magmatic architecture of the uppermost crust of an extensional terrain, Colorado River, Nevada-Arizona", 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
Extreme extension along the Colorado River has exposed the shallow to mid-crustal Spirit Mountain batholith and the roots of the roughly coeval Secret Pass Canyon volcanic center. Examination of the Spirit Mountain batholith reveals evidence for multiple replenishment and rejuvenation over a two million year period (ca. 17.5−15.3 Ma), with extensive coarse cumulate granites and leucogranite (high-silica rhyolites) sheets, mafic-felsic mingling and mixing, and a major dike swarm. The roots of the possibly related Secret Pass Canyon volcanic center comprise a large, very shallow, composite laccolith and smaller dikes, sills, and a volcanic neck. The volcanic sequence was emplaced within about a one million year period (ca. 18.5–17.3 Ma) and includes volcanogenic sediments, ignimbrites, domes, and block-and-ash flow deposits. An appended road log serves as a geologic guide to this magmatic region.
- Arizona
- Basin and Range Province
- batholiths
- Cenozoic
- Clark County Nevada
- Colorado River
- crust
- dike swarms
- emplacement
- extension
- field trips
- granites
- guidebook
- igneous rocks
- intrusions
- magma chambers
- magmas
- magmatism
- Miocene
- Mohave County Arizona
- Neogene
- Nevada
- North America
- outcrops
- plutonic rocks
- pyroclastics
- road log
- Tertiary
- United States
- upper crust
- volcanic centers
- volcanic features
- volcanic rocks
- Spirit Mountain
- Secret Pass Canyon