Abstract
Mid-Miocene to Pliocene (11 to 6 Ma) displacement on the shallowly northwest- dipping Silver Peak-Lone Mountain detachment system transferred 30 to 40 km of right slip from the Furnace Creek transcurrent fault 85 km east-northeast to the central Walker Lane strike-slip faults. Top-to-the-northwest slip on the detachment was accompanied by upper-plate extension on steeply dipping faults and large-scale exhumation of midcrustal rocks of the lower-plate complex. Doubly plunging, northwest-trending folds (turtleback structures) control the outcrop distribution of the extensional complex and formed in response to simple shear of the footwall complex. Activity on the detachment ceased as Miocene- Pliocene (6-4.8 Ma) volcanic rocks were erupted and deformed during the final stage of northwest-trending folding. Late Pliocene to Holocene displacement transfer shifted north to a curved array of steeply dipping faults that may be underlain by a shallowly northwest-dipping detachment.
