Mid-Tertiary structural evolution of the Old Woman Mountains area: Implications for crustal extension across southeastern California
- Vanderbilt Univ., Nashville, TN (United States)
- Vanderbilt Univ., Nashville, TN (United States) Univ. of Texas, El Paso (United States)
The Old Woman Mountains area is a moderately extended region that lies between two highly extended terranes, the Central Mojave Extensional Complex and the Colorado River Extensional Corridor. Two normal faults and a high-angle fault that the authors interpret to be a transfer structure divide the area into four distinct structural blocks. These blocks correspond to the four mountain ranges of the area: the Old Woman, Piute, Little Piute, and Ship mountains. Other major faults involved in tilting are inferred to be buried beneath alluvium in surrounding valleys. Deformation occurred in part before, but primarily after, deposition of the Peach Springs Tuff, an 18.5 Ma regional stratigraphic marker. Transport directions of hanging walls are westward on the west side of the Old Woman Mountains area and east-southeastward on the east side. The authors suggest that the Old Woman Mountains area is a less extended portion of a continuous extensional terrane that stretches from the central Mojave Desert across the Colorado River to the transition zone of the Colorado Plateau. Lower strain in the Old Woman Mountains area than in most of the Colorado River Extensional Corridor and Central Mojave Extensional Complex and age relations across the terrane can be explained by a model in which the principal locus of upper crustal breakaway to an east dipping low-angle simple shear zone shifted at about 18-20 Ma from a position far to the west to just east of the Old Woman Mountains area.
- OSTI ID:
- 5073933
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Geophysical Research; (United States), Vol. 95:B1; ISSN 0148-0227
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Mesozoic and Cenozoic thermal history of the eastern Mojave Desert, California and western Arizona, with emphasis on the Old Woman Mountains area and the Chemehuevi metamorphic core complex
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Related Subjects
CALIFORNIA
GEOLOGIC FORMATIONS
TECTONICS
BASEMENT ROCK
CONTINENTAL CRUST
DEFORMATION
DEPOSITION
DESERTS
GEOLOGIC FAULTS
GEOLOGIC HISTORY
GEOLOGIC MODELS
GEOLOGIC STRUCTURES
MOUNTAINS
STRATIGRAPHY
TUFF
ARID LANDS
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
EARTH CRUST
FEDERAL REGION IX
GEOLOGIC FRACTURES
GEOLOGY
NORTH AMERICA
USA
580000* - Geosciences