Tectonic problems revisited: The eastern terminus of the Miocene Garlock fault and the amount of slip on the southern Death Valley fault zone
- Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA (United States). Dept. of Geological Sciences
- Massachusetts Inst. of Tech., Cambridge, MA (United States). Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science
Prior to 1973, the eastern end of the sinistral Garlock fault (GF) was generally assumed to lie at its junction with the southern Death Valley fault zone (SDVFZ). Although there seems little doubt that the Quaternary GF ends there in a complicated zone of interaction with the dextral SDVFZ, the location of the eastern terminus of a late Miocene GF has been more controversial. Davis and Burchfiel (1973) analyzed the geometry of geologic terranes and features offset > 50 km along the eastern half of the present GF (several within 15 km of the SDVFZ), that it had been offset dextrally [approximately] 8 km along the younger zone, and that the GF was an intracontinental transform structure separating a more extended northern terrane (Basin-and-Range) from a less extended southern terrane (Mojave Desert). USC field studies in areas east of the SDVFZ/GF intersection support the original contention of Davis and Burchfiel that the Miocene GF lies beneath alluvial deposits of Kingston Wash. A left-slip fault with a displacement of [approximately]3 km has been identified beneath upper reaches of the Wash north of Kingston Spring. It lies above the older (and coeval ) west-rooting, mid- to Late Miocene Kingston Range detachment fault, and it appears to bound the southern margin of a distributed breakaway zone of N-S-striking normal faults that distends the Kingston Peak pluton (ca 12.5 Ma). The authors believe that the cumulative effects of pre- and post-12.5 Ma east-west extension north of this buried fault may explain the geometry of offset terranes along the GF in areas west of the SDVFZ. If so, total dextral slip on the younger, cross-cutting SDVFZ must be 10 km or less.
- OSTI ID:
- 5420954
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9305259-; CODEN: GAAPBC
- Journal Information:
- Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs; (United States), Vol. 25:5; Conference: 89. annual meeting of the Cordilleran Section and the 46th annual meeting of the Rocky Mountain Section of the Geological Society of America (GSA), Reno, NV (United States), 19-21 May 1993; ISSN 0016-7592
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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