Reinterpretation of Mormon Peak detachment in Mormon Mountains, southern Nevada
Brian Wernicke proposed that the Meadow Valley Mountains are part of a west-directed Mormon Peak extensional allochthon and that low-angle normal faults control basin-and-range structure. He suggested the Meadow Valley Mountains detached off the Mormon Mountains and moved 20 km during the middle to late Miocene, along a low-angle normal fault - the Mormon Peak detachment - dipping 20/degrees/-25/degrees/ west. In this interpretation, the updip source area for the paleozoic klippen of the Mormon Peak extensional allochthon now exposed in the Mormon Mountains requires an origin from heights greater than 9 km (30,000 ft) above the present Virgin Valley basin. K-Ar and seismic reflection data document syntectonic sedimentary in-filling of the Virgin Valley basin beginning during the early Oligocene in response to the high-angle (60/degrees/) Virgin-Beaver Dam Mountains normal fault. Klippen of the purported Mormon Peak extensional allochthon that veneer the Mormon Mountains represent gravity-slide blocks that have source areas within the Mormon Mountains and require only 0.5-4 km displacements. These gravity-slide blocks moved in various downslope directions on rootless denudational faults resulting from the loss of lateral support because of high-angle basin-range faulting and associated erosion. Detailed mapping of Wernicke's easternmost klippe of the Mormon Peak extensional allochthon reveals east-vergent structural features rather than west-vergent, as necessary in his uniform sense-core complex model. Geologic and geophysical data show that high-angle normal faults exert primary control over basin-and-range structure, whereas gravitational sliding is a secondary surficial (rootless) feature of minor significance.
- Research Organization:
- Oregon State Univ., Corvallis (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 5954268
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-880301-
- Journal Information:
- AAPG (Am. Assoc. Pet. Geol.) Bull.; (United States), Vol. 72:2; Conference: Annual meeting of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Houston, TX, USA, 20 Mar 1988
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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