Structure and tectonic setting of the eastern Tehachapi Range, California
- California Inst. of Technology, Pasadena, CA (United States). Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences
In the easternmost Tehachapi mountains a moderately SE dipping fault zone with an irregular trace juxtaposes high grade ductilely deformed footwall gneisses against a cataclastically deformed granitic hanging wall complex from Tehachapi Valley to the Garlock FZ. The fault zone exhibits evidence of both ductile and brittle deformation. Moderately SE plunging stretching lineations and sense of shear indicators in the footwall suggest normal displacement and the sole of the hanging wall consists of a chloritic breccia. The footwall consists of garnet-amphibolite grade orthogneiss, paragneiss, and marble, locally protomylonitic, folded into presently SW vergent isoclinal folds with a penetrative, NW trending, moderately NE dipping foliation. This gneiss complex hosts a 0.2 to 0.8 km wide, NW tending, shallow NE dipping ductile shear zone, called here the eastern Tehachapi shear zone (ETSZ). The ETSZ appears to post-date much of the isoclinal folding in the gneisses. The ETSZ is inferred to continue north of Tehachapi valley (Ross, 1989) where it steepens and swings to a more northerly trend into the Lake Isabella region where it has been called the proto-Kern Canyon fault zone. A post ETSZ deformation refolded the gneisses into open, upright folds with moderately NE plunging axes. Juxtaposition of the gneisses and the cataclastically deformed granitic hanging wall rocks occurred during and/or after this post ETSZ folding event. In the structurally lowest levels of the gneiss complex exposed along the Garlock fault, quartz diorite orthogneiss becomes increasingly deformed downward with an NE striking, moderately NW dipping mylonitic fabric. The youngest deformation in the areas is a series of WNW trending, regional scale antiforms and synforms which exert a first order control on the topography of the region.
- OSTI ID:
- 5100437
- 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
Similar Records
Mesozoic contractile and extensional structures in the Boyer Gap area, northern Dome Rock Mountains, Arizona
Mesozoic intra-arc tectonics in the NE Mojave Desert, CA
Related Subjects
CALIFORNIA
GEOLOGIC FAULTS
GEOLOGY
DEFORMATION
GEOLOGIC DEPOSITS
GEOLOGIC HISTORY
GEOLOGIC STRUCTURES
GEOMETRY
GNEISSES
GRANITES
MINERALIZATION
MOUNTAINS
ORIENTATION
TECTONICS
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
GEOLOGIC FRACTURES
IGNEOUS ROCKS
MATHEMATICS
METAMORPHIC ROCKS
NORTH AMERICA
PLUTONIC ROCKS
ROCKS
USA
580000* - Geosciences