Geologic map of the Paintbrush Canyon Area, Yucca Mountain, Nevada
- Geological Survey, Denver, CO (United States)
- Pacific Western Technologies, Ltd., Lakewood, CO (United States)
This geologic map is produced to support site characterization studies of Yucca Mountain, Nevada, site of a potential nuclear waste storage facility. The area encompassed by this map lies between Yucca Wash and Fortymile Canyon, northeast of Yucca Mountain. It is on the southern flank of the Timber Mountain caldera complex within the southwest Nevada volcanic field. Miocene tuffs and lavas of the Calico Hills Formation, the Paintbrush Group, and the Timber Mountain Group crop out in the area of this map. The source vents of the tuff cones and lava domes commonly are located beneath the thickest deposits of pyroclastic ejecta and lava flows. The rocks within the mapped area have been deformed by north- and northwest-striking, dominantly west-dipping normal faults and a few east-dipping normal faults. Faults commonly are characterized by well developed fault scarps, thick breccia zones, and hanging-wall grabens. Latest movement as preserved by slickensides on west-dipping fault scarps is oblique down towards the southwest. Two of these faults, the Paintbrush Canyon fault and the Bow Ridge fault, are major block-bounding faults here and to the south at Yucca Mountain. Offset of stratigraphic units across faults indicates that faulting occurred throughout the time these volcanic units were deposited.
- Research Organization:
- Geological Survey, Denver, CO (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Assistant Secretary for Human Resources and Administration, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AI08-97NV12033
- OSTI ID:
- 677012
- Report Number(s):
- USGS/OFR--97-783; ON: DE99000502
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Intraformational deformation in the tuffs and lavas of Calico Hills exposed near Yucca Mountain, Nevada