Tertiary drainage reversal within the Salt River paleovalley of east-central Arizona

Conference · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1985 · Geol. Soc. Am., Abstr. Programs; (United States)

OSTI ID:6876568

Faulds, J E

Early Tertiary erosion excavated a 1400+-m-deep, 14- to 23-km-wide, 30+-km-long, northeast-trending paleovalley in the Salt River Canyon region west of the Canyon Creek fault. The paleovalley is distinguished by the configuration of an early Tertiary erosion surface, especially northeast-trending erosional escarpments of middle Proterozoic strata along its margins, and accumulations within it of up to 600 m of Tertiary strata on Precambrian crystalline basement. A northeast-flowing consequent stream on the northeast-tilted terrain of central Arizona carved the paleovalley in a broad uplifted region west of the Canyon Creek fault, which included, but was not confined to, the Apache uplift of Davis et al. (1982). This stream was probably part of the northeast-flowing drainage net that delivered rim gravels onto the structurally and topographically lower Colorado Plateau region. Southwesterly derived gravels, contain rounded boulders of metavolcanic rock identical to deeply truncated 1.7 b.y. metavolcanic rock along the paleovalley axis. The through-going northeast-flowing drainage was disrupted by down-to-the-west Oligocene normal faulting, which induced a long period of internal drainage in which the Salt River paleovalley served as a major depositional basin for Oligocene fanglomerates, the 20 m.y. Apache Leap Tuff, and Miocene fanglomerates, evaporites, and basalts. Post-14 m.y. down-to-the-west normal faulting completed the 180/sup 0/ drainage reversal by permitting development of the through-going southwest-flowing Salt River, which has exhumed part of the paleovalley.

• Research Organization: Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque (USA)
• OSTI ID: 6876568
• Report Number(s): CONF-8510489-
• Conference Information: Journal Name: Geol. Soc. Am., Abstr. Programs; (United States) Journal Volume: 17
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

58 GEOSCIENCES
580100* -- Geology & Hydrology-- (-1989)
ARIZONA
CENOZOIC ERA
DRAINAGE
EROSION
FEDERAL REGION IX
GEOLOGIC AGES
GEOLOGIC FAULTS
GEOLOGIC FRACTURES
GEOLOGIC HISTORY
GEOLOGIC STRUCTURES
GEOLOGY
GEOMORPHOLOGY
NORTH AMERICA
SEDIMENTARY BASINS
SEDIMENTATION
TECTONICS
TERTIARY PERIOD
TOPOGRAPHY
USA
VALLEYS