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At least 307 records · Page 17Linked to original sources

Jurassic Lake T'oo'dichi': A large alkaline, saline lake, Morrison Formation, eastern Colorado Plateau

A large alkaline, saline lake, Lake T'oo'dichi', occupied the entire eastern part of the Colorado Plateau region during deposition of the Brushy Basin Member of the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation. The lake extended from near the site of Albuquerque, New Mexico, to near the site of Grand Junction, Colorado, and occupied a region that encompassed the San Juan and ancestral Paradox basins, making it the largest ancient alkaline, saline lake known.

Geological Society of America Bulletin↗

Anomalous folds associated with the east-central part of the Garlock Fault, southeast California

The east-central part of the left-lateral Garlock fault, in southeast California, is associated with three broad folds that trend and plunge northeast. The folds, which lie north, south, and astride the fault, postdate deposition of alluvial gravels that at one time formed a continuous northwest-sloping fan; the gravels rest conformably on lake beds that contain the Lava Creek B ash bed (0.62 Ma). The anticline, named after Christmas Canyon, has vertical relief of as much as 100 m. Topographic profiles suggest that the gravels exposed along the synclinal troughs to its southeast (Pilot Knob Valley syncline) and northwest (Teagle Wash syncline) lie at about the same elevations as they did when part of the originally active fan, implying that the synclines are passive results of the anticline development. If so, the original slope of the middle Pleistocene alluvial sediment sheet was about 0.6° northwest. The age and dimensional controls allow calculation of the rates of tilting and horizontal shortening. Corrected tilting rates vary from about 2.5° to 4.7°/m.y.; the total shortening of about 7.5 m developed at a minimum rate of 12.5 m/m.y.

California↗

Comparative geometry of the San Andreas Fault, California, and laboratory fault zones

Textural examination of fault gouge deformed in triaxial friction experiments has revealed differences in the orientations of secondary shear sets between the stably sliding and stick-slip samples. In order to determine whether such differences can be identified in natural faults, maps of recently active breaks along the San Andreas fault from Point Arena to Cajon Pass, California, were examined to compare the types and orientations of secondary structures mapped in the creeping and locked sections. The fault zone was divided into 52 geometrically defined segments of uniform strike, which were then grouped into 7 sections: 4 straight and 2 curved sections, and Cholame Valley. One of the straight sections is the creeping section between San Juan Bautista and Cholame in central California; the rest of the sections are locked. Many of the gross geometric characteristics of the individual segments, such as length, width, and stepover size, reflect their position in either a straight or a curved section. In contrast, with respect to the orientations of the recent breaks within the segments, the single creeping section differs from all of the locked sections, both straight and curved, as follows: (1) the traces of recent breaks with a more west-ward orientation than the local strike of the fault zone (P traces) dominate over those with a more northward orientation (R traces) in the creeping section, whereas the opposite relationship holds in the locked sections, and (2) the more northward-oriented (R) traces make larger angles to the local strike of the fault zone in the locked sections than in the creeping section. The latter result is consistent with the orientations of R shears in our various laboratory samples. The former result was unexpected, because of the predominance of R shears in most laboratory samples, but a small number of samples are analogous to the creeping section in terms of their P-shear abundances, R-shear orientations, and sliding behavior. The causes of these distinguishing characteristics are not yet understood.

California↗

Regional study of mineral resources in Nevada: Insights from three-dimensional analysis of gravity and magnetic anomalies

A three-dimensional interpretation of the basins of Nevada was developed based on statewide data bases of digital-gravity, magnetic, geologic, well, and topographic information. An iterative technique was applied to isostatic residual gravity anomalies in Nevada in order to define the location and shape of pre-Tertiary basement and to produce a gravity map that reflects variations of density within the pre-Tertiary basement. The dominant feature of the basement gravity of Nevada is an enormous area of low gravity that spans the entire state between latitudes 37°N and 40.5°N. This regional low strongly correlates with the distribution of middle and late Tertiary volcanic rocks and may reflect silicic intrusions within the mid-crust and upper crust that are the counterparts of volcanic rocks at the surface. Although 80% of Nevada is covered by Cenozoic deposits, these deposits are thicker than 1 km over only about 20% of the state. The remaining 60% of Nevada may have pre-Tertiary basement rocks within reach of current mineral-exploration techniques. Aeromagnetic profiles from the National Uranium Resource Evaluation (NURE) were analyzed in order to produce a map showing the location of shallow magnetic sources in Nevada. This analysis shows that 46% of the state has magnetic sources, generally Mesozoic and Cenozoic igneous rocks, within 1 km of the surface. A linear magnetic anomaly in north-central Nevada has been interpreted by others as a rift zone active during middle Miocene time. The rift also is evident in NURE magnetic profiles, but our interpretation suggests that the magnetic expression of the rift continues south-southeast with similar strike to at least 38°N and perhaps to the amagmatic zone (lat. 37°N). The survival since the middle Miocene of this narrow crustal feature, essentially linear over a distance of 500 km, is difficult to interpret in light of later Basin and Range deformation. Our analysis of gravity anomalies shows that many deep Cenozoic basins are located near the rift, yet only two basins cut across it, and at least five others change strike near the rift, as if to avoid it. The rift may have remained linear because it is associated with crustal structures that acted to resist subsequent deformation.

Nevada↗

Submarine processes of the middle Atlantic continental rise based on GLORIA imagery

Approximately 6100 km of 3.5-kHz echo-sounding profiles was correlated with a GLORIA side-scan sonar image of the mid-Atlantic United States (34??N, 70??W) lower slope-upper continental rise. The image allows us to map the major erosional and depositional features and to identify major processes that have shaped the area. Interpretation of GLORIA imagery and echo-sounding profiles indicates that mass movement is the predominant process affecting sediment on the United States east coast mid-Atlantic slope and upper rise and that isobath-parallel sediment movement by geostrophic currents is restricted mainly to the lower continental rise. The mass-movement processes evident on the rise probably were most active during the Pleistocene, when sea level was lower and sediment input more active. -from Authors

Geological Society of America Bulletin↗

Conditions leading to a recent small hydrothermal explosion at Yellowstone National Park

Porkchop Geyser, in Yellowstone National Park, was the site of a small hydrothermal explosion on September 5, 1989. In the early 1960s, this was a quiescent spring with an intermittent seeping discharge. Infrequent geyser eruptions 3-5 m high started in 1971, and in 1985 the geyser began erupting as a perpetual spouter 6-9 m high. Perpetual spouting at the latter height continued until just before the catastrophic hydrothermal event when the geyser column suddenly rose to a height of 20-30 m, followed immediately by the explosive ejection of sinter blocks up to 1.88 m in maximum dimension and formation of an irregular crater 13.9 m long and 11.7 m wide. The ejected blocks show a variety of siliceous deposits indicative of changing environments of deposition with time, and possibly of prior hydrothermal explosive activity at this site. Water samples from Porkchop were collected and analyzed once in the 1920s, again in 1951, ten times between 1960 and mid-1989, and once in January 1990 after the explosion. Chemical geothermometry shows an increase in the temperature of last water-rock equilibration of about 60 to 70 °C from 1962 through 1989. This may have been the result of drawing water progressively from different and hotter regions of a single reservoir or mixing waters from two different reservoirs with a progressively larger proportion of water being drawn from the hotter reservoir from 1962 through 1989. Boiling of ascending fluids coming from hotter subsurface regions resulted in an increase in the proportion of steam to water discharged by the geyser. A constriction at the exit of the geyser tube throttled the flow of water and steam and allowed water in shallow cavities adjacent to the geyser tube to become heated to the boiling point at pressures greater than normal hydrostatic. We hypothesize that a sudden breaking loose of this constriction, likely triggered by a seasonal increase in subsurface boiling throughout Norris Basin, allowed water and steam to be discharged from Porkchop much more rapidly than previously. This resulted in a drop in pressure within the geyser tube, causing water in adjacent connected chambers to become superheated. An ensuing rapid flashing of superheated water to steam within relatively confined spaces resulted in the hydrothermal explosion.

Wyoming↗

Use of longitudinal strain in identifying driving and resisting elements of landslides

Observations of deformation at the surfaces of landslides in Utah and Hawaii indicate that the upslope parts of the land-slides have stretched and the downslope parts have shortened parallel with the direction of movement. The maximum displacement of each landslide occurs in a relatively undeformed zone between the zones of shortening and stretching. The pattern of deformation at the surface of these landslides may be useful in analyzing their mechanics by helping to constrain the longitudinal forces in limit-equilibrium stability analysis. We used earth-pressure calculations to determine the range of possible longitudinal forces (per unit width) for active failure in the zone of stretching and for passive failure in the zone of shortening of one of the Hawaiian landslides. Longitudinal forces computed by stability analysis, assuming homogeneous strength, exceeded the possible forces in much of the upslope half of the landslide. Consequently, we assumed inhomogeneous strength and adjusted shear-strength parameters at each segment of the slip surface until the longitudinal forces computed by stability analysis agreed with those computed by earth-pressure theory, and the factor of safety approached unity. The distribution of longitudinal forces computed for inhomogeneous strength indicated that the boundary between driving and resisting elements of the landslide is near the thickest part of the slide, in agreement with a simple formula for the location of the boundary.

Geological Society of America Bulletin↗

Jurassic normal and strike-slip faults at Crater Island, northwestern Utah

At Crater Island, northern Silver Island Mountains, northwestern Utah, an unbroken Tertiary fault block within the Basin and Range province exhibits Jurassic or older structures that are virtually unmodified by subsequent tectonism, providing an opportunity to examine the tectonics of the Jurassic back arc of the Cordillera. Widespread high-angle faults, mainly striking north and northeast, offset the moderately west-dipping strata down to the west, thereby extending the strata parallel to bedding by 10% to 20%. These faults apparently belong to a single kinematic event of west-northwest oriented extension subparallel to bedding. The normal faults merge with a north-northwest dextral strike-slip fault system. The two fault systems are kinematically compatible, suggesting that they may have been contemporaneous. A low-angle (thrust?) fault nearly parallel to bedding within Ordovician strata is cut by the high-angle faults. Intrusive relations with about 160 Ma granitoid rocks show that all of these faults are Late Jurassic or older, with a reasonable lower age limit of Early Jurassic established on the basis of paleogeographic reconstructions using sedimentary deposits in the region. Jurassic dikes indicate a minimum horizontal compression direction that is parallel to the extension direction indicated by the normal faults, thus supporting the inference that normal and strike-slip faulting took place during the late Middle or early Late Jurassic. We interpret these data to indicate that minor thrusting, probably during the Jurassic, was followed by extensional faulting within a strike-slip fault system, probably close in time to intrusion. These relations are similar to those reported previously in the nearby Newfoundland Mountains. Other mountains of northern Utah and adjacent Nevada also have examples of Jurassic normal faults that contrast with the more generally observed thrust faults and tectonite fabrics. These data point to a possible regional extensional tectonic event affecting the crust far inland of the Jurassic magmatic arc, an event probably associated with back-arc magmatism.

Utah↗

Evolution of a Permo-Triassic sedimentary melange, Grindstone terrane, east-central Oregon

The Grindstone terrane in east-central Oregon is one of the few areas in western North America where large blocks of unmetamorphosed Devonian, Mississippian, and Permian limestones are inter mixed with Permian and Lower Triassic radiolarian chert and Pennsylvanian?, Permian, and Triassic volcaniclastic rocks. Although originally described as parts of a coherent succession, we interpret the Grindstone rocks to be a sedimentary mélange composed of Paleozoic limestone slide and slump blocks that became detached from a carbonate shelf fringing a volcanic knoll or edifice in Late Permian to Middle Triassic time and were intermixed with Permian and Triassic slope to basinal clastic and volcaniclastic rocks in a forearc basin setting. Paleogeographic affinities of the Grindstone limestone faunas and volcaniclastic debris in the limestone and clastic rocks all indicate deposition in proximity to an island-arc system near the North American craton. The Grindstone terrane deposits are unconformably overlain by Upper Triassic to Middle Jurassic sequences of the Izee terrane. Although lithologic and faunal differences indicate that the Grindstone and Izee terranes together represent a tectonic block separate from the adjacent Baker terrane, all three terranes were juxtaposed by Late Triassic or Early Jurassic time.

Oregon↗

Late Cretaceous and early Tertiary plutonism and deformation in the Skagit Gneiss Complex, north Cascade Range, Washington and British Columbia

The Skagit Gneiss Complex forms a more-or-less continuous terrane within the northern, more deeply eroded part of the North Cascade Range. The complex comprises abundant plutons intruded at mid-crustal depths into a variety of metamorphosed supracrustal rocks of both oceanic and volcanic-arc origin. A plethora of syntectonic pegmatite, small plutons, and granitic dikes gives the complex a migmatitic aspect. U-Pb zircon ages from gneissic plutons within and near the Skagit Gneiss Complex indicate magmatic crystallization between 75 and 60 Ma. Deformation, recrystallization, and migmatization in part postdate intrusion of the 75-60 Ma plutons. This latest Cretaceous and earliest Tertiary plutonism and migmatization may reflect thermal relaxation following early Late Cretaceous orogeny documented else-where in the North Cascades. The complex was ductilely extended northwest-southeast shortly after intrusion of granite dikes at ∼45 Ma, but before emplacement of the earliest (∼34 Ma) plutons of the Cascade arc. Outcrops of Late Cretaceous and earliest Tertiary plutons, migmatites of the Skagit Gneiss Complex, and rocks with young ductile deformation are roughly coextensive, all apparently marking a region of greater middle Eocene unroofing. Unroofing was apparently contemporaneous with east-west extension in the Okanogan region to the east and north-south and northwest-southeast strike-slip faulting within the North Cascades.

Washington↗

Relation of sediment load and flood-plain formation to climatic variability, Paria River drainage basin, Utah and Arizona

Suspended-sediment load, flow volume, and flood characteristics of the Paria River were analyzed to determine their relation to climate and flood-plain alluviation between 1923 and 1986. Flood-plain alluviation began about 1940 at a time of decreasing magnitude and frequency of floods in winter, summer, and fall. No floods with stages high enough to inundate the flood plain have occurred since 1980, and thus no flood-plain alluviation has occurred since then. The decrease in magnitude and frequency of floods appears to have resulted from a decrease in frequency of large storms, particularly dissipating tropical cyclones, and not from a decrease in annual or seasonal precipitation. Suspended-sediment load is highest in summer and fall, whereas flow volume is highest in winter. Fall shows the greatest interannual variability in suspended-sediment load, flow volume, and flood size because climatic conditions are most variable in fall. The relation between sediment load and discharge apparently did not change within the period of sediment sampling (1949-1976), even though the channel elevation and width changed significantly. Annual suspended-sediment loads estimated for periods before and after 1949-1976 show that decrease in suspended-sediment load caused by floodplain alluviation in the Paria River and other tributaries could have been a significant part of the decrease of suspended-sediment load in the Colorado River in the early 1940s.

Arizona, Utah↗

Flexural extension of the upper continental crust in collisional foredeeps

Normal faults on the outer slopes of trenches and collisional foredeeps reveal that high-amplitude lithospheric flexure can result in inelastic extensional deformation of the convex side of a flexed plate. This process, which we call "flexural extension," differs fundamentally from rifting in that the lower lithosphere contracts while the upper lithosphere extends. In the Taconic foreland of New York, a >100-km-wide zone of brittle failure propagated ahead of the convergent plate boundary, rupturing the upper crust to an estimated depth of 15-20 km. Dip-slip displacement on normal faults in the Taconic and Arkoma foredeeps produced water depths like those in the closest modern analogue, the Timor Trough. Structural evidence does not support common illustrations of flexural normal faults as planar-irrotational structures which simply die out at shallow crustal depths. Instead, the surface geology shows that flexural normal faulting must be rotational with respect to the enveloping surface of the flexed plate. This toppled domino geometry implies the presence at depth of a detachment or zone of distributed ductile simple shear where fault displacement and block rotation are accommodated.

Geological Society of America Bulletin↗

Sedimentation and tectonics of the Sylhet trough, Bangladesh

The Sylhet trough, a sub-basin of the Bengal Basin in northeastern Bangladesh, contains a thick fill (12 to 16 km) of late Mesozoic and Cenozoic strata that record its tectonic evolution. Stratigraphic, sedimentologic, and petrographic data collected from outcrops, cores, well logs, and seismic lines are here used to reconstruct the history of this trough. The Sylhet trough occupied a slope/basinal setting on a passive continental margin from late Mesozoic through Eocene time. Subsidence may have increased slightly in Oligocene time when the trough was located in the distal part of a foreland basin paired to the Indo-Burman ranges. Oligocene fluvial-deltaic strata (Barail Formation) were derived from incipient uplifts in the eastern Himalayas. Subsidence increased markedly in the Miocene epoch in response to western encroachment of the Indo-Burman ranges. Miocene to earliest Pliocene sediments of the Surma Group were deposited in a large, mud-rich delta system that may have drained a significant proportion of the eastern Himalayas. Subsidence rates in the Sylhet trough increased dramatically (3-8 times) from Miocene to Pliocene-Pleistocene time when the fluvial Tipam Sandstone and Dupi Tila Formation were deposited. This dramatic subsidence change is attributed to south-directed overthrusting of the Shillong Plateau on the Dauki fault for the following reasons. (1) Pliocene and Pleistocene strata thin markedly away from the Shillong Plateau, consistent with a crustal load emplaced on the northern basin margin. (2) The Shillong Plateau is draped by Mesozoic to Miocene rocks, but Pliocene and younger strata are not represented, suggesting that the massif was an uplifted block at this time. (3) South-directed overthrusting of the Shillong Plateau is consistent with gravity data and with recent seismotectonic observations. Sandstone in the Tioam has a marked increase in sedimentary lithic fragments compared to older rocks, reflecting uplift and erosion of the sedimentary cover of the Shillong Plateau. If the Dauki fault has a dip similar to that of other Himalayan overthrusts, then a few tens of kilometers of horizontal tectonic transport would be required to carry the Shillong Plateau to its present elevation. Uplift of the Shillong Plateau probably generated a major (∼300 km) westward shift in the course of the Brahmaputra River.

Geological Society of America Bulletin↗

Controls on the composition of fluvial sands from a tropical weathering environment: Sands of the Orinoco River drainage basin, Venezuela and Colombia

Fluvial sands in the Orinoco River drainage basin fall into three main compositional groupings: (1) sands of subarkose and arkose composition, from high-relief parts of the Guayana Shield, where crystalline rocks are exposed; (2) sands of litharenite and sub-litharenite composition from the active orogenic belt at the western and northwestern margins of the drainage basin, and in those parts of the Llanos (Andean foreland basin) proximal to the mountain belt; and (3) sands of quartz-arenite composition, widespread throughout the remainder of the basin. Multicycle sands of quartz-arenite composition are produced from platform cover on parts of the elevated shield and from uplifted foreland-basin fill in the eastern Llanos. First-cycle sands of quartz-arenite composition are produced from granitic rocks on low-relief regions of the Guayana Shield and from reworked Holocene alluvium in parts of the western Llanos distal to the orogenic terranes. Erosion in the Orinoco River drainage basin may be described in terms of transport-limited and weathering-limited denudation regimes. In active orogenic terranes and in parts of the elevated shield, transport processes can remove weathered material as rapidly as it is produced by chemical weathering. Thin soils and short soil-mineral residence time result in sands that are incompletely chemically weathered and accurately reflect source-rock composition. In the orogenic terranes, subtle variations in source-rock lithology are preserved in sand composition. In contrast, in low-relief parts of the Guayana Shield and on flat erosion surfaces of the upland shield, weathering exceeds the rate at which transport processes can remove weathered material. Thick soils accumulate, soil-mineral residence time is long, and detritus is highly altered chemically. On much of the lowland Guayana Shield, upper soil layers consist of nearly pure quartz sand that erodes to produce first-cycle fluvial sand of quartz-arenite composition. Chemically weathered orogenically derived sand enters the Orinoco River on the left bank, while feldspathic shield-derived sand enters on the right bank. This geometry is responsible for the nearly total lack of longitudinal variation in sand composition along the 1,400-km length of the Orinoco River mainstem. Except in the upper 100 km of the Orinoco River mainstem, cross-channel heterogeneity in sand composition is also modest. Nevertheless, a weighted linear least-squares modeling approach suggests that sand moves down the Orinoco River mainstem in distinct pulses, perhaps corresponding to times of accelerated erosion in headwater regions. Because rivers that head in the orogenic terranes and traverse the Llanos contribute more than 99% of the sand in the lower Orinoco River mainstem, the composition of this sand is dominated by chemically weathered sands from the Llanos. The Orinoco River—the third largest river in the world—delivers first-cycle sands of quartz-arenite composition to its delta.

Geological Society of America Bulletin↗

Jurassic ash-flow sheets, calderas, and related intrusions of the Cordilleran volcanic arc in southeastern Arizona: Implications for regional tectonics and ore deposits

Volcanologic, petrologic, and paleomagnetic studies of widespread Jurassic ash-flow sheets in the Huachuca-southern Dragoon Mountains area have led to identification of four large source calderas and associated comagmatic intracaldera intrusions. Stratigraphic, facies, and contact features of the caldera-related tuffs also provide constraints on the locations, lateral displacements, and very existence for some major northwest-trending faults and inferred regional thrusts in south-eastern Arizona. For example, the intricate Cochise thrust system, as mapped by others in the southern Dragoon Mountains, consists instead of primary depositional contacts within caldera-fill megabreccia, and the inferred regional thrusts do not exist, at least as previously interpreted. Silicic alkalic compositions of the Jurassic caldera-related, ash-flow tuffs; bimodal associated mafic magmatism; and interstratified coarse sedimentary deposits provide evidence for synvolcanic extension and rifting within the Cordilleran magmatic arc. Gold-copper mineralization is associated with subvolcanic intrusions at several of the Jurassic calderas.

Arizona↗

Thermal maturity patterns of Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks, San Juan Basin, Colorado and New Mexico

Horizontal and vertical thermal maturity patterns and time-temperature modeling of Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks in the San Juan Basin of southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico indicate that the high levels of thermal maturity in the northern part of the basin are due to either (1) convective heat transfer associated with a deeply buried heat source located directly below the northern part of the basin or (2) the circulation of relatively hot fluids into the basin from a heat source north of the basin located near the San Juan Mountains. Vitrinite-reflectance (R m ) well profiles through Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks in the basin are commonly nonlinear, with two to four segments having different gradients. The different gradients most likely represent the combined effects of contrasting thermal conductivities associated with lithologic variations and differences in heat transfer processes (conductive versus convective). Time-temperature and kinetic modeling of nonlinear R m profiles indicates that present-day heat flow is insufficient to account for the measured levels of thermal maturity. Furthermore, in order to match the nonlinear R m profiles, it is necessary to assign artificially high thermal-conductivity values to some of the stratigraphic units. These unrealistically high thermal conductivities are interpreted as evidence of convective heat transfer.

Colorado, New Mexico↗

Paleomagnetic data bearing on the origin of arcuate structures in the French Peak-Massachusetts Mountain area of southern Nevada

The eastern margin of the Yucca Flat basin, in southern Nevada, is bounded by north-northwest-striking tilted fault blocks of the Halfpint Range whose strikes curve as much as 90° clockwise into east-northeast strikes in the French Peak-Massachusetts Mountain (FPMM) area. This pattern of arcuate structures has been attributed to clockwise drag along a postulated northwest-trending, right-lateral shear zone. The flexure model implies that rocks within the FPMM area were rotated strongly clockwise about a vertical axis. Directions of remanent magnetization of the middle Miocene Ammonia Tanks and Rainier Mesa Members of the Timber Mountain Tuff and of the Topopah Spring Member of the Paintbrush Tuff indicate no systematic vertical-axis rotation in the FPMM area and disprove the flexure model. After tilt correction, declinations of 29 site means obtained from the three ash-flow sheets in the FPMM area are not systematically different than declinations of 17 site means from the Halfpint Range or declinations of 16 site means from little-deformed mesa areas to the west. The paleomagnetic data thus indicate that structures in the FPMM area initiated with arcuate trends and were not originally straight elements that were rotated by right-lateral drag. The structures probably formed under the influence of spatially variable stress fields. The FPMM area lies in an accommodation zone between domains of oppositely tilted extensional fault blocks. Interaction between stress fields associated with propagating normal-fault zones may have been responsible for the arcuate structures in the FPMM area.

Nevada↗