Abstract The spatial distribution and kinematics of intracontinental deformation provide insight into the dominant mode of continental tectonics: rigid-body motion versus continuum flow. The discrete San Andreas fault defines the western North America plate boundary, but transtensional deformation is distributed hundreds of kilometers eastward across the Walker Lane–Basin and Range provinces. In particular, distributed Basin and Range extension has been encroaching westward onto the relatively stable Sierra Nevada block since the Miocene, but the timing and style of distributed deformation overprinting the stable Sierra Nevada crust remains poorly resolved. Here we bracket the timing, magnitude, and kinematics of overprinting Walker Lane and Basin and Range deformation in the Pine Nut Mountains, Nevada (USA), which are the westernmost structural and topographic expression of the Basin and Range, with new geologic mapping and 40Ar/39Ar geochronology. Structural mapping suggests that north-striking normal faults developed during the initiation of Basin and Range extension and were later reactivated as northeast-striking oblique-slip faults following the onset of Walker Lane transtensional deformation. Conformable volcanic and sedimentary rocks, with new ages spanning ca. 14.2 Ma to 6.8 Ma, were tilted 30°–36° northwest by east-dipping normal faults. This relationship demonstrates that dip-slip deformation initiated after ca. 6.8 Ma. A retrodeformed cross section across the range suggests that the range experienced 14% extension. Subsequently, Walker Lane transtension initiated, and clockwise rotation of the Carson domain may have been accommodated by northeast-striking left-slip faults. Our work better defines strain patterns at the western extent of the Basin and Range province across an approximately 150-km-long east-west transect that reveals domains of low strain (∼15%) in the Carson Range–Pine Nut Mountains and Gillis Range surrounding high-magnitude extension (∼150%–180%) in the Singatse and Wassuk Ranges. There is no evidence for irregular crustal thickness variations across this same transect—either in the Mesozoic, prior to extension, or today—which suggests that strain must be accommodated differently at decoupled crustal levels to result in smooth, homogenous crustal thickness values despite the significantly heterogeneous extensional evolution. This example across an ∼150 km transect demonstrates that the use of upper-crust extension estimates to constrain pre-extension crustal thickness, assuming pure shear as commonly done for the Mesozoic Nevadaplano orogenic plateau, may not be reliable.
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Strain and Velocity Across the Great Basin Derived From 15‐ka Fault Slip Rates: Implications for Continuous Deformation and Seismic Hazard in the Walker Lane, California‐Nevada, USA
Average strain across the Great Basin over the past 15 Kyr derived from slip rates on individual faults shows a concentration of both right‐lateral shear and extension in the western Great Basin (Walker Lane). Straining is modest across the central Great Basin, with a zone of higher strain in the eastern Great Basin including the Wasatch Front. The horizontal velocity field derived from 15‐ka fault slip rates is similar to the pattern of GPS velocities, suggesting that regional strain release patterns have been constant over the past 15 Kyr. The magnitudes of velocities inferred from fault slip rates, relative to North America, are lower than those from GPS in the Walker Lane, suggesting that the geologic record is missing evidence of strike slip on faults, and seismic hazard may be higher than suggested by fault slip rates alone. The observed strain concentration in the western Great Basin is consistent with a Sierra Nevada block that is more rigid than the surrounding lithosphere of nonlinear rheology, which concentrates strain east of and adjacent to the rigid block. Treating the western U.S. as a thin viscous sheet with the Sierra Nevada block as a rigid boundary provides a consistent history of continuous deformation in the Walker Lane over decadal, millennial, and Neogene timescales.
more » « less- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10385613
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.1029
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Tectonics
- Volume:
- 40
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 0278-7407
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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