The Termination Of The Northwest Basin And Range Into A Northwest Trending Extensional Fault System

Extensional provinces terminate along-strike where extension dissipates to zero, at transform faults, or at triple junctions. Termination of the northern Basin and Range province in western North America has long been thought to be controlled by an intracontinental transform fault, the Brothers Fault zone (BFz). New mapping in the boundary region between a major Basin and Range fault, the Hart Mountain fault system (HFz), and the BFz was conducted to test this model and to determine the structural and temporal relationship between the two fault zones. Stratigraphic separation and topography were used to determine fault orientations, displacement gradients, and sense of motion in the two fault zones. N-S trending faults of the HFz show predominantly normal displacement. Displacement in the HFz decreases northward from a maximum of ~940 m at Hart Mountain to ~173 m to 0 m at the BFz. Fault orientations smoothly change from the N-S Basin and Range trend in the south to the NW BFz trend in the north. Topography and stratigraphic separation indicate that the BFz is a series of isolated faults with maximum slip of ~106 m and lengths of up to a few kilometers. Piercing points within the BFz indicate that down-to-the-north motion predominates with the fault system and that strike-slip motion is minimal. Uncertainty on observed fault displacements is + 5m. Stratigraphic separation of the Rattlesnake Tuff indicates that activity on the NW trending fault system post-dates the 7 Ma tuff. That displacement along the HFz effectively goes to zero at the BFz suggests Basin and Range faults have propagated northward into an existing northeast- facing extensional province represented by the BFz.