Fault Mechanics and Active Strain Along the Garlock Fault in SE California

We report here results from new geologic mapping along a 38 km segment of the Garlock Fault (GF) between US 395 and the Slate Range, and an 8 km segment at the northern terminus of the Blackwater- Calico fault (BCF) in the Lava Mountains. This study area lies within the ENE-striking central segment of the sinistral GF. NNW-striking faults of the dextral Eastern California shear zone approach the GF, but do not offset it: exact mechanisms of strain transfer across the GF from the Mojave Desert to the Basin and Range is enigmatic. Field mapping reveals that the GF is complex with numerous sub-parallel strands both north and south of the mapped fault. Holocene slip on the GF is dominantly sinistral, but a major zone to the north adjacent to the bedrock of the southern Slate Range is dip-slip. The mapped portion of the northern BCF is expressed as a bedrock scarp and does not cut Holocene sediments. Significant N-S shortening is superimposed along the GF adjacent to the southern Slate Range, in the Christmas Canyon area, and the Lava Mountains. Pliocene- Pleistocene sediments are uplifted and deformed into E-W open to chevron folds in the Christmas Canyon and Slate Range areas. Cretaceous quartz-monzonite and overlying Miocene strata are deformed by similar structures in the northern Lava Mountains. In general, areas of topographic uplifts are disjointed and spatially restrictive in comparison to the more continuous GF and the BCF. These observations suggest several possibilities for the region. (1) Active slip on the GF and the Eastern California shear zone are driven by a single, Mojave-wide stress field with sigma-1 oriented roughly N-S. (2) The GF may be a weak zone in the lithosphere and crust with sigma-1 oriented nearly perpendicular to strike as evidenced by ENE- to East-trending fold hinges in Pliocene-Pleistocene sediments. (3) The continuous trace of the GF rupture through the 38-km-long study area suggests that it, at least locally, poses a mechanical boundary to the localization of NW-directed shear of the Eastern California shear zone. (4) N-S shortening (off-fault deformation) is spatially variable and is genetically related to strain on the GF and the Eastern California shear zone.