Investigations into the Fish Lake Valley Fault Zone (FLVFZ) and its interactions with normal faulting within Eureka and Deep Springs Valleys
Abstract
In most textbooks, the San Andreas Fault is stated to be the plate boundary between the North American and the Pacific plates, as plate tectonics assumes that boundaries are essentially discrete. In the Western United States this is not the case, as up to 25% of relative plate motion is accommodated on other structures within the Walker Lane Shear Zone (WLSZ) in a diffuse 100 km margin (Faulds et al., 2005; Oldow et al., 2001). Fish Lake Valley Fault Zone (FLVFZ), situated at the northern border of Death Valley National Park, is the northern continuation of the Furnace Creek Fault Zone (FCFZ), and is an important transfer structure within the Walker Lane Shear Zone. Though the FLVFZ has a long term rate (since 10 Ma) of 5 mm/yr (Reheis and Sawyer, 1997), it has a highly variable slip rate. In the middle Pleistocene, the rate has a maximum of up to 11 mm/yr which would accommodate nearly the entirety of slip within the Walker Lane, and yet this rate decreases significantly ( 2.5 to 3 mm/yr) by the late Pleistocene due to unknown causes (Frankel et al. 2007). This variation in slip rate has been proposed by previous workers to be due to strain transience, an increase in the overall strain rate, or due to other unknown structures (Lee et al., 2009). Currently, we are investigating the cause of this variation, and the possibility of the transfer of slip to faults south of the FLVFZ on oblique normal faults within Eureka and Deep Springs Valleys. Preliminary data will be shown utilizing scarp transects, geomorphic scarp modeling, and Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating techniques.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016AGUFM.T43D3075L
- Keywords:
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- 1140 Thermochronology;
- GEOCHRONOLOGYDE: 8010 Fractures and faults;
- STRUCTURAL GEOLOGYDE: 8030 Microstructures;
- STRUCTURAL GEOLOGYDE: 8118 Dynamics and mechanics of faulting;
- TECTONOPHYSICS