HR: 0800h
AN: T31C-0594    [Abstracts]
TI: Strike-Slip displacement along the Furnace Creek Fault Zone, southern Basins and Ranges, Death Valley, California
AU: * Baucke, W
EM: baucke@okstate.edu
AF: Oklahoma State University, Boone Pickens School of Geology Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078,
AU: Cemen, I
EM: icemen@okstate.edu
AF: Oklahoma State University, Boone Pickens School of Geology Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078,
AB: The southern Basins and Ranges contain several strike-slip fault zones in addition to predominant normal faults. One of the strike-slip faults is the Furnace Creek fault zone (FCFZ) which extends from the Amor¬gosa Valley in eastern California northwestward continuously about 200 km and termi¬nates in the Fish Lake Valley in Nevada. The fault zone is a part of the Eastern California Shear Zone. Although the right-lateral sense of strike-slip movement along the FCFZ is undisputed, the magnitude of displacement has been controversial since the 1970s. Recently, we have mapped conglomerates exposed in the Travertine point area of the Furnace Creek Wash of the Death Valley region. The conglomerates are composed of Paleozoic clasts from the following formations: Bonanza King, Nopah, Pogonip, Eureka Quartzite, Hidden Valley, and Ely Springs Dolomite. Our analysis of these breccias showed that they are made out of clasts of one composition and a matrix that was slightly different. This observation and our microscopic analysis suggest to us that these breccias were formed as fault breccias along the Furnace Creek fault zone. We have also mapped breccias in the Desolation Canyon on the southwestern side of the FCFZ where the Bonanza King Formation is brought into structural contact over the Ely Spring Dolomite and Eureka Quartzite suggesting the presence of a thrust fault. We correlate this thrust fault with a similar structural setting along the Clery Thrust of the southern Funeral Mountains on northeastern sides of the FCFZ where the Clery thrust brings the Cambrian Bonanza King Formation over the Eureka Quartzite and Ely Spring Dolomite in the southern Funeral Mountains. These observations suggest to us that the thrust fault in the Desolation Canyon area is the continuation of the Clery Thrust of the southern Funeral Mountains. If this interpretation is correct, the strike-slip displacement along the FCFZ is about 30 km.
DE: 8109 Continental tectonics: extensional (0905)
DE: 8111 Continental tectonics: strike-slip and transform
SC: Tectonophysics [T]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting