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Tecopa Basin, California): Insights Into Paleoseismology

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Tecopa Basin, California): Insights Into Paleoseismology Sedimentary Geology 235 (2011) 148–159 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Sedimentary Geology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/sedgeo Superposed deformed beds produced by single earthquakes (Tecopa Basin, California): Insights into paleoseismology L. Gibert a,⁎, P. Alfaro b, F.J. García-Tortosa c, G. Scott a a Berkeley Geochronology Center, 2455 Ridge Road, 94709, Berkeley, CA, USA b Dpto. Ciencias de la Tierra y del Medio Ambiente Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Alicante, 03080 Alicante, Spain c Dpto. Geología, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Jaén, Campus Las Lagunillas, 23071 Jaén, Spain article info abstract Article history: Well-exposed soft-sediment deformation (SSD) structures occur in Tecopa paleolake beds largely composed Received 11 February 2010 of ash from the Bishop (760 kyr) and the Lava Creek (640 kyr) ultra-plinian eruptions. In both cases the SSD Received in revised form 15 July 2010 structures affected volcaniclastic deposits concentrated by overland flow from the surrounding topography Accepted 19 August 2010 into the lower slope and lake environments. Re-sedimentation of ash produced alternations of volcaniclastic Available online 26 August 2010 layers with different grain sizes and ash content that allowed for reverse density gradients, which favoured liquefaction and deformation. In the Tecopa Basin, extensive outcrops show these deformed strata Keywords: Earthquakes continuing laterally for hundreds of metres, along with three-dimensional exposures. This study illustrates Liquefaction the 3-D complexity of soft-sediment deformation including some novel morphologic features. Of particular Load structures interest were examples of superposed deformed beds that laterally change into one single deformed horizon. Seismites Heterogeneities in ash concentration, grain-size, and water content produced contrasting permeabilities that Soft-sediment deformation structures were barriers to liquefaction and soft-sediment deformation. The probable causes for liquefaction were Tecopa Basin Middle Pleistocene paleo-earthquakes. There are several active faults in the region with enough seismic potential to produce moderate to large earthquakes. The fact that a single deformed deposit laterally merges into multiple superposed deformed beds indicates that multilayer liquefaction could be produced by a single shaking event. In these cases, SSD layers are insufficient and unreliable indicators of paleo-seismic recurrence intervals. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction environments have been noted as excellent recorders of earthquake events, owing to the presence of water-saturated sediment with high The particular geological history of the Tecopa basin, located in the susceptibility to liquefaction (Sims, 1973, 1975). Amargosa Desert in SE California (Fig. 1), has favoured the presence of Here we report a study on soft-sediment deformation structures well-exposed load-type soft-sediment deformation structures. The that occur in the ash-rich Pleistocene deposits associated with the Tecopa lake beds show N70 m of outcropping deposits that record Bishop and the Lava Creek eruptions. These two tuffs outcrop ex- the geological history of the region between N2 Ma and ~0.2 Ma tensively in the Tecopa Basin. The kilometric continuity and three- (Hillhouse, 1987; Morrison, 1999). This enclosed basin acted as a trap dimensional exposures of these deformed beds permit detailed for Plio-Pleistocene ash eruptions in the Western United States. Many observations of novel morphologic features developed during lique- of these ash-rich deposits show soft-sediment deformation (SSD) faction. The most interesting observation is the presence of complex structures, and can be used as key marker beds for correlation around deformation where superposed deformed beds laterally evolve into the Tecopa Basin. one single deformed horizon. We discuss the seismic origin of these Soft-sediment deformation structures in lacustrine deposits have SSD features and if these superposed deformed beds are the result of been widely described in the geological record (Sims, 1973; Hempton single or successive events. and Dewey, 1983; Alfaro et al., 1997; Rodríguez-Pascua et al., 2000; Moretti and Sabato, 2007; among others). Deformation structures 2. Geological setting generated during liquefaction by shaking from earthquakes are referred to as seismites (Seilacher, 1969). Lacustrine sedimentary The Tecopa Basin is located in the Basin and Range physiographic province, 50 km SE of Death Valley, in what is now the Amargosa River valley. The basin is approximately 500 km2, limited by the Dublin and ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (L. Gibert), [email protected] (P. Alfaro), Ibex Hills in the west, the Resting Springs and Nopah Ranges to the east [email protected] (F.J. García-Tortosa), [email protected] (G. Scott). and the Sperry Hills to the south. These surrounding mountains 0037-0738/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.sedgeo.2010.08.003 L. Gibert et al. / Sedimentary Geology 235 (2011) 148–159 149 Fig. 1. U.S. location of Death Valley region showing the Long Valley and Yellowstone calderas. The digital elevation model shows the major geographic features and active faults in the Death Valley region, with the location of the study area. DVFZ: Death Valley Fault Zone, FCFZ: Furnace Creek Fault Zone, GFZ: Garlock Fault Zone, GVFZ: Grand View Fault Zone, PVFZ: Panamint Valley Fault Zone, SDVFZ: Southern Death Valley Fault Zone. (basement in Fig. 2) are composed of Precambrian gneisses and meta- tracods, diatoms, vertebrate fauna, and footprints have been made, sediments, Early Paleozoic marine rocks and mid-Cenozoic volcanics. along with the more common paleosols, and wave and current ripples During the Late Pliocene and much of the Pleistocene, the Tecopa Basin (Hillhouse, 1987). The central facies shows mudstones with calcite- was the site of an ephemeral shallow lake system. Toward the end of filled casts of gaylussite (Larson, 2008), a salt found in alkaline and the Middle Pleistocene (~0.2 Ma) the Amargosa River breached the saline lakes from California, usually associated with halite and trona. southern margin of the Basin and integrated with Death Valley Sheppard and Gudde (1968) described the occurrence of thin beds of (Morrison, 1999), thus initiating arroyo cutting that exposed N70 m of finely crystalline dolomite, which could be related to periods of higher Pleistocene sedimentary deposits. Beds are sub-horizontal with a lake level in an alternating wet/dry environment. Morrison (1999) general dip of ~1° basinward. This geometry has been interpreted as reported halite in some mudstones below the Bishop Tuff and Starkey the result of differential compaction on a slight depositional dip and Blackmon (1979) reported sepiolite as the dominant authigenic (Sheppard and Gudde, 1968; Hillhouse, 1987). clay-type mineral in the basin. Sepiolite is found mainly near ash beds, Numerous rhyolitic vitric ash layers are intercalated within the probably being precipitated when silica became abundant, through Tecopa beds. Two of them are chemically correlated with ultra-plinian dissolution of volcanic ash in the Mg-bearing lake waters. Sepiolite eruptions from the western US: the Bishop (760 kyr) and Lava Creek occurs in modern desert lakes with high salinity (Hardie, 1968; Parry (640 kyr) Tuffs (Izett et al., 1970; Izett, 1981). Detailed paleomagnetic and Reeves, 1968). studies have been carried out immediately below the Bishop Tuff, Diagenetic processes affected the ash beds as well as most fine- showing the Matuyama to Brunhes polarity change (Hillhouse and grained sediments over large parts of the central Basin. Sheppard and Cox, 1976; Hillhouse, 1987; Valet et al., 1988; Larson and Patterson, Gudde (1968) describe three concentric zones with increasing 1993). Both the Bishop and Lava Creek tuffs are key lithologic marker alteration toward the center of the Basin: the fresh-glass, zeolite, and beds that can be identified at many outcrops along the basin. K-feldspar diagenetic facies. This diagenesis reflects chemically zoned Infilling of the Tecopa Basin was dominated by mud and silt in the pore waters, which were fresher near the margins and increasingly central part and sand to clay around the margins, along with isolated alkaline and saline basinward. According to Sheppard and Gudde carbonate beds and paleosols (Hillhouse, 1987). Paleoflow directions (1968), this zonation was probably inherited from a depositional and fluvial facies distribution show an axial fluvial system coming environment where the groundwater of paleo-Lake Tecopa was from the north (ancient Amargosa river). Transverse channels drain moderately-to-highly saline with a pH N9, except around the margins. into the basin through the Chicago (east) and Greenwater (west) All SSD structures developed before early diagenetic cement and Valleys. Around the margins of the basin occasional reports of os- lithification of the sediments. Deformation structures are ubiquitous in 150 L. Gibert et al. / Sedimentary Geology 235 (2011) 148–159 Fig. 2. General geological and geomorphological map of the Shoshone–Greenwater Fan Sector (western of Tecopa Basin) (based in Hillhouse, 1987). Inside is the location of the study seismites ouptcrops. Green and red stars indicate the location of Bishop and Lava Creek studied outcrops. the central K-feldspar facies, common in ash-rich beds of the zeolite of them also the Lava Creek
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