International Geology Review Unroofing History of Alabama And
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This article was downloaded by: [Canadian Research Knowledge Network] On: 2 March 2010 Access details: Access Details: [subscription number 918588849] Publisher Taylor & Francis Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37- 41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK International Geology Review Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t902953900 Unroofing history of Alabama and Poverty Hills basement blocks, Owens Valley, California, from apatite (U-Th)/He thermochronology Guleed A. H. Ali a; Peter W. Reiners a; Mihai N. Ducea a a Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA To cite this Article Ali, Guleed A. H., Reiners, Peter W. and Ducea, Mihai N.(2009) 'Unroofing history of Alabama and Poverty Hills basement blocks, Owens Valley, California, from apatite (U-Th)/He thermochronology', International Geology Review, 51: 9, 1034 — 1050 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/00206810902965270 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00206810902965270 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material. International Geology Review Vol. 51, Nos. 9–11, September–November 2009, 1034–1050 Unroofing history of Alabama and Poverty Hills basement blocks, Owens Valley, California, from apatite (U–Th)/He thermochronology Guleed A.H. Ali*, Peter W. Reiners and Mihai N. Ducea Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA (Accepted 11 April 2009) Most of the 150 km-long Owens Valley of east-central California, the westernmost graben of the Basin and Range Province and location of the active right-lateral Owens Valley Fault Zone, is filled with more than 2–3 km of Neogene sediments. Two prominent but structurally enigmatic basement blocks, the Alabama Hills and Poverty Hills, rise from the floor of the southern part of the valley. The late Cenozoic tectonic origin of these basement blocks is not known, but previously published hypotheses include: (1) transpressional uplifts; (2) down-dropped normal fault blocks; and (3) giant landslides from adjacent ranges. We measured apatite (U–Th)/He ages on 15 samples from the Alabama and Poverty Hills to understand the history of shallow crustal exhumation of these structures, and to potentially correlate them to rocks from adjacent ranges. Apatite He ages for the Alabama and Poverty Hills range from ,63 to 52 and ,61 to 39 Ma, respectively, with one sample from the Alabama Hills yielding an older weighted mean age of 79.3 ^ 2.2 Ma (2s). These ages are similar to those measured at elevations 1.5–3.0 km higher in both the adjacent Sierra Nevada and White/Inyo Mountains. Together with a lack of evidence for transpressional structures and the presence of extensive weathering of an ancient inherited surface on top of the Alabama Hills, these results are most consistent with an origin as a down-dropped normal fault block. A structural reconstruction using tilt-corrected southern Sierra Nevada age–elevation correlations requires 2.6 km of vertical and 1.5 km of eastward motion for the Alabama Hills along the Sierra Nevada Frontal Fault. Although we cannot conclusively rule out a landslide origin, our preferred explanation for the Poverty Hills data is that it is a down-dropped normal fault block that was transported from the Inyo Mountains along a right-lateral fault possessing a significant normal component. Keywords: Alabama Hills; Poverty Hills; Owens Valley; (U–Th)/He thermochrono- logy; Sierra Nevada Introduction Downloaded By: [Canadian Research Knowledge Network] At: 23:39 2 March 2010 The Alabama and Poverty Hills are enigmatic outcrops of crystalline basement rocks in the Owens Valley, between the Sierra Nevada and the White/Inyo ranges in east-central California. Most of the Owens Valley is covered and filled with Neogene and Quaternary sediments and volcanics to minimum depths of ,2400–2700 m (Kane and Pakiser 1961; Pakiser et al. 1964), except where the Alabama and Poverty Hills’ structure outcrops (Gillespie 1991). The origin and tectonic history of both the structures were studied in the early seismic surveys by Gutenberg et al. (1932), and various hypotheses have been proposed for their origins. Competing models include landslides or down-dropped normal fault blocks (Gutenberg et al. 1932; Richardson 1975; Bishop and Clements 2006), as well as *Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] ISSN 0020-6814 print/ISSN 1938-2839 online q 2009 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/00206810902965270 http://www.informaworld.com International Geology Review 1035 the flower structures formed along localized transpressional step-overs associated with the Sierra Nevada Frontal Fault Zone (SNFFZ) and Owens Valley Fault Zone (OVFZ), respectively (Pakiser et al. 1964; Taylor 2002). Fundamentally, these basement blocks have either been uplifted from the valley floor along transpressional faults, or were down-dropped from the neighbouring high-elevation ranges along normal faults or as landslides. In this study, we attempt to constrain the shallow crustal exhumation history of rocks in these two basement blocks using apatite (U–Th)/He thermochronology. To first order, apatite He ages provide estimates of the timing of cooling through closure temperatures of ,50–708C, corresponding to the timing of exhumation within ,2–3 km of the surface. In this context, apatite He ages may allow for discrimination between tectonic models for the Alabama and Poverty Hills that require either recent exhumation from depth along the local transpressional uplifts (which would predict relatively young ages compared with adjacent footwall blocks), or down-dropping of normal fault hanging walls or landslide origins, which would predict older ages, similar to those in the adjacent ranges (e.g. House et al. 1997; Lee et al. 2009). Geologic background Owens Valley (Figure 1) is the westernmost graben of the Basin and Range Province, and is morphologically subdivided into northern and southern parts; the features studied here are in the southern part. Early rifting since 8–10 Ma (Jayko 2009) created ,2–4km of vertical relief from the Sierra Nevada and White/Inyo crests to the valley floor (Bishop and Clements 2006). To the west, elevations along the Sierra Nevada range from ,1500 to 4400 m, and show similar elevations to the east along the Inyo/White Mountains (Gillespie 1991). The peak of the Sierra Nevada, also the highest elevation in the coterminous USA, is Mt Whitney (4421 m). The Alabama Hills is adjacent to the steep escarpment at the base of Mt Whitney, which is controlled by an extensive regional fault system. Prominent faults in the Owens Valley include range-bounding normal faults, grouped as the SNFFZ, the NNW-striking OVFZ, and some subsidiary NNE-striking oblique strike-slip normal faults such as the Deep Springs Fault (Figure 1). Faults The OVFZ is an ,100 km-long right-lateral oblique strike-slip fault in east-central California that cuts the Owens Valley asymmetrically, and plays an important role in the Downloaded By: [Canadian Research Knowledge Network] At: 23:39 2 March 2010 processes related to strain accumulation and transfer in the Eastern California Shear Zone (Frankel et al. 2008). A combination of faults grouped into the Eastern California Shear Zone (including the OVFZ) and the Walker Lane Shear Zone, accommodate ,25% of the modern Pacific–North American relative plate motion (Flesch et al. 2000; Bennett et al. 2003; Hammond and Thatcher 2004). The southern OVFZ begins near the southern edge of the Owens Lake, strikes north–northwest through the valley, bounds the Alabama Hills to their east, and terminates just north of the Poverty Hills near the town of Bishop. Geodetic data constrained by block models show slip rates between 5 and 7 mm/yr (Gan et al. 2000; McClusky et al. 2001, Miller et al. 2001). These rates are approximately three times higher than the long-term geologic slip rates determined from palaeoseismic studies (e.g. Lubetkin and Clark 1988; Beanland and Clark 1994; Lee et al. 2001b). Earthquake cycle effects and viscoelastic rheology of the lower and upper mantle may explain the apparent discrepancies between geodetic and palaeoseismic slip rates (Dixon et al. 2003). 1036 G.A.H. Ali et al. Downloaded By: [Canadian Research Knowledge Network] At: 23:39 2 March 2010 Figure 1. Digital elevation map of the central and south Owens Valley showing modified quaternary fault traces of the OVFZ, Sierra Nevada Fault Zone, White Mountain Fault Zone, northern Inyo Mountain Fault, southern Inyo Mountain Fault, and Deep Springs Fault with locations dated using apatite (U–Th)/He thermochronology (US Geologic Survey 2006; Slemmons et al. 2008). Holocene lateral slip rates of the OVFZ were studied using offset abandoned Tioga outwash fans and palaeoseismic trenches that resulted in different slip rates of 1.8 ^ 3to 3.6 ^ 0.2 mm/yr (Lee et al. 2001b) and 2.0 ^ 1 mm/yr (Beanland and Clark 1994), respectively. Holocene displacement rates determined from a fault strand near the town of Lone Pine Range from 2.2 to 4.4 mm/yr with a 0.4–1.3 mm/yr down-to-the-east International Geology Review 1037 component (Lubetkin and Clark 1988).