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Paleotectonic and Paleogeographic Significance of the Calaveras Complex, Western Sierra Nevada, Californ I A

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Paleotectonic and Paleogeographic Significance of the Calaveras Complex, Western Sierra Nevada, Californ I A PALEOTECTONIC AND PALEOGEOGRAPHIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CALAVERAS COMPLEX, WESTERN SIERRA NEVADA, CALIFORN I A Richard A. Schweicker t Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory of Columbia Uni ver sit y, Palisades , N. Y. 10964 Jason B. Saleeby Department of Geo logy and Geophysics Univer sity of California, Berkeley, California 94720 Othmar T. Tobisch Unive r sit y of California, Santa Cruz, California Ea rth Science Board, Applied Science Building Sant a Cruz , California 95064 William H. Wr ight, III Depar tment of Geology , California State College Sonoma , Rohne rt Park, California 94928 ABSTRACT marginal basin i s consider ed to have been situated be tween the Co rdilleran miogeocline to the southeas t The Calave r as Complex of the western Sierra and a volcanic arc t errane to the northwest. The Nevada , as defined he re , cons ists of a 375 km l ong, late Paleozoic Havallah sequence of north-central 35 km wide belt of metasediment ary and me t avolcanic Nevada i s bel ieved to have accumulated in the same r ocks , bounded on the west by the Melones faul t zone marginal basin. and Kings- Kaweah suture , and on the east by the The Me lones fault zone and Kings- Kaweah s uture Sierr a Nevada bathol ith. The Calave ras Compl ex forms r epresent a zone of early Mesozoic t ectonic trunca­ a cont inuous northwest-trendi ng belt between t he tion a long which the Calaveras Complex is j uxtaposed Placerville ar ea and the Mer ced Rive r area . South of against upper Paleozoic ophiolitic r ocks and Jurassic t he Me r ced River the belt extends in numerous r oof volcan ic and epiclast ic r ocks. Thus , we i n fer that pendants at l east as far south as the Tule River. the Calaver as Complex r epresent s the westernmost A sequence of four lithologic uni t s is r ecog­ expos ure of the l ate Paleozoic marginal basin. nized , each of which is thousands of me t e r s thick . Pr ecise original s tratigraphic t hicknesses cannot be INTRODUCTION measur ed because of intense soft- sedi ment and post­ consolidation deformation. The lowest unit consists The Calaveras Complex (formerly Calaveras Forma­ of mafic pillow lava , br eccia, tuff , and argilllte, tion) as defined her e i s t he younger of two Paleozoic and may r e present layer 2 of oceanic crus t. This me tamorphic complexes that lie east of the Melones basal un i t is overlai n by a predominantly chaot ic fault zone i n t he west e rn Si e rra Nevada me tamor phic unit of ar gillite with var iable amounts of chert and belt (Fig. 1) . Even though i t has been nearly 90 siltstone oft en occurr i ng as clasts in a diamictite . years sin e~ port ions of the Calave ras Complex were Olis t oliths of s hallow water limest one are locally an first mapped by the Unit ed States Geological Survey , i mportant component of this ar gillite uni t. The over­ litt le or nothi ng has been published on the age, l ying chert unit contains abundant large ol ist oliths s tratigraphy , or structural developmen t of the com­ of rhythmically bedded chert and locally i mportant pl ex apart f r om the broad outli nes pr ovided by limestone olis toliths in a matrix of str eaky ar gill ite Turner, Ransome , and Lindgren (see bel ow) . The great and diamict ite. The highest un i t included within the areal extent and probable Permo-Carbonife rous age of Calaveras Complex contains abundant, well-bedded t he Calaveras un der scor e the possibl e significance of quartzi t e with abundant i nterbedded olis tos tromes con­ the complex, both i n r egard to its r elation to the taining quartzite clast s and limes tone olistoliths. Cordill e ran orogen and its bear i ng on late Pal eozoic Fossils from limest one olistoliths r eported her e plat e t ectonic evolution of California. indicat e a maximum Permo-Carboniferous age for the This r eport synthesizes r esul t s of our joint and upper pa rt of the argi llite unit, and a maximum lat e individua l field s tudies of various parts of t he Cal­ Permian age for the over lying cher t unit. Published averas carried out since 1958 and s t ill in pr ogr ess . fossil data indicat e the upper pa rts of the quartzit e From de t ail ed mappi ng of small ar eas and r econnais­ unit a r e late Tr iassic to early Jurassic. sance of large r areas we have arrived at a r egionally The argillit e and chert units apparently com­ consistent sequence of lithol ogic units within the prise nume rous olis tostromes that accumulated on complex and have begun t o unravel the complex s truc­ oceanic c rust in a marginal basin that was broad ture. Descriptions of the various mappable s ubun its enough to have been r elatively free of elas tic detri ­ and consideration of their probable or igin and pal eo­ tus der i ved from the basin margins . Olistostromes geogr aphic significance a r e t he main topics of t his apparently wer e shed from t ectonically el evat ed areas paper. Our conclusions are t entative and we are not within the marginal basin that we r e denuded of their in unanimous agreement in all cases; we have chosen pelagic and hemi pelagic cover. The quartzite unit may t he simplest possible interpretations of lithol ogic r epresent an ea rly Mes ozoic northwestward prograda­ and paleontologic data and r ealize that further work tion of mature conti nent-derived sand across the west­ will require modification of many of our conclusions. ern end of the l a t e Pal eozoic marginal basin. The 381 382 SCHWEICKERT ANO OTHERS and great regional extent of the Calaveras prompted Taliaferr o (1943, p . 280) to commen t that "the name Quaternary dero1i t• is a catchall for all the Paleozoic rocks of the 8aLho l l l h Sierra Nevada and hence has no s tratigraphic signifi ­ lJnd l ffe ren tia u,:d mr.tAmo rphte rocks cance." Calaveras Complex Clark (1954) and Eric and others (1955) publish­ ed the fir st detailed geologic maps of part s of the Shoo Fly Fo nu t ion Calaveras (as res tricted in this paper) and provided important observations about me tamorphism, which had 20 40 60 also been mentioned by Knopf (1929) and Taliaferro (1943). Clark (1954, p. 11) referring to the general geology of the Calaveritas quadrangle, noted that "Interpre tation of the geologic structure is excep­ tionally difficult because of the complexit y of the area , widespread destruct ion of bedding by shearing, scarcity of outcrops, and t he absence of key horizons in the schist that underlies most of the quadrangle." Baird (1962) presented the first detailed structural analysis of a small ar ea within the Calave ras north of the Stanislaus River . His work revealed the ex­ istence of two and possibly three phases of deforma­ tion of Calaveras rocks and summarized f urther data on metamorphism. Clark (1964) present ed maps of geologic traverses in Calaveras rocks along the Merced, Tuolumne , Stanislaus , Calaveras, Mokelumne , and Cosunmes Rivers and gave the first detailed r e­ gional synthesis of rocks in the Calaveras . Douglass (1967) reported Permian Te thyan f usul i ­ nids from limestone blocks in the belt of rocks wes t of the Melones fault zone to wh i ch Turner (1893a) had originally applied the name Calaveras , and which had become known as the "western belt of the Cala­ veras Formation" (Clark, 1964). Duffield and Sharp (1976 ; Sharp and Duffield, 1973) reported t ectonic melanges in this western belt. Schweickert and Cowan (1975) noted that chaotic rocks exist as well in the Figure 1. Location map of central Sierra Nevada, Calaveras Complex (defined below) east of the Melones showing outline of Figure 2 and extent of Calaver as fault zone. We do not consider that relations be­ Complex. MFZ: Melones fault zone; P: Placerville; tween the wes tern belt of the Paleozoic rocks and the M: Mariposa; OP: Oakhur st pendant; DCP: Dinkey Calaveras Complex are we ll known and therefore argue Creek pendant; MMP: Mt. Morrison pendant; MR: that fossils contained in the chaotic western belt Mokelumn e River; TR: Tule River; BM: Bear Mountains cannot be used to define the age of the l arger east­ ern belt. This restriction means that the age of the eastern belt is defined only by one fossil locality Previous investigations and history of nomenclature at Hites Cove (Fig. 2) , and Turner (1893a, p. 309) suggested these fossils indicate a Carbonife r ous age. Be tween 1885 and 1900 mos t of the region under conside ration was mapped by Henry W. Turner, Frederick PROPOSED REVISIONS AND RESTRICTIONS L. Rans ome , and Waldemar Lindgren of the United Stat es Geological Survey. The r esults of the mapping were The following facts indicate t o us the necessity published as a series of 1:125,000 scale folios of of revising and r estricting the use of the t e rm Cala­ the United States Geological Survey Geologic Atlas veras Formation. Series (Turner, 1894; Turner and Ransome , 1897, 1898; 1) The larger, main belt of "Cal averas" rocks · Lindgren , 1900).
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