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Geological Society of America Bulletin-1950-MAXSON-99-114.Pdf BULLETIN OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA VOL. 61, PP. 99-114. 9 PLS. FEBRUARY 1950 PHYSIOGRAPHIC FEATURES OF THE PANAMINT RANGE, CALIFORNIA BY JOHN H. MAXSON CONTENTS Page Page Abstract 99 Direction of movement on faults 107 Introduction 99 Nature of fault displacement 107 Basin Range theory and the Death Valley Fan scarps on west side of Death Valley 108 region 99 Valley forms of the Panamint Range 108 Acknowledgments and objectives of the study 100 Cross profile of valleys on the west flank.... 108 Location, topography, and general geologic Longitudinal stream profiles as indicators of features 100 fault-block displacement 108 General features of the Powell surface (Darwin Method of reconnaissance survey of longi- arid senesland) 101 tudinal profiles 109 Low-relief remnants of the Darwin arid senes- Goler Canyon 110 land in the Panamint Range 102 Redlands Canyon Ill Cottonwood Mountains 102 South Park Canyon Ill Tucki Mountain 102 Pleasant Canyon Ill Harrisburg Flat-Wildrose Canyon 102 Middle and South parks 102 Surprise Canyon Ill Butte Valley 103 Wildrose Canyon 112 Age of the Darwin arid senesland 103 Valley profiles of the Eastern Panamint flank Panamint Range faults and their physiographic and dissected fans of the west side of Death expression 103 Valley 112 Fault pattern 103 Hanaupah Canyon 112 Fan scarps of Panamint Valley 104 Warm Springs Canyon 112 Fault scarp of west front of Panamint Range. 105 Rotation of the Panamint-Death Valley blocks Observed fault planes in the mountain block. 105 together 113 Relationship of fault scarps to fault planes. 105 References cited 113 ILLUSTRATIONS Plate Facing page Plate Facing page 1.—Basin and range province of southeastern mint front and Hanaupah Canyon seg- California 99 ment of east Panamint front 105 2.—Panamint Range 100 7.—Internal features of the Panamint Range. 106 3.—Elevated low-relief surfaces around Pana- 8.—Profiles of streams on west side of Panamint mint Valley 102 Range 110 4.—West front of the Panamint Range 103 9.—Wildrose Canyon profile of west slope and 5.—Panamint fault scarp south of Ballarat. .. 104 profiles of streams on east side of Pana- 6.—Redlands Canyon segment of west Pana- mint Range 112 ABSTRACT Valley block were rotated eastward. Fan remnants were uplifted on the Panamint Valley scarp, and The Panamint Range, California, exemplifies alluvial fans were entrenched in Death Valley. many of the characteristic geomorphic features of Streams in the southern part of the west flank of basin ranges. The central part of the range was an the range cut valleys of V in V cross profile, and inselberg on a pre-faulting surface of generally low their longitudinal profiles developed convexities at to moderate relief developed in an arid climate. The and near the margin of the range because of success- Panamint block was brought into strong relief pre- ive uplifts or accelerations in uplift. sumably by late Pliocene and early Pleistocene downfaulting of adjacent basin blocks on faults of INTRODUCTION variable dip. Movement was in part strike-slip; the Basin Range Theory and the Death Valley Region Panamint Valley block moved northward and down with respect to the mountain block. In addition the The basin and range province of the western Panamint block and adjacent depressed Death United States, from the Wasatch Range of 99 100 J. H. MAXSON—PANAMINT RANGE, CALIFORNIA Utah on the east to the Sierra Nevada of of the valleys of the Panamint Range. In 1932 California on the west, has long been an area Professor Davis suggested a joint paper treat- of great geologic interest. Since Gilbert's origi- ing physiographic features attributable to in- nal interpretation of the ranges as uplifted termittent uplift deductively, and describing fault blocks (1874, p. 50; 1875, p. 21-42) many the scarps and valleys of the Panamint Range additions to and modifications of the structural as observed. A field trip during 1933 blocked theory have been made. Gilbert took little part out the project. Professor Davis wrote an intro- in publicly modifying his original view during ductory statement tracing the development of his lifetime, but his important posthumous the basin—range theory and outlining physio- summation Studies of Basin Range structure graphic features expected as a result of inter- (1928) provided a wealth of geologic observation mittent uplift and rotation of a mountain block. and interpretation. Professor Davis' death, February 5, 1934, Russell (1884) confirmed Gilbert's theory. ended the work on the joint project. The writer Louderback (1904; 1923; 1926) established the deeply appreciates his obligation to Professor relationship between structure and geomorphol- Davis both for general instruction during stu- ogy and demonstrated its general applicability dent days and for later discussing the phenomena over a wide area of the Great Basin. Davis in the Panamint Range. (1903; 1905; 1925; 1932b) systematized the The writer was away from California most sequence of geologic and physiographic events of the time from 1936 till 1945 and was unable characteristic of basin ranges. A detailed ac- to return to the problem until 1946 when the count of the geologic history of the basin stream profiles were plotted. He wishes to ranges may be found in Nolan's excellent thank Professor J. Hoover Mackin for making summary (1943). valuable suggestions in the manuscript. While some geologists were attacking Gil- bert's fault-block theory and maintaining that Location, Topography, and General Geologic the basin ranges are generally anticlinal in Feature* origin, Campbell (1904) described the Amar- gosa and Panamint mountains as tilted and The generalized topographic map of the basin eroded fault blocks. The Death Valley area and range province (PI. 1) shows the relation- between the ranges became a basin receiving ship of the Panamint Range to its neighbors. sediments resulting from their erosion. The great west-tilted fault block of the Sierra Death Valley and the Panamint Range were Nevada is bounded on the east by the long also described by Ball (1907, p. 195-212). He northwest trending Owens Valley. The Inyo suggested that Death Valley is a block "dropped Range is the highest and longest of the individ- down between the bounding ranges by faults." ual ranges, and the Panamint Range is next in General features of the faulting were later dis- height and size. cussed by Noble (1926) and Davis (1927). The Panamint Range is about 80 miles in length and averages 14 miles in width. The Acknowledgments and Objectives of the Study main part of the range, the part principally considered in this paper, has a single, simple The salient features of the geology of the north-south trending crest line (PI. 2). Tele- Death Valley region were pointed out by Pro- scope Peak is 11,045 feet above sea level; to the fessor J. P. Buwalda of the California Institute west South Panamint playa is 1046 feet above sea of Technology on field trips beginning in 1927. level; to the east Death Valley playa in one area The writer gratefully acknowledges this indebt- fringing the Black Mountains base reaches 279.6 edness. In 1930-1931 numerous visits to the feet below sea level. The map underemphasizes Panamint Range with the late Professor John the abrupt, rectilinear outlines of the scarps form- E. Wolff of Harvard University involved traver- ing the west fronts of the Panamint Range and the ses of Redlands Canyon and Butte Valley. Black Mountains, and distorts somewhat the In 1931, as a student of Professor W. M. deep, narrow canyons trenching the range faces. Davis, the writer began a study of the features The great mass of the range consists of pre- INTRODUCTION 101 Mesozoic sedimentary rocks and late Jurassic Peak is now 8850 feet high, rose some 4000 feet granite. At the base is the Panamint metamor- above the broad low-lying surface to the north. phic complex (Murphy, 1932) of quartz-mica The Panamint Range itself was an inselberg paraschists, actinolite schists, marble, and con- range on the pre-uplift surface. Relatively few glomeratic schists. They outcrop on the west low-relief remnants are found, and these were flank of the range and are overlain unconform- marginal to the mountain mass as it existed ably by Murphy's Telescope Group, which in- before upfaulting. These remnants have alti- cludes moderately metamorphosed dolomites tudes from 4500 to 6500 feet which, in the and quartzites. This group forms the crest of absence of fault displacement of the period of the range. Noble (1934, p. 174) suggests that basin-range uplift, indicates a relief of 2000 feet. the Panamint metamorphic complex is Archean Telescope Peak, whose present altitude is 11,045 and that the Telescope Group is Algonkian. feet, rose some 6000 feet above the general Dipping homoclinally east on the east flank of level of the landscape. the range, 30,000 feet of Paleozoic strata is re- The ancestral mountain ranges of the Powell corded by Hopper (1947, p. 404). surface in southeastern California are elongate The structure of the Panamint Range is in a north-south direction, which in general broadly anticlinal, plunging to the south; the parallels the regional strike of their component axis is west of the crest line. Deformation during sedimentary rocks. They were residual masses the late Jurassic Nevadan orogeny was accom- in the erosion of which internal structure panied or followed by batholithic intrusions of played an important role. granite. Numerous faults occur within the In the easternmost basin range, the Wasatch range, but most of them antedate the period Mountains, Eardley pointed out (1933) that of basin-range faulting and do not have topo- relief was at least 3000 feet before basin and graphic expression resulting from displacement.
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