CNWRA 92 025 ~~~_- _ -N A A0on 0 ~~~~~~~~- 0 -~~~ A I M Prepared for Nuclear Regulatory Commission Contract NRC-02-88-005 Prepared by Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses San Antonio, Texas September 1992 462.2 --- T1993032400 0 1 A Review of Pertinent Lite-rture on Volcanic-Magmatic and Tectonic History of the Basin CNWRA 92-025 Property of CNWRA Library A REVIEW OF PERTINENT LITERATURE ON VOLCANIC- MAGMATIC AND TECTONIC HISTORY OF THE BASIN AND RANGE Prepared for Nuclear Regulatory Commission Contract NRC-02-88-005 Prepared by Gerry L. Stirewalt Stephen R. Young Kenneth D. Mahrer Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses San Antonio, Texas September 1992 ABSTRACT The long-range goal of the Volcanism Research Project is to assess likelihood of volcanic and magmatic activity in the Yucca Mountain area and the potential for disruption of a repository at Yucca Mountain by that activity. To this end, this report discusses extent of available volcanic and tectonic data for the Basin and Range Physiographic Province, assesses usefulness of these data for constraining conceptual models of tectonism and associated volcanism in the Basin and Range, and addresses use of nonlinear dynamics for analyzing patterns of volcanism. Based on data from review of existing literature, the following conclusions and recommendations are drawn to provide guidance for future work in the remaining tasks of this project: (i) middle to late Cenozoic (i.e., less than 55 million years ago) volcanism in the Basin and Range Province can be broadly correlated with extensional strain in space and time, although no single tectonomagmatic model currently exists for quantifying this correlation, (ii) relationships between Quaternary volcanism and extensional strain and faulting useful for assessing volcanic and magmatic hazard at the scale of Yucca Mountain are not immediately apparent from existing data, (iii) to generate a larger-volume database, Task 2 should concentrate on compilation of data from the NNW-trending Mojave-Death Valley-Sierra Nevada-Central Nevada tectonomagmatic corridor, (iv) data compilation in this corridor should focus on description and characterization of silicic and basaltic volcanism and correlative tectonics for late Neogene (i.e., starting about 6 million years ago) through Holocene time, (v) data will be compiled into an appropriate database, plotted on common base maps, and analyzed in order to make judgments about sufficiency of data for assessing likelihood of volcanism at Yucca Mountain, and (vi) the compiled expanded database should be analyzed for attractor and fractal characteristics during Task 3 analyses and used to constrain tectonomagmatic models of magma intrusion and eruption during Task 4 modeling. ii CONTENTS Section Page FIGURES........................................................ vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .............................................. vii 1 INTRODUCTION . ........................................... 1-1 2 PURPOSE AND SCOPE ............ ........................... 2-1 3 EXTENT AND AVAILABILITY OF PERTINENT DATA .................. 3-1 3.1 CONTEMPORARY GEODYNAMICS OF THE BASIN AND RANGE REGION .... 3-1 3.1.1 Plate Tectonics .3-1 3.1.2 Space-Geodetic Measurements of Contemporary Deformation .3-3 3.1.3 Regional Spatial Patterns of Neotectonic Deformation ...................... 3-4 3.1.3.1 Patterns of Contemporary Strain Accumulation .......................... 3-4 3.1.3.2 Active Fault Systems (Quaternary) ................................. 3-5 3.1.3.3 Earthquake Seismicity . ......................................... 3-5 3.1.4 Regional Geophysical Framework .................................. 3-7 3.1.4.1 Crustal-scale Stress State . ....................................... 3-7 3.1.4.2 Deformation Rates Derived from Heat Flow Measurements .................. 3-7 3.1.5 Quaternary Volcanism . ......................................... 3-7 3.1.6 Correlation of Contemporary Volcanism and Deformation ................... 3-7 3.2 LATE CENOZOIC TECTONIC-VOLCANIC-MAGMATIC RELATIONSHIPS IN THE BASIN AND RANGE PHYSIOGRAPHIC PROVINCE .... ............. 3-8 3.2.1 Late Cenozoic Extensional Tectonics ................................ 3-8 3.2.1.1 Plate Tectonic Models . ......................................... 3-8 3.2.1.2 Age and Styles of Faulting .......... ........................... 3-12 3.2.2 Neogene Magmatism and Volcanism ............................... 3-12 3.2.3 Correlation of Late Cenozoic Magmatism with Extensional Deformation - Spatial and Temporal Patterns .............. 3-15 3.3 TECTONIC-VOLCANIC-MAGMATIC RELATIONSHIPS IN YUCCA MOUNTAIN AREA . ........................................ 3-17 3.3.1 Location and Geometry of Structures in the Yucca Mountain Area ............ 3-17 3.3.2 Geophysical Data on Structures in the Yucca Mountain Area .... ............ 3-20 3.3.3 Strain Partitioning on Structures in the Yucca Mountain Area .... ............ 3-20 3.3.4 Geophysical Data on Subsurface Conditions Possibly Related to Magmatism in the Yucca Mountain Area . ...................................... 3-20 3.3.5 Silicic Volcanism in the Yucca Mountain Area ......................... 3-21 3.3.6 Temporal Relationships of Basaltic Volcanism and Magmatism with Cenozoic Extension in the Yucca Mountain Area .................................... 3-23 3.3.6.1 Timing of Faulting .......................................... 3-23 3.3.6.2 Timing of Volcanic Events ..................................... 3-24 3.3.7 Spatial Relationships of Basaltic Volcanism and Magmatism with Structures in the Yucca Mountain Area ........................................ 3-27 3.3.8 Risk Assessment of Volcanism at Yucca Mountain ....................... 3-30 iii CONTENTS (Cont'd) Section Page 3.3.9 Controversy on the Lathrop Wells Volcanic Center ...................... 3-30 3.3.10 Preliminary Tectonomagmatic Models for the Yucca Mountain Area .... ....... 3-30 4 NONLINEAR DYNAMICS IN ASSESSMENT OF PATTERNS OF VOLCANISM AND PREDICTION OF FUTURE VOLCANIC-MAGMATIC ACTIVITY IN THE YUCCA MOUNTAIN AREA . ................................... 4-1 4.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................ 4-1 4.2 NONLINEARITY IN NATURAL SYSTEMS .......................... 4-2 4.2.1 Short-Term Temporal Examples of Nonlinear Dynamics .................... 4-2 4.2.2 Long-Term Temporal Examples of Nonlinear Dynamics .................... 4-3 4.2.3 Spatial Nonlinearity and Geological Structures .......................... 4-4 4.3 Nonlinear Dynamics and Volcanic-Magmatic Systems ...................... 4-6 4.3.1 Nonlinear Dynamics and Hawaiian Volcanism .......................... 4-6 4.3.2 Volcanic Seismicity ........................................... 4-8 4.3.3 Lava and Magma Transport . ..................................... 4-9 4.3.4 Volcanic Eruption Sequences ............ ........................ 4-10 4.4 Other Approaches Applicable to Yucca Mountain ....................... 4-11 4.4.1 Stochastics and Chaos . ....................................... 4-11 4.4.2 Stochastic Predictions and Volcanism at Yucca Mountain ..... ............. 4-11 4.4.3 Other Nonlinear Methods . ..................................... 4-14 4.4.3.1 Self-organized criticality . ....................................... 4-14 4.4.3.2 Precursor monitoring .......................................... 4-15 4.5 SUMMARY .............................................. 4-15 5 DATA ASSESSMENT AND RECOMMENDATIONS ..................... 5-1 5.1 GENERAL ASSESSMENT OF AVAILABLE DATA ..................... 5-1 5.2 SILICIC VOLCANISM AND CALDERA SYSTEMS ..................... 5-2 5.2.1 Recommendations Related to Silicic Volcanism .......................... 5-3 5.3 BASALTIC VOLCANISM . ..................................... 5-3 5.3.1 Recommendations Related to Basaltic Volcanism ......................... 5-3 5.4 TECTONOMAGMATIC ANALOG FOR YUCCA MOUNTAIN .... .......... 5-4 5.4.1 Recommendations Related to a Tectonomagmatic Analog .................... 5-4 5.5 APPLICATION OF NONLINEAR DYNAMICS AND CHAOS THEORY .... .... 5-5 5.5.1 Recommendations Related to Use of Nonlinear Dynamics or Other Methods .... .... 5-6 5.6 SUMMARY STATEMENT ...................................... 5-6 6 REFERENCES . ............................................. 6-1 APPENDIX A: DYNAMICS, CHAOS, FRACTALS, AND STOCHASTICS APPENDIX B: BIBLIOGRAPHY OF INFORMATION SOURCES ON NONLINEAR DYNAMICS iv CONTENTS (Cont'd) Section Page APPENDIX C: BIBLIOGRAPHY OF INFORMATION SOURCES ON GEOLOGICAL RELATIONSHIPS v FIGURES Figure Page 3-1 Tectonic map of western United States ............................... 3-2 3-2 Map of Quaternary (< 1.6 Ma) volcanic complexes (solid shaded areas) .... ...... 3-9 3-3 Map of Quaternary (< 1.6 Ma) fault traces within the central Basin and Range and Mojave Desert region . 3-10 3-4 Geographic and temporal relationships between plate tectonic elements of western United States and regional patterns of arc (subduction related) magmatism .... .... 3-11 3-5 Geographic and temporal patterns of regional tectonic extension .... .......... 3-13 3-6 Correlation of Quaternary (< 1.6 Ma) faulting and volcanism within the tectonically extending corridor consisting of the Mojave Desert shear zone, Greater Death Valley fault system, east Sierra Nevada flank and the central Nevada seismic zone . 3-14 3-7 Locations of faults at Yucca Mountain and Scott and Bonk's (1984) geologic cross-sections AA', BB', CC' DD', and EE' . 3-19 3-8 Caldera complex associated with the southwestern Nevada volcanic field and distribution of older basalts of the silicic