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Late Quaternary Vertical Displacement Rate Across the Fish Springs Fault, Owens Valley Fault Zone, California

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Stephen J. Martel ,
T. Mark Harrison  and
Alan R. Gillespie
Stephen J. Martel
Affiliation:
Department of Applied Earth Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305
T. Mark Harrison
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences, State University of New York at Albany, Albany, New York 12222
Alan R. Gillespie
Affiliation:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, assigned to Department of Geological Sciences, AJ-20, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195
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Abstract

A cinder cone located 11 km south of Big Pine, California, is vertically displaced 78 ± 6 m by the Fish Springs fault of the Owens Valley fault zone. The surfaces of Tahoe-age and Tioga-age alluvial fans that overlie the cone are vertically displaced 31 ± 3 and 3.3 ± 0.3 m, respectively. Neither the cinder cone nor the Tioga-age fan appears to have been laterally offset. The cone is dated by the 39Ar/40Ar method at 314,000 ± 36,000 yr B.P. (2σ), indicating an average late Quaternary vertical displacement rate of 0.25 ± 0.03 mm/yr (2σ). The age of the Tahoe glaciation is uncertain, but probably corresponds to the age of marine oxygen isotope stage 4 and/or 6 (65,000–75,000 and 128,000–195,000 yr, respectively). If the older fan were deposited during stage 4, then the average post-Tahoe vertical displacement rate probably was at least twice the pre-Tahoe late Quaternary rate. If the displacement rate has been constant during the last 314,000 yr, then the surface of the Tahoe-age fan is dated at 124,000 ± 19,000 yr B.P., and the bulk of the fan most likely would have been deposited during stage 6. Based on the displacement of the surface of the Tioga-age (10,600 – 26,000 yr) fan, the average Holocene displacement rate appears to have been slightly less than the average late Quaternary rate.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 27 , Issue 2 , March 1987 , pp. 113 - 129
Copyright
University of Washington

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