Resource assessment of the Bureau of Land Management's Winnemucca District and Surprise Resource Area, northwest Nevada and northeast California; gravity map and interpretation

Plouff, Donald

doi:10.3133/ofr9799

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 88 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Possible tectonic explanations for the gravity low include: a crustal-scale structural boundary [Wyld and Wright, 2001], the granitic Cretaceous arc [Barton et al, 1988], Oligocene-Miocene rhyolitic centers [Noble et al, 1970;Plouff, 1985Plouff, , 1997Blakely and Jachens, 1991], or an early Tertiary sedimentary basin. The origin of this $30 mGal anomaly in northwestern Nevada and northeastern California is discussed in greater detail below.…”

Section: Geophysical Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crustal structure of the northwestern Basin and Range Province and its transition to unextended volcanic plateaus

Lerch¹,

Klemperer

Glen

et al. 2007

Geochem Geophys Geosyst

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

[1] The northwestern margin of the Basin and Range Province is characterized by a transition from lowmagnitude ($20%) extension in northwestern Nevada to relatively unextended volcanic plateaus in northeastern California. Seismic-velocity and potential-field modeling provides new control on the Mesozoic-to-present tectonic evolution of this poorly understood portion of the U.S. Cordillera. We document $20% crustal thinning associated with Basin and Range extension from a crustal thickness of $37 km under northeastern California to $31 km under northwestern Nevada that is consistent with the amount of extension recorded in the upper crust in northwestern Nevada, suggesting the crustal response to extension was relatively homogeneous over the entire crustal column. Our modeling also shows a welldefined, 80-km-wide zone of unusually low upper-crustal velocities ($5.9-6.1 km/s) that coincide with the surface location of sparse Cretaceous granites, locating the elusive northern extension of the Sierra Nevada batholith through northwestern Nevada for the first time in the subsurface. Combining geological and geophysical data, we reconstruct the late Cretaceous-to-present crustal evolution of this region, documenting an interplay between magmatic addition to the crust, erosional exhumation, sedimentation, and extension that has reversed the direction of crustal thinning from a west-facing continental margin to an east-facing interior basin margin over this time interval. Finally, we find no evidence in northwestern Nevada for unusually thick crust (>40 km) prior to Basin and Range extension.

show abstract

Section: Geophysical Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%