Tectonostratigraphic development of the Miocene-Pliocene Furnace Creek Basin and related features, Death Valley region, California

Abstract

The succession of middle Miocene through Pliocene sedimentary and volcanic rocks that defines the Furnace Creek basin was deposited in a tectonic setting involving large dextral displacement on the northwest-trending FurnaceCreek fault, major crustal extension southwest of the fault, and contemporaneous folding. Most of the succession was deposited contemporaneously with plutonic and volcanic activity in the adjoining area to the south.The basin fill, as much as 4 km thick and exposed over an area 60 km long by 10 km wide, consists of the Artist Drive (ca. 14-6 Ma), Furnace Creek (ca. 6-5 Ma), and Funeral (ca. 5-3 Ma) Formations. The section depositionally overlies severely extended crust marked by the brittle attenuation of Paleozoic formations and apparently the ductile stretching of the underlying Proterozoic crystalline complex. The pre-14-Ma northwest-directed extension is best expressed in the brittle attenuation and associated faulting of Cambrian formations in the vicinity of the Billie borate mine. It is also expressed in the intimate fracturing of Ordovician formations beneath less disturbed Artist Drive strata in the Desolation Canyon area of the Black Mountains, the distribution of clasts in a middle Miocene fanglomerate in the southern Funeral Mountains, and the pre-14-Ma ductile fabrics overprinted on the Badwater crystalline complex. The extension predates, by as much as 3 m.y., the previously assumed advent of major extension in the Death Valley region. The Artist Drive Formation, 1.2-2.5 km thick, consists of a mostly sedimentary, fluvial, and lacustrine northeastern facies and a mostly volcanic southwestern facies deposited on opposite sides of a contemporaneous, northwest-trending anticline. The principal volcanic units thicken southward toward the igneous field, but now terminate with normal fault contact against the uplifted Proterozoic Badwater complex.

Interbasin flow in the Great Basin with special reference to the southern Funeral Mountains and the source of Furnace Creek springs, Death Valley, California, U.S.

“…The Furnace Creek basin is a structural and depositional basin that is closely associated with the Furnace Creek fault zone (Wright et al, 1991(Wright et al, , 1999 (Fig. 3).…”

“…3). The basin fill consists from oldest to youngest, of the Artist Drive Formation, the Furnace Creek Formation, the Greenwater volcanics, and the Funeral Formation (Cemen et al, 1985;Greene, 1997;Wright et al, 1999) (Fig. 3).…”

Assessing vertical axis rotations in large‐magnitude extensional settings: A transect across the Death Valley extended terrane, California

“…intracontinental extension [e.g., Wernicke et al, 1988b], extensional basin formation [e.g., Snow and Lux, 1999;Wright et al, 1999], and the role of strike-slip faulting associated with large-scale extension [e.g., Serpa and Pavlis, 1996]. Deformation in the Death Valley extended terrane is accommodated by west dipping normal faults and both right-and left-lateral strike-slip faults, active principally in Neogene time [Wernicke et al, 1988b].…”

Imaging the Deep Structure of the Central DeathValley Basin Using Receiver Function, Gravity,and Magnetic Data

“…It represents an ideal region to study basin evolution and structure because it is actively deforming, there is little vegetation, and the sedimentation rates are low. As a result of these attributes, numerous models have been developed to describe the basin evolution and to determine which processes may be important in that evolution [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] Of particular interest here is the presence of a high amplitude seismic reflection anomaly, termed the Death Valley "bright spot" [8] (Figure 1) which has been suggested to be associated with a magmatic intrusion and volcanism in central Death Valley. Reference [9] did not find evidence for such a feature elsewhere in the region in his seismic studies and, similarly, a magnetotelluric study [10,11] north of the seismic study area did not find supporting evidence for magma in the crust.…”