Upper Neogene stratigraphy and tectonics of Death Valley — a review

Rock varnish microlamination dating of late Quaternary geomorphic features in the drylands of western USA

“…Secondly, rock varnish is ubiquitous and formed on alluvial fan surfaces of varying age, from late Holocene to mid Pleistocene, making VML dating of these geomorphic features possible. Thirdly, a great deal of previous research on alluvial fans in Death Valley has yielded a chronological framework of fan morphostratigraphy (e.g., Denny, 1965;Hunt and Mabey, 1966;Hooke, 1972;Dorn, 1988;Bull, 1991;Hooke and Dorn, 1992;Ibbeken et al, 1998;Knott et al, 2005), with which our new VML dating results may be compared and evaluated.…”

Beryllium-10 terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide surface exposure dating of Quaternary landforms in Death Valley

“…This is partially because of the difficulty in defining the ages of landforms by the standard technique of radiocarbon dating due to the absence of organic matter in sediments. Nevertheless, relative ages of landforms have been determined by numerous researchers using a combination of morphological, relative weathering and soil characteristics (Denny, 1965;Hunt and Mabey, 1966;Bull, 1968;Hooke, 1972;McFadden et al, 1989McFadden et al, , 1991Hooke and Dorn, 1992;Nishiizumi et al, 1993;Ku et al, 1998;Machette et al, 2001Machette et al, , 2008Klinger, 2001a,b,c,d;Klinger and Piety, 2001;Knott et al, 2005;Frankel and Dolan, 2007). In recent years, however, the developing methods of optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide (TCN) surface exposure dating have allowed many landforms to be dated within the valley (Frankel et al, 2007a;Machette et al, 2008;Frankel et al, 2010a,b).…”

Timing and controls on late Quaternary landscape development along the eastern Sierra El Mayor range front in northern Baja California, Mexico

“…The Q2c surface is generally considered Late Pleistocene (~60 ka) and the Q3a surface early Holocene (~12 ka). Klinger (2002) also subdivided the Q2 surface into three subdivisions (Q2a, Q2b, and Q2c) for fans in northern Death Valley, with youngest (Q2c) having an age range of 35-60 ka (Klinger, 2001); the ages for Death Valley fan deposits and surfaces are summarized by Knott et al (2005) and Sohn et al (2007). Frankel et al (2007) describe similar Q2c surfaces in northern Death Valley that have cosmogenic ages of 36 to 82 ka, in about the same age range of that prescribed by Klinger (2001).…”

“…The Mojave Desert region chronology has been correlated with or utilized in many studies throughout the desert southwest USA area (e.g., Wells et al, 1987;Bull, 2000;Klinger, 2001Klinger, , 2002Knott et al, 2005;Bull, 2007;Frankel et al, 2007;Sohn et al, 2007). Most of the processresponse models for the Mojave Desert region suggest that alluvial fan aggradation is due to changes from wet to dry (glacial to interglacial) periods whereby factors such as reduced vegetation and increased exposure of soil to erosion cause increases in sediment supply and fan aggradation (e.g., Wells et al, 1987;Bull, 1991).…”