cainozoic evolution of the state of stress and style of tectonism of the basin and range province of the western united states cainozoic evolution of the modern plate boundary along the western united states from subduction to a predominantly transform boundary coincided with a change from compressional to extensional deformation in the western united states extensions tectonism responsible for the modern basin and range province appears to represent a unique late stage episode of a much longer period of extension initiated in an in tra arc setting contemporaneously with calc alkaline magmatism basin range extension is distinguished from early extension on the basis of angular unconformities differences in fault trends and spacing and associated magmatism basaltic prebasin range extension i e extension preceding the break up of the region into ranges resembling the modern ones was under way locally by at least 30 ma and is now recognized by faulted and highly tilted strata exposed in uplifted range blocks by large regions of the crust underlain by passively emplaced subvolcanic batholiths and by the thickness and distribution of stratigraphic units locally high strain rates that accompanied early extensions of as much as 50 100 are implied data on preferentially orientated dyke swarms and fault slip vectors indicate a strikingly uniform wsw ene least principal stress orientation in the period ca 20 10 ma during this early extension the change from early extension to basin range style faulting of the upper 15 km of crust which resulted in broadly spaced ranges 25 35 km crest crest spacing was time transgressive and probably not abrupt locally both types occurred concurrently southern basin and range block faulting occurred largely in the period 13 10 ma in response to a stress field orientated similarly to that responsible for the early extension in contrast northern basin and range block faulting developed after 10 ma and continues to the present in response to a stress field orientated approximately 45 clockwise to the earlier stress field this modern stress field with a wnw ese to e w directed least principal stress characterizes the entire modern basin and range province and rio grande rift region the 45 change in least principal stress orientation is consistent with superposition of dextral shear associated with the development of the san andreas transform fault inclusion of pre basin range extension may help resolve the discrepancy between estimates of 15 30 for basin range block faulting and total extension estimates of 100 300 for the basin and range province

lithosphere dynamics and continental deformation the unifying theme in this section is the remarkable weakness of major faults i will consider the diverse new evidence for weakness and the evidence for high pore pressure localized in faults as a fundamental cause with this background one can better understand why faults remain active even after large rotations with respect to stress i will look at large neogene 23 7 million year old rotations about horizontal axes in the basin and range province and about vertical axes along the pacific margin recent developments will be summarized from studies of neogene tectonics neotectonics in california alaska and the mississippi embayment in the context of a weak north american stress field that results mainly from topographic forces to close i will present new geophysical studies relevant to the continuing controversy over whether the basic structure of the north american mantle lithosphere was altered by an early tertiary episode of flat subduction

neogene paleostress changes in the basin and range a case study at hoover dam nevada arizona at hoover dam 40 km southeast of las vegas nevada well exposed highly faulted miocene rocks provide an excellent opportunity to study the paleostress history of a very small area within a region where previous geologic studies indicate clockwise rotation of paleostress and a nearness to a major strike slip fault zone boundary within 0 5 km3 of rock the sense of slip was determined on almost 500 separate faults the fault slip data show internal consistency with respect to lithology size of faults and location within the small area with respect to fault slip however the data represent an in homogeneous mixture of primarily strike slip and dip slip motions from this mixture it is possible to resolve two distinct stress fields with directions of extension that differ by 60 each stress field corresponds to a mixture of strike slip and dip slip faults and thus the orientations of 1 and 2 are not tightly constrained if however the data are first separated into strike slip and dip slip faulting modes and subsequently searched for sub populations that correspond to contrasting paleostress orientations the computations yield tightly constrained tensors that illustrate two distinct stress fields with subhorizontal 3 axes that trend n50 e and n75 w the 1 and 2 axes permutate in two vertical planes that strike n40 w and n15 e because 1 and 2 are close in value relative to 3 these relationships suggest that strike slip and dip slip faulting belong to the same tectonic regime qualitative observations of polyphase slip fault fault offsets and fault bedding geometric relationships when evaluated in the context of changes in 3 orientation and permutations of 1 and 2 provide a basis for a two stage late cenozoic structural evolution at hoover dam these stages are 1 strike slip faulting partly pre tilt and dip slip faulting and associated stratal tilting and 2 mostly post tilt complexly interrelated strike slip oblique slip and dip slip faulting the qualitative evaluations indicate that strike slip and dip slip faulting alternated in time during the second stage of deformation and may have done so during the first these mixed mode movements probably represent stress oscillations in time and space rather than discrete stress reorganizations in contrast the two different orientations of 3 either represent a major clockwise rotation of the stress field or a major counterclockwise rotation of the rocks during the faulting history each alternative is consistent with regional geologic relationships and the choice of which is correct cannot be made within the small area that was studied

cenozoic thermal mechanical and tectonic evolution of the rio grande rift careful documentation of the cenozoic geologic history of the rio grande rift in new mexico reveals a complex sequence of events at least two phases of extension have been identified an early phase of extension began in the mid oligocene about 30 ma and may have continued to the early miocene about 18 ma this phase of extension was characterized by local high strain extension events locally 50 100 regionally 30 50 low angle faulting and the development of broad relatively shallow basins all indicating an approximately ne sw 25 extension direction consistent with the regional stress field at that time extension events were not synchronous during early phase extension and were often temporally and spatially associated with major magmatism a late phase of extension occurred primarily in the late miocene 10 5 ma with minor extension continuing to the present it was characterized by apparently synchronous high angle faulting giving large vertical strains with relatively minor lateral strain 5 20 which produced the modern rio grande rift morphology extension direction was approximately e w consistent with the contemporary regional stress field late phase graben or half graben basins cut and often obscure early phase broad basins early phase extensional style and basin formation indicate a ductile lithosphere and this extension occurred during the climax of paleogene magmatic activity in this zone late phase extensional style indicates a more brittle lithosphere and this extension followed a middle miocene lull in volcanism regional uplift of about 1 km appears to have accompanied late phase extension and relatively minor volcanism has continued to the present we have estimated geotherms and calculated lithospheric strength curves for the two phases of extension using geologic data to constrain earlier events and geophysical data to constrain the modern geotherm and crustal structure a high geotherm was deduced for early phase extension resulting in a shallow crustal brittle ductile transition and negligible mantle strength the lithosphere cooled after early phase extension resulting in a deeper crustal brittle ductile transition and perhaps more significantly a considerable zone of mantle strength immediately beneath the moho these results indicate that early phase extensional style was controlled by a crustal decollement near the brittle ductile transition which was prevented during late phase extension by significant strength in the uppermost mantle late cenozoic uplift of the rift zone cannot be explained by crustal thinning during extension and geotherm evolution predicted from simple cooling however this uplift does not appear to be restricted to the rift zone and pliocene to recent volcanism and heat flow data suggest that uplift may be caused by magmatic thickening of the crust perhaps unrelated to rifting the complex interrelationship among regional and local prerifting synrifting and postrifting events in the rio grande rift suggests that rifting at least in this region should not be considered in isolation of other geologic events

tectonic analysis of fault slip data sets using data that include the direction and the sense of motion on individual fault surfaces determined by slickenside lineations it is possible to reconstruct reduced stress tensors that correspond to the orientation of stress axes and to the ratio 2 3 1 3 between principal stress values 1 2 3 compression being positive no assumption is made concerning the orientation of fault planes relative to stress axes so that reactived faults are taken into account as well as newly created ones qualitative and quantitative methods for analysis of fault slip data were developed during the last 10 years the practical limitation of the methods and the necessity for critical field observations are emphasized these methods can be applied to focal mechanisms of earthquakes a more complex analysis of heterogeneous data sets involving an iterative separation of different stress systems is also discussed this analysis enables one to distinguish successive faulting events careful qualitative study in the field is in all cases essential

cenozoic and mesozoic structure of the eastern basin and range province utah from cocorp seismic reflection data cocorp seismic reflection data collected from the eastern basin and range in west central utah provide information on cenozoic extensional tectonics mesozoic thrusting and their interrelationships those data show a series of remarkably continuous low angle reflectors that extend more than 120 km perpendicular to strike and can be traced as deep as 15 20 km over that distance none of these events are significantly cut by any high angle normal faults a major detachment beneath the sevier desert can be traced from a surface zone of normal faulting to a depth of 12 15 km with a regional apparent westward dip of 12 tentative correlation of upper and lower plate events suggests 30 60 km of extensional displacement on this detachment whether this structure is a reactivated mesozoic thrust is uncertain west steepening splays off the end of the detachment reach depths of 20 km and may represent a major mesozoic ramp or zones of distributed ductile shearing during extension some events are interpreted to be mesozoic thrusts of which at least one beneath the house range has been reactivated during the cenozoic the snake range decollement dips gently east and has a sense of cenozoic displacement opposite to that of other cenozoic detachments farther east deep events are most numerous beneath the east side of the sevier desert where they occur to depths of 30 km at the top of or perhaps partly within the anomalously low velocity upper mantle

is there a genetic relationship between selected regional joints and contemporary stress within the lithosphere of north america on the appalachian plateau of new york ene striking joints parallel the mid continent contemporary stress field and do not correlate with other structures joints within ohio indiana michigan and west virginia also parallel the mid continent maximum horizontal compression as indicated by hydraulic fracture measurements in northern indiana where the contemporary stress field deviates significantly from the orientation of the mid continent stress the attitude of the joints deviates accordingly in addition to joints structures on several scales from subcontinent size fracture systems to microfabrics in shales apparently parallel the mid continent stress field from this i conclude that these joints are mode i cracks whose orientation corresponds to the contemporary tectonic stress field in itself the formation of these structures constitutes a tectonic event that has often been overlooked in favor of tectonic events that produce the more spectacular but less pervasive faults and folds

contemporary seismicity faulting and the state of stress in the colorado plateau the contemporary seismicity of the colorado plateau based on seismic monitoring in the past 30 yr can be characterized as being of small to moderate magnitude and contrary to earlier views of a low to moderate rate of occurrence with earthquakes widely distributed concentrations of earthquakes have been observed in a few areas of the plateau the most seismically active area of the colorado plateau is the eastern wasatch plateau book cliffs where abundant small magnitude seismicity is induced by coal mining the largest earthquakes observed to date of estimated richter magnitude m l 5 6 have generally occurred in northern arizona although very few earthquakes can be associated with known geologic structures or tectonic features in the colorado plateau seismicity appears to be the result of the reactivation of pre existing faults lacking surficial expression but favorably oriented to the tectonic stress field the small to moderate size of the earthquakes and their widespread distribution are consistent with a highly faulted precambrian basement and upper crust and a moderate level of differential tectonic stress earthquakes in the plateau generally occur in the upper crust from the near surface to a depth of 15 20 km although events have been observed in both the lower crust and uppermost mantle in areas of low to normal heat flow the latter suggests that temperatures are sufficiently low at these depths that brittle failure and hence earthquakes are still possible the predominant mode of tectonic deformation within the plateau appears to be normal faulting on northwest to north northwest striking faults with some localized occurrences of strike slip faulting on north west or northeast striking planes at shallow depths the contemporary state of stress within the plateau is characterized by approximate northeast trending extension in contrast to the previous belief that the plateau was being subjected to east west tectonic compression one area of the plateau the eastern wasatch plateau and book cliffs may still be characterized by compressive stresses however the nature of these stresses is not well understood

normal faulting block tilting and decollement in a stretched crust extensional tectonics cover a wide range of crustal structures from narrow continental rifts to large continental areas if we except continental and oceanic rifts stretched portions of the crust exhibit complex faulting patterns at upper levels with high angle and low angle normal faults very little is known concerning the geometry of structures and physical processes at depth it is therefore difficult to extrapolate surface observations to the crustal scale five general models are proposed that combine continuous and discontinuous deformation and geometrical and geological tests are proposed two natural examples the west armorican atlantic margin and eldorado mountains basin and range province are presented they are characterized by an association of high angle normal faults tilted blocks and low angle normal faults field and geometrical arguments are given to demonstrate that low angle faults are controlled by decollement surfaces along preexisting interfaces geometrical implications of the tilted block pattern are presented and the gravity gliding hypothesis is proposed as a possible explanation of block tilting when associated with low angle normal faults in such cases the amount of stretching cannot be related to bulk thinning of the crust

three dimensional laramide deformation of the colorado plateau competing stresses from the sevier thrust belt and the flat farallon slab 1 kinematic analysis of laramide basement cored uplifts on the northern colorado plateau indicate that four of the uplifts were constructed by northeast directed shortening while at least two were constructed by southeast directed shortening available timing data suggest that all of the uplifts rose at approximately the same time 72 50 ma this paper proposes that the different shortening directions are a predictable result of deformation in a three dimensional stress field where the magnitude of 2 approaches that of 1 the concept is supported by both angelier stereographic analysis and elastic modeling tectonically 1 is may have been the result of coupling between the horizontally subducting farallon slab and the north american plate the elevated values of 2 are attributed to far field stresses generated by the topographically high sevier thrust belt which wraps around the western edge of the colorado plateau and was active at the time of deformation in the plateau

inversion of field data in fault tectonics to obtain the regional stress iii a new rapid direct inversion method by analytical means summary a new method for determining the reduced stress tensor with four degrees of freedom the orientations of the three principal stress axes as well as the ratio of principal stress differences using fault slip data or focal mechanisms of earthquakes is presented from a computational point of view the inversion of fault slip data is made in a direct way by purely analytical means as a result the determination process is extremely fast and adaptable on small microcomputers from a physical point of view the method aims at simultaneously i minimizing the angles between theoretical shear stress and actual slip vector and ii having relative magnitudes of shear stress large enough to induce slip despite rock cohesion and friction examples of application to actual fault slip data sets with good or poor variety of fault slip orientations are shown the double significance of the basic criterion adopted results in a more realistic solution of the inverse problem than the single minimization of the shear stria angle

surface morphology of columnar joints and its significance to mechanics and direction of joint growth columnar joints in basaltic lava flows display conspicuous bands oriented normal to column axes new observations show that each band contains a single plumose structure and thus represents an individual crack or joint segment formed during a discrete growth event analysis of plumose structure and intersections of cracks leads to a new kinematic model of columnar jointing and provides the first direct proof that columnar joints grow incrementally from exterior to interior regions of solidifying magma bodies columnar joints form by nucleation and growth of new cracks on the edges of older cracks each new crack begins at a point and propagates mostly normal to column axes and along the leading edge of a developing column face where thermal stress is concentrated inward propagation of cracks toward hotter regions is limited by a decrease of thermal stress and by the brittle ductile transition of lava outward and lateral propagation is limited by mechanical interaction with previous cracks and by low thermal stress in already fractured lava cracks often diverge slightly from the planes of previous cracks probably because of spatial and temporal changes in directions of local principal stresses mechanical interaction causes a diverging crack to overlap curve toward and usually intersect the previous crack behind its edge leaving a blind tip that points in the overall growth direction of the columnar joints this and other directional criteria are applied to determine joint growth patterns in several lava flows of the western united states in two tiered and multi tiered flows downward growing columnar joints usually meet upward growing joints well below the middle of the flows which indicates very rapid cooling of upper portions relative to lower portions this supports the idea that convection of water in columnar joints connected to the surface may be an important mechanism for cooling the upper portions of these flows whereas conduction is probably the dominant cooling mechanism at the bases

mesozoic to recent evolution of intraplate stress fields under multiple remote stresses the case of signy island south orkney microcontinent antarctica abstract palaeostresses inferred from approximately 3200 brittle mesostructures measured at 43 sites in signy island show a stress field characterized by compressional strike slip and extensional stress states there is a dominant nw se horizontal compression direction as well as three nnw sse wnw ese and ene wsw secondary 1 horizontal stress directions orientation of 3 shows a main mode trending nw se together with secondary north south and ne sw extensional stress directions the nnw sse horizontal compression is consistent with the stretching shearing direction defined from the fold axis trend this is owing to a subduction related tectonic regime during early to middle jurassic times in middle jurassic early cretaceous times the tectonic regime changes to extensional with north south extensional stress directions the early processes of subduction of the northern sector of the weddell sea oceanic crust below the south orkney microcontinent from the paleocene until the middle miocene is related to the 1 direction wnw ese to nw se the spreading of powell basin took place from the late eocene to the early miocene and is the cause of east west and ne sw extensional processes in the southern south orkney microcontinent finally the nw se 3 direction is related to the current left lateral strike slip movement between the scotia and antarctic plates

formation of the rocky mountains western united states a continuum computer model one hypothesis for the information of the rocky mountain structures in late cretaceous through eocene time is that plate of oceanic lithosphere was underthrust horizontally along the base of the north american lithosphere the horizontal components of the motion of this plate are known from paleomagnetism and the edge of the region of flat slab can estimated from reconstructed patterns of volcanism new techniques of finite element modeling allow prediction of the thermal and mechanical effects of horizontal subduction on the north american plate a model that has a realistic temperature dependent rheology and a simple plane layered initial condition is used to compute the consequences of horizontal underthrusting in the time interval 75 million to 30 million years before present successful prediction of this model include i the location amount and direction of horizontal shortening that has been inferred from laramide structures ii massive transport of lower crust from southwest to northeast iii the location and timing of the subsequent extension in metamorphic core complexes and the rio grande rift and iv the total area eventually involved in basin and range style extension in a broad sense this model has predicted the belt of laramide structures the transport of crust from the coastal region to the continental interior the subsequent extension in metamorphic core complexes and the rio grande rift and the geographic region of late tertiary basin and range extension its principal defects are that i many events are predicted about 5 million to 10 million years too late and ii the wave of crustal thickening does not travel far enough to the east reasonable modifications to the oceanic plate kinematics and rheologies that were assumed may correct these defects the correspondence of model predictions to actual geology is already sufficiently close to show that the hypothesis that horizontal subduction caused the laramide orogeny is probably correct the rocky mountain thrust and reverse faults formed in an environment of east west to northeast southwest compressive stress that was caused by the viscous coupling between the oceanic plate and the base of the north american crust nonuniform crustal thickening by simple shear transport also caused relative uplifts therefore this model is consistent with both of the range forming mechanisms that have been inferred 1 a new proposal that arises from this simulation is that horizontal subduction also caused the subsequent extensional basin and range taphrogeny by stripping away the mantle lithosphere so that the crust was exposed to hot asthenosphere after the oceanic slab dropped away

palaeostresses inferred from macrofractures colorado plateau western u s a abstract in order to 1 understand the tectonic significance of jointing and 2 reconstruct the regional palaeostress history we have studied macrofractures especially joints in the colorado plateau nine major joint set trends have been identified in the colorado plateau each set includes joints that may differ in significance and in age the joints are commonly extensional joints but shear joints were also found the main tectonic events reconstructed from macrofractures analysis include 1 a pre laramide compressional event with 1 n 45 e 2 three laramide compressional events with 1 n 65 e n 95 e and n 115 e successively and 3 three neogene extensional events with 3 n 65 e n 85 e and n 120 e successively these events are correlated with major tectonic events described in neighbouring areas of the western american cordillera

the morphology and migration of transverse bars off the west central florida coast abstract a series of migrating shore normal sandbars with wavelengths of 75 120 m and heights up to 2 m have been identified off the northern tip of anna maria island a barrier island on the west central florida coast similar features have been described elsewhere since the 1930s and termed transverse bars the transverse bars identified off anna maria island are found for about 3 km along the coast and extend 4 km offshore well outside the normal surf zone width no cusps or any other associated beach expression is evident despite the fact that the bars come to within about 75 m of the beach sediments on the crests of the bars are a well sorted fine quartz sand whereas sediments in the troughs are a poorly sorted coarse carbonate shell hash historical aerial photographs and repeated high resolution bathymetric surveys provide a means of quantifying the migration of the transverse bars analyses of orthorectified aerial photographs from the early 1940s through the mid 1990s clearly show movement or migration taking place in the bar field in the 40 yr period from 1951 to 1991 the southern edge of the bar field moved 200 350 m to the south with an average long term migration rate of 8 m yr repeated bathymetric surveys over an 8 month period give an average short term migration rate of 21 m yr to the south wave and current measurements suggest that southerly winds associated with the passage of cold fronts drive near bed currents to the south that are strong enough to initiate sediment transport and cause the southerly migration of the transverse bars

paleoearthquake recurrence on the east paradise fault zone metropolitan albuquerque new mexico a fortuitous exposure of the east paradise fault zone near arroyo de las calabacillas has helped us determine a post middle pleistocene history for a long forgotten quaternary fault in the city of albuquerque new mexico mapping of two exposures of the fault zone allowed us to measure a total vertical offset of 2 75 m across middle pleistocene fluvial and eolian deposits and to estimate individual surface faulting events of about 1 0 5 and 1 25 m these measurements and several thermoluminescence ages allow us to calculate a long term average slip rate of 0 01 0 001 mm yr and date two surface faulting events to 208 25 ka and 75 7 ka the youngest event probably occurred in the late pleistocene sometime after 75 7 ka these data yield a single recurrence interval of 133 26 ka and an average recurrence interval of 90 10 ka however recurrence intervals are highly variable because the two youngest events occurred in less than 75 ka offsets of 0 5 1 25 m and a fault length of 13 20 km indicate that surface rupturing paleoearthquakes on the east paradise fault zone had probable m s or m w magnitudes of 6 8 7 0 although recurrence intervals are long on the east paradise fault zone these data are significant because they represent some of the first published slip rate paleoearthquake magnitude and recurrence information for any of the numerous quaternary faults in the rapidly growing albuquerque rio rancho metropolitan area manuscript received 17 june 1999