U. S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

Tectonic evolution of the Crater Flat basin, 

Yucca Mountain region, Nevada

by

C. J. Fridrich

U. S. Geological Survey 

Box 25046, Denver, CO

Open-File Report 98-33

Prepared in cooperation with the 

U. S. Department of Energy Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Project

1998

This report is preliminary and has not been reviewed for conformity with U. S. Geological 

Survey editorial standards. Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive 

purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U. S. Geological Survey.
ABSTRACT

Yucca Mountain is an arcuate, multiple-fault-block ridge on the rim of Crater Rat in 

southern Nevada. The ridge and alluvial flat are structurally linked and together constitute the 

Crater Flat structural basin. This late Cenozoic basin is located on the south flank of the 

southwest Nevada volcanic field, which in turn lies along the northeast margin of the Walker Lane 

belt, a northwest-trending zone of irregular topography and structure between the Sierra Nevada 

and the northern Basin and Range province. The Crater Flat basin is filled dominantly by the 

major ash-flow tuff sheets erupted from the central caldera complex of the volcanic field, at the 

north boundary of the basin. Relations in the volcanic rocks, including tilting, faulting, unitthickness changes, and vertical-axis rotations, provide a detailed record of the tectonic history of 

Crater Flat and adjacent structural domains.

Strata within Crater Flat basin are tilted dominantly eastward to southeastward along a 

closely spaced system of mostly west- to northwest-dipping normal faults. This tilted-domino 

structural style resembles that of many areas of extreme extension and detachment faulting. 

However, in Crater Flat, as in much of the volcanic field, this style is developed at moderate to 

low percentages of extension, such that detachment faulting appears unlikely. Crater Flat formed 

by a combination of east-west to southeast-northwest extension and northwest-directed dextral 

deformation, the latter of which is indicated by oblique slickenlines on most intrabasin normal 

faults and paleomagnetic evidence of oroflexural bending along a northwest-trending axis through 

the basin. The spatial variation in the percentage of extension and in the degree of vertical-axis 

rotation within the Crater Flat domain resembles that of a triangular pull-apart basin. A major 

strike-slip fault(s) may be associated with this basin but, if so, it is somehow concealed. The 

caldera complex at the north boundary of Crater Flat influenced the structures of this basin by 

locally modifying the regional stress regime and by doming the rocks peripheral to the calderas; 

however, the structures of Crater Flat basin are products of regional tectonism, not of caldera 

collapse.

The new field evidence gathered in this study thus does not support previous suggestions 

that Crater Flat formed through the action of some single concealed master structure, such as a 

regional detachment fault, a caldera ring-fracture zone, or a major strike-slip fault. This is not 

to say that any of those three features are necessarily absent. Rather, the major conclusion at this 

point is that Crater Flat basin is a hybrid feature; its geometry reflects the combination of 

structural influences that are specific to its setting on the flank of a large caldera complex, at the 

boundary between the Walker Lane belt and the northern Basin-and-Range province, and at the 

periphery of a major domain - to the west - of extreme extension associated with detachment 

faulting.

In the Crater Flat region, belts of active extension have migrated, at times erratically, but 

with a regular west-stepping pattern during a major part of the late Cenozoic. In any one place, 

the evident tectonic pattern during the westward migration is abrupt onset of a pulse of rapid 

extension, followed by a progressive but slower decline in extension rate as the tectonic pulse 

migrated away. Scattered small domains, including a major part of the Crater Flat basin, have 

remained tectonically active at feeble rates long after passage of an extensional pulse.
INTRODUCTION

Investigations to evaluate Yucca Mountain as a potential site for a high-level radioactive 

waste repository have included geologic mapping of Yucca Mountain and adjacent areas, and are 

part of a broader, longer-term effort by the U. S. Geological Survey to characterize the geology 

and regional setting of the Nevada Test Site for the U. S. Department of Energy. Mapping efforts 

preceding the present study defined the basic structure and stratigraphy of the Yucca Mountain 

region, and provided the basis on which a number of alternative tectonic models were proposed 

(Christiansen and Lipman, 1965; Scott and Bonk, 1984; Maldonado, 1990; Maldonado and 

Hausback, 1990; Monsen and others, 1992; Minor and others, 1993; Wright and Troxel, 1993; 

Faulds and others, 1994; R. B. Scott, USGS, unpub. data). Important work supporting the 

geologic mapping effort includes geophysical investigations (Snyder and Carr, 1984; Rosenbaum 

and others, 1991; Grauch and others, 1993; Hudson and others, 1994), and geochronologic studies 

(Sawyer and others, 1994).

This paper decribes the results of 12 months of field work by the author from 1992 through 

1996. This field work focused on collection of detailed map data in areas to the west of the 

proposed repository area, where no detailed mapping was previously available, and on field 

checking areas in which detailed mapping was completed by previous workers. The new field 

work includes complete remapping of two and a half 7.5-minute quadrangles (Fridrich and others, 

unpub. data). Because these new maps have not yet been published, they are cited below as - new 

field data, this study.

A major focus of the new mapping has been the documentation of angular unconformities, 

unit-thickness changes across faults, and kinematic indicators along faults. This new data is used, 

in conjunction with the preceding geologic and geophysical data: (1) to discriminate the structural 

domains and domain boundaries of the Yucca Mountain region, (2) to develop a comprehensive 

picture of the internal structure of the Crater Flat basin, the domain in which Yucca Mountain lies,

(3) to define the late Cenozoic tectonic evolution of Crater Flat basin and adjacent domains, and

(4) to evaluate the principal tectonic models that have been proposed for the Yucca Mountain area.

DEFINITION OF CRATER FLAT BASIN

The Yucca Mountain region is located in southern Nevada, in the southwest Great Basin 

(Figure 1). Yucca Mountain itself is an arcuate, multiple-fault-block ridge that extends around 

the north, east, and south flanks of the Crater Flat alluvial basin (Figure 2). This arcuate ridge 

and the "flat" it nearly encloses are structurally linked; together, they constitute a single domain 

in terms of their structural style and tectonic history, and they are distinct in these features from 

adjacent domains.

In terms of overall fault pattern, the Crater Flat/Yucca Mountain domain is a graben. This 

domain is bounded by an east-dipping range-front fault on the west side and the vast majority of 

faults within this domain are antithetic faults in the sense that they face into the range-front fault 

and are coeval with it (Figures 2 and 3). As discussed below, this domain apparently is also 

bounded by a major west-dipping normal fault on the east side (Figure 2). Thus, the Crater 

Flat/Yucca Mountain domain basically fits the definition of a structural basin, despite the uplifted 

ridge (Yucca Mountain) that occupies a major part of it. For simplicity, the Crater Flat/Yucca
Mountain domain is hereafter referred to as the Crater Flat basin.

The Crater Rat basin is one of numerous extensional basins of differing sizes, shapes, and 

structural styles that lie within the Walker Lane belt (Figure 1). Herein I apply Stewart's (1988) 

nongenetic definition of the Walker Lane belt as the 100-to-300-km wide by 700-km long 

northwest-trending zone of irregular topography and structure that intervenes between the Sierra 

Nevada and the northern Basin-and-Range Province. Whereas genetic interpretations of the 

Walker Lane belt are controversial, existing evidence is unequivocal that this belt contains 

numerous subregional-scale structures that are diverse expressions of small to moderate amounts 

of strike-slip deformation, within an overall regime of east-west to southeast-northwest extension 

(Figures 1 and 2). The oblique-slip and strike-slip faults within the Walker Lane belt are, for the 

most part, shorter and less continuous than is possible to show at the scale of location map (Figure 

1), and the lack of thoroughgoing strike-slip structures is in fact a defining feature of this belt 

(Stewart, 1988).

The Crater Rat basin is defined here for the first time (and see Fridrich and others, 1998). 

The published alternative conceptions of the tectonic framework of the Yucca Mountain area are 

too numerous to review in detail, but they can be summarized in three end-member categories, 

according to the dominant process that is used to explain the major structural features of the Crater 

Flat/Yucca Mountain domain. According to one theory, Crater Flat formed as a caldera complex 

(Carr, 1982; Carr and Parrish, 1985; W. Carr and others, 1986; Carr, 1990). Another hypothesis 

is that Crater Flat is part of a rift that extends through the central part of the Amargosa Desert, 

to the south (Figure 2), and that is genetically related to the strike-slip faulting of the Walker Lane 

belt (Schweickert, 1989; Wright, 1989; Carr, 1990). The third end-member explains the 

structural features of Crater Flat and Yucca Mountain as being the result of detachment faulting 

(Hamilton, 1988; Scott, 1990).

Each of these three groups of theories has distinct implications that makes them at least 

partly testable. For example, the structures of calderas have geometries that reflect the fact that 

the deformation is dominantly vertically directed (tumescence, collapse, and resurgence; Smith 

and Bailey, 1968; Lipman, 1984). Once a subcaldera magma chamber solidifies, the caldera 

becomes a fossil structure; and the total life-cycle of a large ash-flow caldera system typically is 

on the order of hundreds of thousands of years. The rift hypothesis predicts that master strike-slip 

fault(s) are present at least at the ends of the rift, and perhaps as a continuous structure through 

the rift basin. All published versions of the detachment fault hypothesis infer that the postulated 

detachment fault under Crater Flat and Yucca Mountain was originally rooted to the west, and 

formed before the uplift of Bare Mountain severed the structural connection between Crater Flat 

and the highly extended Bullfrog Hills domain, on the north and west sides of Bare Mountain 

(Figure 2).

A common element in the three published end-member theories for the tectonics of Crater 

Flat basin is that they invoke a dominant controlling structural feature that is concealed. If 

unequivocal exposures of a caldera, a master strike-slip fault, or a detachment fault were present 

within Crater Flat basin, there would not be the latitude for the broad differences of opinion that 

exist on the tectonics of this area. In evaluating these theories, the approach taken here is not 

focussed on weighing the arguments for and against the presence of concealed master structures, 

but rather on developing an understanding the system based on observations of exposed features 

and from other ground-truth evidence, starting with the external and internal structure and the
stratigraphy of the Crater Flat basin.

Physiographically, Yucca Mountain is formally defined as the arcuate ridge that encloses 

Crater Flat on all but the west side, as discussed above (Figure 2). In common usage, however, 

Yucca Mountain is usually taken as being only the north-trending part of the ridge that flanks the 

eastern side of the alluvial flat (Figure 3), and this convention is retained below.

VOLCANIC SETTING

Crater Flat basin lies on the south flank of the southwest Nevada volcanic field, which 

consists of a central cluster of overlapping and nested ash-flow calderas (Figures 2 and 3), 

surrounded by an extensive apron of outflow tuffs and lesser lavas and volcaniclastic sediments 

(Sawyer and others, 1994). From about 15.2 to 11.4 Ma, volcanism in the volcanic field was 

almost entirely silicic and was dominated by voluminous ash-flow eruptions (Table 1). Early 

cycles of volcanism built to a peak in eruptive volume rates between 12.8 and 11.4 Ma. 

Progressive decline in eruptive-volume rates since about 11.4 Ma has been accompanied by 

changes first to bimodal rhyolite-basalt volcanism from about 11.4 to 7.5 Ma, then to 

intermediate- to small-volume basaltic volcanism from about 7.5 to 2.5 Ma, and finally to very 

small volume basaltic volcanism in the Quaternary.

Seven major volcanic sequences were emplaced in the Yucca Mountain area before and 

during the evolution of the Crater Flat basin, and provide the major time-stratigraphic control for 

this study (Table 1). The sequences are: (1) the 14 Ma Lithic Ridge Tuff and related tuffs, lavas, 

and intrusions, (2) the formations of the 13.5 to 13.1 Ma Crater Flat Group - the Tram and 

Bullfrog Tuffs, and related lesser units, (3) the 12.9 Ma Calico Hills Formation (bedded tuffs and 

lavas), (4) the formations of the 12.8 to 12.7 Ma Paintbrush Group - mainly the Topopah Spring 

and Tiva Canyon Tuffs, (5) the 12.5 Ma Windy Wash Lavas and interfingering, related tuffs, (6) 

the 11.7 to 11.4 Ma Timber Mountain Group, which includes primarily the rhyolite of Fluorspar 

Canyon (tuffs and lavas) and the Rainier Mesa and Ammonia Tanks Tuffs, and (7) a group of 

basalts dated at 10.5 to 11.3 Ma. Of the above, the Crater Flat, Paintbrush, and Timber Mountain 

Groups are the principal bedrock sequences exposed in Crater Flat basin. Additional rock units 

that provide valuable local constraints on the tectonic evolution of this area include lanslide 

breccias, basalts, and ash-fall tuffs (Table 1).

The tectonic history that occurred during emplacement of these units is recorded by 

features such as stratigraphic burial of fault scarps and related stratal tilts, and abrupt thickness 

changes of units across faults. The best control on the structural evolution of the area is provided 

by the voluminous ash-flow tuffs because these widespread sheets buried much preexisting 

topography. The tops of the voluminous welded tuff sheets and the compaction foliations within 

them can be used as paleohorizontal indicators, with appropriate precautions (for example, 

recognition of primary tilting of compaction foliations induced by post-welding flow; Chapin and 

Lowell, 1979).

STRUCTURAL BOUNDARIES OF CRATER FLAT BASIN

The Yucca Mountain region consists of a mosaic of domains separated from one another 

by structural zones across which abrupt, fundamental changes are present in the style, timing, and
magnitude of extension and other deformation (Figure 3).

The western boundary of the Crater Flat domain is the Bare Mountain range-front fault, 

which separates the ^3-km-thick Tertiary basin fill of westernmost Crater Flat from the 1-km-high 

uplift of Paleozoic and latest Precambrian sedimentary and metasedimentary rocks of Bare 

Mountain (Snyder and Carr, 1984; Ackerman and others, 1988; Figure 3). At the north end of 

Bare Mountain, the range-front fault splits into three faults (Figure 3); two of these are differentage strands of the Tram Ridge fault, which is the northern extension of the Bare Mountain fault 

through Tertiary rocks, and the third is the Tate's Wash Fault, a northeast-striking high-angle 

normal fault system that separates the Bare Mountain uplift from the closely related Tram Ridge 

horst.

Bare Mountain and the Tram Ridge horst together constitute a septum of less-extended 

(from 14 Ma to present), relatively uplifted rocks separating Crater Flat basin from the highly 

extended Bullfrog Hills domain to the west. Despite the lesser extensional deformation within the 

Bare Mountain/Tram Ridge domain after 14 Ma, the Paleozoic rocks in this domain were strongly 

extended in a pre-Miocene tectonic event(s) that predated the formation of most and perhaps all 

of the domain boundaries discussed here, as well as the formation of the southwest Nevada 

volcanic field. Moreover, the Bare Mountain/Tram Ridge domain underwent extensive tectonic 

denudation related to the post-14 Ma extension that occurred around it, as discussed below.

To the north, the Crater Flat basin has a complex termination at the southern margin of the 

Timber Mountain caldera complex (Figure 3). One aspect of this domain boundary is a change 

in structural style from predominantly down-to-the-west faulting south of the margin of this 

caldera complex, within Crater Flat, to predominantly down-to-the-east faulting inboard of the 

caldera moat, within the fill of the 12.7-12.8 Ma Claim Canyon caldera. A second aspect is the 

truncation, by the 11.6 Ma Rainier Mesa and 11.45 Ma Ammonia Tanks calderas, of most of the 

extensional faults that postdate the 12.5 Ma rhyolite of Windy Wash. A third aspect is that faults 

younger than 11.45 Ma decrease in throw toward the north boundary of Crater Flat basin, and 

largely terminate near the margin of the caldera complex.

The northeast boundary of Crater Flat basin is Yucca wash (Figure 3), an alluvium-filled 

valley inferred to be underlain by a northwest-striking right-slip fault (Scott and Bonk, 1984; 

Scott, 1990). This fault is nowhere exposed; it is inferred because Yucca wash is a linear valley 

that separates Yucca Mountain from a domain to the northeast in which the 12.7-12.8 Ma 

Paintbrush Group and older rocks are more extended than they are on northern Yucca Mountain. 

The abrupt transition to greater faulting and tilting on the northeast side of the valley suggests the 

presence of a right-slip fault in the valley. Several small subparallel faults are exposed within 

about 5 km to the south of Yucca wash, on northern Yucca Mountain, and these exposed 

northwest-trending faults demonstrably are right-lateral strike-slip faults (Figure 3; Scott and 

Bonk, 1984). Whereas detailed mapping and geophysics have failed to demonstrate dip-slip offset 

across Yucca wash (W. Day, USGS, written comm., 1996), that evidence does not preclude the 

presence of a concealed strike-slip fault. Moreover, the abrupt large change in structural style 

across this linear valley indicates that it is a structural domain boundary despite that the nature of 

the concealed structural feature that forms the boundary is not firmly established.

The east limit of the Crater Flat basin is hidden under the Quaternary sediments of Jackass 

Flats, a shallow alluvial basin on the east side of Yucca Mountain (Figures 2 and 3). The closest 

exposures of bedrock to the east of Yucca Mountain are those of the Rock Valley domain.
Extension in the Crater Flat domain peaked between 12.7 and 11.6 Ma, and the structural pattern 

reflects dominant extension and lesser dextral shear, as discussed below. In contrast, field 

relations in the Rock Valley domain indicate two peaks in extension rate, one before and during 

deposition of Oligocene sedimentary rocks, and another after emplacement of basalt flows dated 

at about 10 Ma (D. O'Leary, USGS, written comm., 1996). The units of the 12.8-12.7 Ma 

Paintbrush Group and the 11.7-11.4 Ma Timber Mountain Group are strictly conformable in Rock 

Valley, indicating tectonic quiescence during the interval of peak deformation in the Crater Flat 

domain. The structural style in Rock Valley is dominated by two populations of faults, an eastnortheast-striking set with gentle rakes, and a north-northeast-striking set with steep rakes. Strikeslip deformation apparently has predominated over extension in Rock Valley, and the sense of that 

deformation is smistral rather than dextral.

The east boundary of Crater Flat basin against the Rock Valley domain probably is a large 

concealed down-to-the-west fault known as the Gravity fault (Winograd and Thordarson, 1975), 

which is interpreted based on large coincident north-trending gravity and aeromagnetic gradients 

near the western limit of exposures in the Rock Valley domain (Figure 2). Based on modelling 

of the geophysical data, the Gravity fault is a large-throw (> 1 km), dip-slip fault comparable in 

length to the Bare Mountain fault and roughly parallel to it, but with opposing dip. Both faults 

can be traced southward, by virtue of their gravity expressions (Blakely and others, in press) to 

intersections with the northwest-striking Pahrump-Stewart Valley and Furnace Creek fault 

systems, near the Nevada-California border (Figure 2). The Crater Flat basin is thus one of a 

series of contiguous basins that together constitute the central Amargosa trough, a large grabenlike feature which is marked by a north-trending gravity low, and which has been referred to in 

discussions of the geology of this region by Wright (1989), who called it the Amargosa Desert rift 

zone and by Carr (1990), who included the caldera complex to the north in defining the KawichGreenwater rift.

The south boundary of the Crater Flat basin is concealed; hence, geophysics is the major 

available basis for deducing its location. The central Amargosa trough as defined here can be 

divided into three basins, which are separated by two narrow gravity highs (Blakely and others, 

in press). These small gravity highs within the trough appear to be roughly aligned along 

southwest and northwest projections, respectively, of the Rock Valley and Stewart-Pahrump 

Valley strike-slip fault systems into the central Amargosa trough (Figure 2). The southern 

boundary of the Crater Flat domain may thus be a structure related to the Rock Valley fault 

system.

An alternative hypothesis is that the eroded scarp that forms the southern limit of bedrock 

exposure in Crater Flat basin is a northwest-striking structure that has been called the Highway 

95 fault (B. Slemmons, written comm., 1997). This hypothesis is supported by magnetic data, 

which show that the volcanic rocks of Crater Flat basin are abruptly truncated immediately south 

of this eroded scarp (Fridrich and others, 1996). Slemmons has proposed that the Highway 95 

fault is a right-lateral strike-slip fault that extends northwestward of Crater Flat to form the scarp 

along the southwestern flank of Bare Mountain (Figures 2 and 3). As discussed below, additional 

work needs to be done to test this and other hypotheses that a number of large strike-slip faults 

may be present but largely concealed in the Crater Flat region.
INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF CRATER FLAT BASIN

As discussed above, Crater Flat basin has the overall form of a graben, with a large downto-the-east range-front fault bounding the west side of the basin; a large, opposing, concealed fault 

on the east side; and a broad array of closely spaced, small-to-moderate-sized faults facing into, 

or angling into, the western range front across the majority of the basin (Figure 3). In the areas 

of bedrock exposure, only a narrow (0.5-to-2 km wide) zone along the westernmost edge of the 

basin is dominated by intrabasin faults that are synthetic to the range-front fault and by stratal dips 

westward into the range front. Exposed stratal dips in the rest of the basin with few exceptions 

are eastward or southeastward, which is consistent with the down-to-the-west (or -northwest) 

pattern of faulting that dominates in most of the basin (Figure 3).

Faulds and others (1994) suggest that the area of westward stratal dips in Crater Flat basin 

may be much more extensive than is apparent from bedrock exposures. Specifically, they propose 

that the area of total alluvial cover in the west-central part of the basin (Crater Flat physiographic 

feature; Figure 2) may lack bedrock exposure because it is the west-dipping flank of a structure 

they describe as an anticline, a broad rollover structure developed along the zone of maximum 

displacement on the Bare Mountain range-front fault.

The specific geometry Faulds and others propose cannot be tested definitively except by 

drilling. The general structural concept they propose, that the area of total alluvial cover (Crater 

Flat physiographic feature) is the area of maximum extension and subsidence in the Crater Flat 

domain, is consistent with existing geophysical and field data. Gravity and seismic refraction 

surveys indicate that the Crater Flat basin is deepest on the west side (Snyder and Carr, 1984; 

Ackermann and others, 1988), a conclusion which is supported by the general westward 

stratigraphic thickening observed in exposures of the late Tertiary volcanic rocks across the north 

and south parts of the basin (new field data, this study). The greatest localized thickening of 

volcanic basin fill, as well as the largest magnitudes of faulting and tilting in the basin, are 

exposed in the west half of the ridge that rims the southern margin of the Crater Flat physiographic 

feature (new field data, this study). Based on geometric considerations, the zone of maximum 

extension in the basin is not likely to be limited to the west half of this ridge; it probably extends 

on strike (north-south) for some distance, and probably includes much and perhaps all of the area 

of the alluvial flat to the north.

Normal faults within the Crater Flat basin have strikes that are northerly in the northeast 

part of the basin, changing to increasingly northeasterly strikes to the south and to the west across 

the basin (Figure 3). Another way to describe the fault pattern is to say that the faults within 

Crater Flat are roughly radial to the caldera complex to the north, and describe a curved pattern 

from north to south across the basin (Figure 3).

Paleomagnetic data indicate that the curved pattern of faulting down the east side of the 

basin (southward across Yucca Mountain) is due to southward-increasing clockwise rotation 

(Rosenbaum and others, 1991; Hudson and others, 1994). Preliminary paleomagnetic data 

collected in the northern part of Crater Flat suggest that the observed radial pattern of faulting 

around the caldera complex is partly a primary feature, but has been accentuated by westwardincreasing clockwise rotation across the north part of the basin (M. Hudson, USGS, unpub. data). 

Thus the variation in the strikes of faults within Crater Flat basin largely reflects the pattern of 

vertical-axis rotation in the basin, but it also reflects localized modification of the regional stress
field in the vicinity of the caldera complex at the north boundary of the basin, as suggested by 

Christiansen and others (1965) and Cummings (1968).

Within the Crater Flat basin, a northwest-trending "hinge-line" can be discriminated that 

separates an area of predominantly north-striking faults, to the northeast, from an area of 

predominantly northeast-striking faults, to the southwest (Figure 3). Fault strikes hi the northern 

and southern parts of the basin are based on mapping (Scott and Bonk, 1984; R. B. Scott, USGS, 

unpub. data; new field data, this study), whereas in the central area which is largely covered by 

recent alluvium and Plio-Pleistocene basalts, existing field data (Faulds and others, 1994; Simonds 

and others, 1995) were augmented by aeromagnetic data. Abundant narrow linear aeromagnetic 

anomalies are present in this basin (Grauch and others, 1993); they principally reflect fault offsets 

of the highly magnetic Topopah Spring Tuff and allow tracing of major faults through many areas 

of alluvial cover (V. Langenheim, USGS, oral comm., 1995).

Based on paleomagnetic data, the hinge-line corresponds approximately to the contour of 

20° clockwise rotation of the Tiva Canyon Tuff; greater than 20° dextral rotation is present to the 

southwest of this line and less to the northeast (Rosenbaum and others, 1991; Hudson and others, 

1994; Fridrich and others, 1998). A subtle but abrupt topographic decline (lower on the southwest 

side) is present along most the the length of the hinge-line, reflecting a southwestward increase 

in the magnitude of extension. Most of the faults that cross the hinge-line show a pronounced 

southward increase in both Quaternary displacement and total bedrock displacement across it 

(Scott and Bonk, 1984; Menges and others, 1994; A. Ramelli, Nevada Bureau of Mines and 

Geology (NBMG), oral comm., 1995).

The above-described field relations suggest that the hinge line is a distinct boundary 

separating a less extended and rotated area to the east from a more deformed area to the west. The 

paleomagnetic data actually show a step increase in rotation to the west across the hinge-line in 

the northern part of the basin, but are only permissive of a smaller step change to the south. The 

zone of strong rotational deformation extends to the Bare Mountain range front; and the Bare 

Mountain/Tram Ridge domain has not been significantly rotated since 11.6 Ma based on existing 

paleomagnetic data (Hudson and others, 1994; M. Hudson, USGS, written comm., 1995). The 

area between the hinge-line and the Bare Mountain range front constitutes a transtensional 

structural zone, and is the area of greatest extensional and strike-slip deformation in the basin.

Nearly all of the normal faults in the Crater Flat basin show at least a small component of 

oblique offset. Most of the north- to northeast-striking intrabasin normal faults show a component 

of left slip. Left slip on these faults is consistent with the clockwise rotation of the blocks between 

the faults, as documented with the paleomagnetic data, and, from that perspective, is indicative 

of dextral shear throughout most of the Crater Flat basin. Given the late Cenozoic stress regime 

of the Great Basin, with the least principal stress oriented west-northwesterly, on average, the 

resolved sense of strike-slip shear on north-striking normal faults is right lateral (Figure 4A). 

However, when the blocks between the faults are rotating clockwise in response to this dextral 

shear stress, the horizontal component of movement on the normal faults then has the opposite 

shear sense (left-lateral), reflecting dynamic shear (slip that accommodates rotation; Figure 4B), 

rather than the static sense of shear.

Near the southernmost exposure of the Bare Mountain front, the strike of the range-front 

fault changes slightly, from north to north-northwest. Whereas the fault trace is concealed in this 

location, sheared surfaces are abundant in the quartzites that border the alluvium-covered fault

8
trace. Many of these sheared surfaces have slickenlines with moderate-angle rakes and Riedel 

shears indicating that offsets were right-oblique and normal. Given the middle-to-late Miocene 

geometry of this domain boundary, with extensional faults of the Crater Flat basin oblique to the 

range front (Figure 3), some lateral offset on the range-front fault is required geometrically, at 

least in the Miocene. This geometric requirement could be filled by a minor component of 

horizontal offset on the southern part of the Bare Mountain fault, which is consistent with the field 

evidence. Several small exposures of the Bare Mountain fault are present, scattered along the 

length of the range front; and slickenlines on the fault plane indicate that it is high-angle fault with 

almost purely dip-slip offset in most of these exposures.

Whereas some of the structures that form the boundaries of the Crater Flat structural 

domain may have a strike-slip or oblique-slip character, as discussed above, no significant strikeslip faults have been observed within this domain by this author or any previous workers. The 

few strike-slip faults that have been mapped within the basin have horizontal offsets of < 30 m 

and lengths of < 5 km (Scott and Bonk, 1984; Day and others, in press). The larger examples of 

these minor strike-slip faults are strongly concentrated in the northeast and northwest parts of the 

basin.

At least two major internal faults within the Crater Flat basin are scissors faults; that is, 

they are normal faults that decrease in throw to a fulcrum point, past which they have the same 

approximate strike and dip, but are then reverse faults (Figure 3; Scott and Bonk, 1984; new map 

data, this study). Scissors faulting is easily conceptualized in the context of a basin in which 

blocks between faults have undergone varying degrees of vertical-axis rotation. If one fault block 

has experienced more rotation than the neighboring block, then that differential rotation will be 

expressed by an along-strike change in the magnitude of displacement of the fault that separates 

the two blocks and, in extreme cases, by a change from normal to reverse displacement.

A number of additional internal features of Crater Flat provide important evidence of the 

structural regime of this basin. For example, several broad folds (wavelengths in kilometers; 

amplitudes in 10's to 100's of meters) are present in the basin with axes that trend westerly to 

northwesterly, thus at high angles to the strikes of the major intrabasin faults. Faulds and others 

(1994) explained these folds as being due to along-strike changes in the magnitude of 

displacements on major intrabasin faults. Some of the folding within about 10 km of the Timber 

Mountain caldera complex may be related to the dynamics of the magmatic system as much or 

more than to regional tectonic forces, as discussed below.

Abundant short-wavelength folds in Crater Flat basin have axes that parallel the strikes of 

intrabasin faults; these folds dominantly are monoclines with their axes centered on the fault zones. 

The major intrabasin faults generally consist of a number of strands spaced out across zones as 

much as 0.5 km wide. These complex fault zones may break monoclines because the mapped 

structural complexity may not extend to depth, and the shallow rocks -the tuffs - may therefore 

be draped over larger, simpler (aggregate) fault offsets in the underlying Paleozoic rocks. These 

tight monoclines probably formed largely during the initial formation of the major faults and they 

are evidently brittle (rather than ductile) folds; the bending appears to be accommodated by the 

aggregate effect of abundant small dislocations along the cooling joints that riddle the tuffs, rather 

than by true plastic deformation.
TECTONIC HISTORY OF CRATER FLAT AND ADJACENT DOMAINS

The above synthesis of the external and internal structure of the Crater Hat domain 

provides a critical basis for testing alternative tectonic models for this area. An equally important 

element that is missing above is the element of time. The evolution of Crater Flat basin can be 

divided into three major phases: (1) events preceding development of Crater Flat basin as defined 

above (pre-12.7 Ma), (2) events involving the creation of this structural basin between 12.7 and 

11.6 Ma, and extending to the end of the major period of tectonism in the basin at about 10 Ma, 

and (3) the waning cycle of tectonic activity in this structural basin, from about 10 Ma to the 

present. The following discussion addresses these three major phases of evolution, but follows 

stratigraphic or geographic divisions, reflecting the limitations of the field evidence.

Analysis of the Structure of Bare Mountain: Evidence for tectonic events that predate the 

southwest Nevada volcanic field

The Paleozoic and latest Precambrian sedimentary and metasedimentary rocks of Bare 

Mountain, on the west rim of Crater Flat basin, are strongly deformed (Figure 5). This 

deformation includes Mesozoic compressional structures (Monsen and others, 1992); however, 

an equal or greater component of the deformation is extensional, and is largely Tertiary. The 

Tertiary extensional deformation within Bare Mountain predates the major ash-flow tuff sheets of 

the southwest Nevada volcanic field because the structures associated with this extension are 

truncated at the boundaries of the range; they do not extend into the bordering 15-to-10-Ma 

volcanic rocks.

Unraveling the history of deformation of Bare Mountain is an uncertain exercise because: 

(1) The structure of this mountain is the result of a complex overprinting of multiple Mesozoic and 

Tertiary events, (2) few post-Paleozoic rocks are present within the uplift to constrain the timing 

and to distinguish the effects of separate Mesozoic and Cenozoic events, and (3) existing geologic 

mapping (Monsen and others, 1992) and petrologic studies (Hoisch and others, 1997) were not 

specifically addressed at developing field constraints on the relative ages of the structures within 

this mountain. The generalized map of the structures of Bare Mountain (Figure 5) inevitably 

reflects the author's preconceived notions with respect to how these faults should be grouped, as 

well as the apparent age relations between them; in contrast, the raw map data (Monsen and 

others, 1992) leaves abundant latitude for developing alternative interpretations.

The largest extensional structure within Bare Mountain is partly coincident with a large 

metamorphic-grade discordance that suggests several kilometers of uplift of a high-grade block on 

the west side of the mountain with respect to the rocks in the rest of the mountain (Figure 5). 

Hoisch and others (1997) ascribed this sharp discordance to a single structure which he named the 

Gold Ace fault. However, Monsen and others (1992) mapped the same contact as two contiguous 

faults that strike roughly perpendicular to one another, a north-dipping western fault, which they 

called the Conejo Canyon fault, and an east-dipping eastern fault, for which Hoisch's name, Gold 

Ace, was used (Figure 5). Both faults place younger, more steeply tilted, lower metamorphicgrade rocks on older, more gently tilted, higher-grade rocks (Hoisch, and other, 1997). Whereas 

the Conejo Canyon fault is a broad plexus of fault strands with a geometry similar to a duplex fault 

zone, the Gold Ace fault is mapped as being narrow and nearly planar (Figure 5).

10
If the Conejo Canyon and Gold Ace faults constitute a single structure, as Hoisch proposes, 

then the right-angle bend that joins them must be a megascale mullion because this bend cuts 

across structure as defined by stratal attitudes in the surrounding rocks (Figure 5). The northeast 

trend of this putative mullion is inconsistent with the top-to-the-northwest transport that Hoisch 

proposes occurred on this fault. Monsen and others (1992) inferred, however, that the Gold Ace 

fault extends northward of the intersection with the Conejo Canyon fault (Figure 5). This latter 

interpretation is supported by detailed surface and subsurface mapping by mining company 

geologists in this area (J. Greybeck, Cordex Exploration, oral comm., 1996), who have shown 

that the northward projection of the Gold Ace fault separates folded marbles to the west, from little 

recrystallized and virtually unfolded limestones to the east.

The planar Gold Ace fault appears to be a detachment structure because the rocks in the 

upper plate of this very large throw, low-angle fault are significantly more extended than are those 

in the lower plate, as evidenced by greater faulting and tilting in the upper plate (Figure 5; Monsen 

and others, 1992). This extension occurred dominantly along a system of northeast-striking lowangle (20 to 40°) normal faults that are confined to the upper plate and that have down-dip bedding 

offsets ranging from about 1 to 3 km apiece.

The difference in average stratal dips between the upper and lower plates of the Gold Ace 

fault could be explained by about 30° of tilting to the north-northwest, of the upper plate rocks, 

on average, relative to the lower plate rocks. This inferred structural tilting is roughly opposed 

to the dip direction of the northeast-striking faults. If the apparent tilting is subtracted to restore 

the upper plate rocks to a preextensional geometry, then the northeast-striking faults were highangle (50 to 70°) faults when they formed. This last supposition is somewhat clouded by the 

possibility of significant later tilting during uplift of Bare Mountain. Nonetheless, the northeaststriking faults and the tilting of the upper plate rocks may thus be related as products of a single 

extensional event that resulted in a tilted-domino structural style in the upper plate of the coeval 

Gold Ace detachment fault.

In contrast to the Gold Ace fault, the Conejo Canyon fault system is crudely planar at best, 

and appears to be weakly folded. In addition, the rocks cut by this fault system have numerous 

tight folds, many of which have geometries that suggest they may be drag features related to topto-the-south movement along the Conejo Canyon fault system. If so, this fault system is a 

Mesozoic thrust fault rather than a Tertiary detachment fault. The younger-on-older nature of this 

fault is not incompatible with its being a thrust fault because the rocks may have been thrusted 

before. In any case, the Conejo Canyon fault is truncated by the Gold Ace fault (Figure 5) and 

is therefore an older structure.

The oldest generation of exposed faults in Bare Mountain Field are north-striking with 

dominantly high-angle dips to the east (Figure 5). These faults are truncated by the Gold Ace fault 

and most if not all of the thrust faults of Bare Mountain, including the Conejo Canyon fault 

system, and are unlikely to be secondary structures related to these major low-angle faults because 

they are present in both their upper and lower plates. Although the north-striking high-angle 

normal faults may have moved during several different tectonic episodes, the fact that they are cut 

by thrust faults suggest that they formed before or during the Mesozoic era.

The major faults that bound the north and east sides of Bare Mountain provide absolute 

time constraints on the structural evolution of this uplift because activity on these faults is reflected 

in their field relations with the neighboring Tertiary rocks, as discussed below. The northern and

11
eastern range-bounding faults appear to truncate most of the internal structures of Bare Mountain 

(Figure 5), as discussed above, suggesting that these internal structures predate the uplift of this 

range largely if not entirely. As discussed below, both the nature and the age of the steep, nearly 

linear scarp that forms the southwest boundary of Bare Mountain are, at present, poorly 

constrained.

The Bare Mountain fault forms the east boundary of the uplift, and appears to be a classic 

high-angle range-front fault. The Fluorspar Canyon fault forms most of the north boundary of 

Bare Mountain against the Tertiary volcanic rocks of the Bullfrog Hills domain (Figures 5 and 6). 

This structure is a detachment fault that apparently headwalls in a large low-angle breakaway scarp 

that forms the western boundary of the Tram Ridge horst, about 2 km west of the northeast tip of 

Bare Mountain (Figures 5 and 6). Assuming that the eastern part of the detachment fault strikes 

northerly and dips to the west in the plane of the exposed breakaway scarp, the Fluorspar Canyon 

detachment has a southern termination in the subsurface against the Tate's wash fault, the highangle fault that separates the Tram Ridge horst from the Bare Mountain uplift. However, the 

Tate's wash fault decreases in dip to the west, and probably merges with the detachment fault 

about 2 kilometers southwest of the breakaway scarp. The western part of the Fluorspar Canyon 

fault, along the northwest border of Bare Mountain, dips to the north at angles ranging from 20 

to 40° (new field data, this study).

Both the Fluorspar Canyon detachment fault and the Bare Mountain range-front fault 

evidently formed in the interval between 12.7 and 11.6 Ma. Significant downthrown thickening 

is present across the breakaway scarp of the Fluorspar Canyon fault and across the Bare MountainTram Ridge fault (at the northeast corner of Bare Mountain; Figures 5 and 6) in all volcanic units 

that are 11.7 Ma and younger, and that are present and exposed in the vicinity of these faults. In 

contrast, thickness variations in units that are 12.7 Ma and older in the vicinity of these faults can 

largely be explained as resulting from the formation and burial of volcanic landforms (new field 

data, this study). Moreover, the ~ 15-to-12.7 Ma volcanic section is well exposed immediately 

adjacent to Bare Mountain along the north boundary of the uplift, and this section does not include 

any Paleozoic clasts or intercalated coarse sediments or breccias, as might be shed from a nearby 

uplift. The only intercalated sedimentary rocks observed in this section are planar-bedded finegrained marls and tuffaceous sandstones. Most of these sediments appear to have been deposited 

in a lake or lake-shore environment; both petrified wood and fish bones have been observed in 

these rocks.

The uplift of Bare Mountain was accompanied by large-scale landsliding to the north and 

east. Rock-avalanche breccias are intercalated between the 12.7 Ma Tiva Canyon Tuff and the 

11.7 Ma rhyolite of Fluorspar Canyon in the western part of Crater Flat, in the subsurface (Carr 

and Parrish, 1985), and on the surface in the eastern part of the Bullfrog Hills domain, on the 

north flank of Bare Mountain (new field data, this study). These breccias are proximal deposits 

composed of clasts of Paleozoic carbonates and the oldest Tertiary (14-to-> 15 Ma) sedimentary 

rocks; the < 14-Ma volcanic rocks are absent; the best exposed deposits demonstrably thicken and 

coarsen toward the range, indicating that Bare Mountain is the source of these breccias. Although 

it cannot be proven from existing evidence that the Bare Mountain uplift did not exist before 12.7 

Ma, the evidence indicates that the major uplift event of this range occurred between 12.7 and 

11.6 Ma, and that the range was uplifted along the faults that currently bound the range on the 

north and east sides.

12
14+ to 13.1 Ma:

Within Crater Flat and the adjacent domains that are dominated by volcanic rocks, 

sufficient time-stratigraphic constraints are present to allow a chronologic treatment of the tectonic 

evolution. The earliest definable tectonism within the Crater Flat basin was underway at least by 

14 Ma and is notable principally for its strong contrast in structural style with the tectonism that 

occurred in this basin after 13.1 Ma. Owing to the fragmentary exposure of volcanic rocks older 

than 13.1 Ma (Figure 7), the clearest evidence on the timing and style of this episode of tectonism 

in Crater Flat is derived from subsurface data.

Fridrich and others (1994a) used a combination of gravity data and subsurface control to 

infer that a buried graben is present under the northeast part of Crater Flat basin (Figure 7). The 

gravity data shows a narrow, northeast-trending trough-like low of about 10 milligals over 

northern Yucca Mountain (Snyder and Carr, 1984; Fridrich and others, 1994a) . This data was 

modeled by Oliver (USGS, oral comm., 1991), who estimated that the low results from a localized 

depression of the Paleozoic-Tertiary contact of about 500 m relative to the surroundings. The 

gravity low is interpreted as a graben, rather than as a paleocanyon, because the stratigraphic 

thickening into the low is a step change; six drill holes within the low all encountered 13.1-to-14 

Ma volcanic sections of approximately the same thickness, and that thickness is about twice that 

of the equivalent strata in deep drill holes immediately to the north and south of the low (Fridrich 

and others, 1994a; Figure 7).

Tuffs emplaced between 14 and 13.5 Ma thicken strongly into the low (Figure 7), 

indicating that this was the period of major activity on the bounding faults. No change in 

stratigraphic thickness into the low is found in formations younger than the 13.1 Ma Prow Pass 

Tuff; hence, the graben evidently became inactive sometime between 13.5 and 13.1 Ma, and was 

then buried. The gravity low and, by inference, the buried graben under northern Yucca 

Mountain abruptly terminates in the vicinity of Yucca wash, suggesting that the inferred 

northwest-striking fault under Yucca wash was active in the same time interval as the buried 

graben.

East-northeast-striking faults that may be part of the same structural regime as the buried 

graben described above have been mapped in exposures of the 13.5-13.1 Crater Flat Tuff sequence 

in northwest Crater Flat and at the south end of Yucca Mountain (Figure 7; new field data, this 

study). In northwest Crater Flat, lavas and related bedded tuffs of the 13.35 Ma rhyolite of 

Prospector's Pass appear to be cut by two generations of faults, one of which cuts across the other, 

resulting in a checkerboard-like fault pattern. The north-to-northeast-striking fault set formed 

shortly after 12.7 Ma, based on constraints discussed below, whereas the east-northeast-striking 

faults appear to cut the 13.35 Ma rhyolite of Prospector's Pass and older rocks, but not the 13.25 

Ma Bullfrog Tuff.

At the south end of Yucca Mountain, a single east-northeast-striking fault was mapped that 

cuts the 13.25 Ma Bullfrog Tuff, forming a fault scarp which was buried by the overlying 13.1 

Ma Prow Pass Tuff (new field data, this study). The more easterly strikes of the pre-13 Ma faults 

in southern and northwestern Crater Flat relative to the trend of the buried graben of the same age 

in northeastern Crater Flat (Figure 7) is consistent with the spatial variation in vertical-axis 

rotation that occurred in this basin after 12.7 Ma (Rosenbaum and others, 1991; Hudson and

13
others, 1994); all of these structures were roughly parallel before the post-12.7 Ma rotation.

Overall, the extensional deformation that occurred from 13 to £ 14 Ma within Crater Flat 

basin is minor relative to the deformation that occurred both before and after, and its relationship, 

if any, to earlier and later events is unknown. By far the strongest deformation in this period is 

proximal to the caldera complex to the north of Yucca Mountain and it is possible that the majority 

of this deformation, although clearly not part of a caldera per se, is nonetheless related to the 

activity of an early (pre-13-Ma) caldera-magmatic system rather than to regional tectonism.

13.1 to 12.7 Ma:

The interval between 13.1 and 12.7 Ma was a period of feeble tectonism in the Crater Flat 

area, most of which evidently is related to premonitory doming around the future (12.7-12.8 Ma) 

Claim Canyon caldera, source of the Paintbrush Group. The evidence for this doming is the areal 

variation in thickness of the voluminous tuffs emplaced in this interval because these units buried 

the dome as it formed (Figure 8 covers just the southern part of the dome, which is larger than the 

map area and is centered to the north). Immediately southward from this circumcaldera dome is 

a northwest-trending trough-like low across the area of dense subsurface control on northern 

Yucca Mountain. This low is expressed in the isopachous map of the 12.9-12.7 Ma rocks as a 

zone of localized thickening; however, it is also visible in the surface rocks of northern Yucca 

Mountain and in published mapping of this area (Scott and Bonk, 1984) as a broad, gentle fold 

centered on Drill Hole wash. In addition to the doming, a few minor faults have been mapped in 

Crater Flat that demonstrably were active between 13.1 and 12.7 Ma based on local angular 

unconformities and abrupt thickness changes across these faults in the volcanic section emplaced 

in this interval (new field data, this study).

A northwest-trending trough that is similar to the one under Yucca Mountain is expressed 

in the structure and isopachous maps of the Paintbrush Group on the north side of the caldera 

complex, under Pahute Mesa (Warren and others, 1985). The position of these two troughs, just 

outward from the circumcaldera dome on its north and south sides, suggests that these structures 

may be comparable to the rim synclines that form around salt domes. Their formation may be 

related to the diapiric ascent of large magma bodies into the upper crust under the area of the 

caldera complex.

There is suggestive evidence in several areas, especially on Yucca Mountain, that many 

of the major north- to northeast-striking faults of Crater Flat basin initially formed in the 13.1 to 

12.7 Ma interval (C. Potter and W. Day, USGS, unpub. data). At least some of these faults 

appear to be growth faults within the 12.8-12.7 Ma Paintbrush Group section, based on subsurface 

mapping results (Fridrich, unpub. data). For most of the faults in Crater Flat basin, however, all 

that can be proven is that offset after deposition of the 12.7 Ma Tiva Canyon Tuff far exceeded 

any possible offset before 12.7 Ma.

12.7 to 11.6 Ma

A major extensional pulse occurred in the Yucca Mountain region between 12.7 and 11.6 

Ma and formed the oldest structural features of the region that have present-day topographic 

expression. This event formed the faults that bound the northern and eastern margins of Bare

14
Mountain, as discussed above, as well as the majority of the closely spaced normal faults of Crater 

Flat basin and of Pahute Mesa, a plateau that covers most of the northern flank of the Ammonia 

Tanks caldera (Figures 2, 6, and 9). In addition, extreme extension occurred in the volcanic 

rocks on the north side of Bare Mountain in the upper plate of the Fluorspar Canyon detachment 

fault (the easternmost part of the Bullfrog Hills domain) during the 12.7-to-11.6 Ma event (Figure 

6).

Throughout the area affected by the 12.7-11.6 Ma event, a major angular unconformity is 

present between the Timber Mountain Group and Paintbrush Group units. Field expressions of 

this unconformity include large abrupt thickness changes of the Timber Mountain units across 

faults, more gradual thickness changes of these units down the dip-slopes of the paleohogbacks 

they buried, and buttress unconformities of these units against fault scarps (Figure 10). The areal 

variation in the magnitude of extension that occurred in the 12.7-to-l 1.6 Ma event is reflected in 

the magnitude of angular discordance between the Paintbrush and Timber Mountain Groups, which 

is about 5° on Pahute Mesa. Across the northern flank of Bare Mountain (the easternmost part of 

the Bullfrog Hills domain), this unconformity varies from 45° to at least 70° from east to west (new 

field data, this study), and then diminishes to being indiscernible with the first 5 km to the west 

of northwest corner of Bare Mountain (D. Boden, oral comm., 1996). In Crater Flat, the angular 

discordance varies from as little as 10°, on northern Yucca Mountain, to values of 25-40° in the 

southern and northwestern parts of the basin (Figure 9).

The original pattern of extensional deformation in Crater Flat thus has a geometric pattern 

somewhat like a sphenochasm (a triangular pull-apart basin); it appears that the basin was pivoting 

open like a Chinese fan with the northeast corner of the basin as the point of least extension. The 

complete geometry of the basin in this interval is unknown however because the Paintbrush Group 

is not exposed in the southwestern part of Crater Flat. If the southwest corner of the basin was 

also acting as a pivot point in the 12.7-to-l 1.6 Ma event, then the overall geometry may be like 

that of a rhombochasm rather than a sphenochasm.

The large-scale distributions and areal variations in the thicknesses of the major tuffs of 

the Timber Mountain Group (Figure 10) in Crater Flat reflect burial of a topographic form that 

is much like that of the modern basin. The topography tends to slope away from the caldera 

complex owing to circumcaldera doming and to the broad, cone-like constructional volcanic 

landfbrm (the ash-flow apron) that formed around the caldera complex. Excluding those effects, 

the topography largely reflects the areal variation in the magnitude of extension; those areas that 

extended the most subsided the most.

A large volume of rock-avalanche breccia was shed off of the Bare Mountain range-front 

into Crater Flat in the 12.7-11.6 Ma tectonic pulse (Figure 9), as discussed above. In addition, 

smaller bodies of landslide and talus breccias composed of volcanic clasts are intercalated between 

the Paintbrush and Timber Mountain sequences and within the lowermost part of the Timber 

Mountain sequence in the vicinity of fault scarps within the Crater Flat basin and the easternmost 

part of the Bullfrog Hills domain (Figure 9; new field data, this study). These breccias are 

indicative of high rates of tectonism during the nearly l-m.y.-long eruptive hiatus that separates 

the Paintbrush and Timber Mountain volcanic sequences.

15
11.6 to about 10 Ma

Extension between 11.6 and about 10 Ma in the Yucca Mountain region occurred in a belt 

that overlaps the belt of 12.7-to-l 1.6 Ma extension, but both the east and west boundaries of 11.6- 

to-10-Ma belt are displaced about 10 km westward of those of the preceding interval. The belt 

of strong extension in the 11.6-to-10-Ma interval includes only the westernmost part of Crater Flat 

basin, and it extends westward to the central part of the Bullfrog Hills (Figure 2).

In most of Crater Flat, the major faults active between 12.7 and 11.6 Ma continued to be 

active after 11.6 Ma, but at a subdued rate. This is reflected in the degree of tilting of the 11.6 

Ma Rainier Mesa Tuff, which is corrected for post-10 Ma tilting in the western part of the basin 

(Figure 11), as well as in the much lesser fault offsets of the Rainier Mesa Tuff relative to those 

of the 12.7 Ma Tiva Canyon Tuff in the same areas (Scott and Bonk, 1984; Faulds and others, 

1994; R. B. Scott, USGS, unpub. data; new field data, this study). Moderate to high rates of 

extension continued, however, in the western third of the Crater Flat basin, between the Bare 

Mountain range front and two major, and possibly connected faults, in the northwest and 

southwest parts of the basin, which were exceptionally active between 10 and 11.6 Ma (Figure

11).

To the east of those two faults, only the southeasternmost part of the basin has incurred 

more than about 5° of tilting since emplacement of the 11.6 Ma Rainier Mesa Tuff (Figure 11), 

not just between 11.6 and 10 Ma, but from 11.6 Ma to the present. Extension in the western third 

of the Crater Flat basin, and especially the southwesternmost area, continued at a high rate until 

about 10 Ma. This locally high rate of extension is reflected in large stratigraphic thickness 

changes of the Timber Mountain units and the 10.5 Ma basalts across the major faults in this area 

and by an angular unconformity between units dated at 11.45 and 10.5 Ma (new field data, this 

study). Rock avalanches were shed off of some major faults into the most active part of the basin 

during this interval (Figure 11). In the southwest part of the basin alone, it is possible that the rate 

of 11.6-to-10 Ma extension exceeded that of the 12.7-11.6 Ma pulse; as discussed above, no pre11.7 Ma rocks are exposed in this area. In the rest of the basin, the majority of the total middleMiocene-to-present extension occurred in the 12.7-to-11.6-Ma interval (Fridrich and others, 

1998).

Tectonic deformation in Crater Flat basin between 11.6 and about 10 Ma did not extend 

as far north as the 12.7-11.6 Ma tectonism had (Figure 11). The initial trace of the Tram Ridge 

fault was abandoned sometime during the 12.7-11.6 Ma tectonic pulse. After 11.6 Ma, a new 

strand of this fault formed to the southeast and, unlike the old strand, the new one apparently did 

not extend all the way to the caldera complex (Figure 6). This is consistent with the much 

stronger activity in the southwest part of the basin between 11.6 and 10 Ma than in the northwest 

part of the basin. The west and south parts of the basin were areas of greater extension from the 

start (from 12.7-to-l 1.6 Ma; Figure 10); but that focus became more concentrated into the 

southwest part of the basin between 11.6 and 10 Ma.

The concentration of extension in the southwestern part of Crater Flat basin in the 11.6 to 

10 Ma interval created an enduring physiographic distinction, in which the current area of total 

alluvial cover (Crater Flat physiographic feature) appears to be a distinct basin and Yucca 

Mountain appears to be a low range bordering that basin. In one respect, this is misleading 

because both the structure of the rocks and the stratigraphic record of development of that

16
structure indicate that Yucca Mountain and Crater Flat physiographic feature have been 

structurally linked from the time of origin of this structural domain, between 12.7 and 11.6 Ma, 

to the present. It is possible, however, that the southwestern part of the basin is a structurally 

distinct subdomain within the Crater Flat basin - a basin within a basin - formed as a 

transtensional pull-apart along the southern part of the Bare mountain range front.

Basaltic volcanism began in the southwest part of Crater Flat basin during the 11.6-to-10 

Ma interval, forming a thick, areally extensive sheet of layered lava flows and lesser scoria cones 

from which K-Ar ages of 11.3 Ma and 10.5 Ma have been obtained (Carr and Parrish, 1985; 

Swadley and Carr, 1987; Figure 11). These basalts are largely buried and their distribution is 

therefore based primarily on aeromagnetic data (V. Langenheim, USGS, written comm., 1994). 

The relationship of this volcanism to the tectonism is not entirely clear, but the fact that basalts 

are concentrated in that part of the basin that had the highest rate of extension at the time is 

probably significant (Fridrich and others, 1994b; 1998).

In the easternmost part of the Bullfrog Hills, the focus of extension migrated westward 

after 11.6 Ma, as is best shown by the westward migration of the breakaway fault for this domain, 

the Fluorspar Canyon fault (Figure 6). The southern part of this fault remained at the north 

boundary of the Bare Mountain uplift; that contact probably was not fixed in space, however, 

because tectonic denudation of Bare Mountain was accomplished by movement along this 

detachment fault, concurrent with large-magnitude extension in the upper plate. The eastern limit 

of the breakaway fault migrated through the upper-plate volcanic rocks, occupying at least three 

different positions between 12.7 and 10 Ma, each further westward with time (Figure 6). Unlike 

the southern part of the Fluorspar Canyon fault at the boundary of Bare Mountain, the north-tonortheast-striking breakaway strands that project off of it into the volcanic pile are largely highangle faults and are merely the east limit of faulting and, in most cases, the approximate east limit 

of major tilting at the times they were active.

The fault zones that bound both the east and west sides of the Tram Ridge horst thus 

formed new strands with time (Figure 6). The horst originally (between 12.7 and 11.6 Ma) 

consisted of two separate triangular blocks at the surface, because the bounding faults on either 

side of the horst intersected near the surface. With time, the horst has become progressively wider 

owing to outward migration of the bounding faults (Figure 6).

During the westward migration of the extensional pulse across the east part of the Bullfrog 

Hills domain, the faulting and, especially, the apparent tilting patterns changed remarkably. 

Whereas the 12.7 to 11.6 Ma extension produced dominantly southeastward tilting during 

movement on north-northwest-dipping faults, extension from 11.6 to 11.1 Ma and from 11.1 to 

10 Ma resulted in northeastward and northward tilts, respectively, during offset along faults that 

dip to the west-northwest.

During this westward migration of the breakaway fault system at the east limit of the 

Bullfrog Hills domain, the westward extent of faulting and related tilting also migrated 

progressively westward and reached the east flank of the Grapevine Mountains by about 8 Ma 

(Fridrich, unpub. data). In Miocene sections throughout the Bullfrog Hills, the major ash-flow 

tuff sheets are roughly conformable up to an initial unconformity and, in any one place, the oldest 

unconformity is the largest. But this first and largest unconformity in any one place is not the 

same unconformity across the whole Bullfrog Hills, but rather a series of unconformities that are 

progressively younger to the west (Maldonado, 1990; Maldonado and Hausback, 1990; S. Minor,

17
USGS, unpub. data; new field data, this study). The pattern of middle to late Miocene extension 

in the Bullfrog Hills is thus an extension of that documented in Crater Flat basin. Extension 

migrated from east to west across the region and, in any one place, the trend observed during the 

regular westward migration is abrupt onset of a pulse of rapid extension, followed by a 

progressive decline in extension rate as the extensional pulse migrated away.

10 Ma to present

The magnitude of extensional fault offsets, and especially of tilting in the Crater Flat basin 

that has occurred from about 10 Ma to the present has been less than that of both the much shorter 

11.6-to-10 Ma interval and the even shorter 12.7-to-11.6 Ma interval. Overall, therefore, the 

pattern has been one of progressive decline in tectonism with time after the initial extensional pulse 

which started shortly after 12.7 Ma, at least in the Crater Flat basin (see Fridrich and others, 

1998). The structural style of activity in Crater Flat since about 10 Ma has largely been an 

extension of trends that began earlier (Figure 12). The number of faults showing evidence of 

activity is greatest for the interval from 12.7 to 11.6 Ma, intermediate from 11.6 to about 10 Ma, 

and least since about 10 Ma (Figure 9, 11, and 12; note that only the most active faults were 

shown in Figure 11). Hence, fault spacing has increased with time owing to progressive cessation 

of activity on minor faults. In addition, the zone of activity along the major fault systems in 

Crater Flat basin has retracted southward with time, especially along the Bare Mountain range 

front, leaving the northwest part of the basin almost completely inactive after about 10 Ma 

(Figures 6 and 12). The major drainages on the east side of Bare Mountain become progressively 

steeper (geomorphically less mature) to the south along the range front (Klinger and Anderson, 

1993), suggesting that offset rates along this fault have been progressively greater as one moves 

southward. This interpretation is supported by Quaternary studies of sedimenatation patterns in 

the basin (J. Stamatakos, Southwest Research Institute, written comm., 1996). Continued 

movement on the southern part of the Bare Mountain fault, but not the northern part, has resulted 

in the relative uplift and erosional dissection of early (pre-8 Ma) basin fill in the northwest part 

of the Crater Flat basin (new field data, this study).

Studies documenting Quaternary rates of activity along the major fault systems in the east 

and central parts of Crater Flat basin (Pezzopane and others, 1994; Menges and others, 1994; A. 

Ramelli, NBMG, oral comm., 1995; Figure 12) show the same pattern of southward-increasing 

offset rates that is true for the 10 Ma-to-present interval as a whole. These studies also show that 

the 12.7-to-about-10-Ma pattern of left-oblique slip along these faults has continued to the present, 

which is geometrically required by the pivoting-open effect that is inherent in the southward 

increasing slip rates; the Crater Flat basin is still opening like a Chinese fan. In the Quaternary 

and Pliocene, the southern parts of the fault systems in the eastern part of the basin have 

apparently been the most active structures in the basin; hence, the 3.7 and 0.1 Ma basalts 

apparently formed in that part of the basin that was most active at the times of these eruptions 

(Figure 12).

Only one structural feature has formed in the Crater Flat basin since about 10 Ma that is 

not obviously an extension of earlier structural patterns; namely the ridge at the southern flank of 

the Crater Flat physiographic feature (Figures 3 and 12). This ridge is part of the north boundary 

of the Amargosa Desert, which is a composite of several structural basins (Figure 2). During

18
uplift of this ridge in southern Crater Flat, the middle to late Miocene rocks that compose the ridge 

have been tilted about 10° to the north; this is the major tilting that has occurred in the Crater Flat 

basin since about 10 Ma (Figure 12). The southern scarp of this ridge is continuous with the scarp 

along the southwestern boundary of the Bare Mountain uplift, which is the northeastern boundary 

of the western Amargosa basin (Figure 12). These scarps have been interpreted as being related 

to a structure called the Highway 95 fault, as discussed above. If this structure is real, it is 

concealed under Quaternary alluvium and has no discernible surface trace through these young 

sediments.

Evidence of recent offset on all of the Quaternary faults in the basin ends across this ridge 

at the southern margin of Crater Flat physiographic feature. Hence, the south-central part of the 

Crater Flat basin has been an isolated pocket of faulting activity in the late Quaternary. Moreover, 

the late Quaternary rate of tectonic activity in Crater Flat basin is feeble. Based on fault-slip 

studies, the late Quaternary rate of northwest-southeast lengthening (horizontal offset) across the 

southern part of the basin, where the rate is at a maximum, is approximately 0.1 meter per 

thousand years (Menges and others, 1994; Fridrich and others, 1998). The late Quaternary 

extension rate is approximately half as great across central Yucca Mountain, and an order of 

magnitude lower across northern Yucca Mountain (Fridrich and others, 1998).

Many of the proximal physiographic features of the Yucca Mountain area took on their 

basic topographic form between 12.7 and 10 Ma; this includes Yucca Mountain itself, Crater Flat 

physiographic feature, and Bare Mountain. However, a substantial part of the topography of the 

greater Yucca Mountain region was created in the interval from about 10 Ma to present, especially 

the first half of this interval. For example, proceeding clockwise, Death Valley, Sarcobatus and 

Gold Flats, Kawich and Emigrant Valleys, and French Flat (Figure 2) are post-10 Ma basins at 

least in the sense that they evidently assumed their modern topographic form near the end of the 

Miocene.

These younger basins mark a clear departure in structural style from the 12.7-to-10 Ma 

tectonism that was concentrated in the area of the southwest Nevada volcanic field; specifically, 

the tilted-domino style of deformation along closely spaced faults was apparently replaced by 

classic large-scale Basin-Range block faulting in areas to the north and east of Yucca Mountain, 

and formation of large strike-slip pull-apart basins, to the west and south. Possible underlying 

causes for this change are: (1) The volcanic field has been in a waning cycle since 11 Ma and 

especially since 7.5 Ma, the age of the last major silicic volcanism; hence, the mechanical 

behavior of the crust has been changing as it cooled, and (2) after 10 Ma the tectonic pulse 

migrated out of the area of the volcanic field into areas of the crust that were structurally and 

mechanically different throughout the Cenozoic.

SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION OF TECTONIC MODELS

During the late Cenozoic, the Yucca Mountain region has evolved as a mosaic of structural 

domains. These domains are separated by bounding structures or zones across which abrupt 

changes are present in the timing, magnitude, and style of extension and other deformation. Some 

of these domain boundaries, such as the Bare Mountain range-front fault, have remained active 

over long periods of time, and have maintained much of their original character despite changes 

in the patterns of tectonism in the surrounding region. Others, such as the breakaway fault of the

19
Bullfrog Hills domain, have changed in their geometry over time, and still others have come and 

gone as the dynamics of deformation in the region has changed.

The focus of maximum extension migrated westward through the Yucca Mountain region 

over a major part of the late Cenozoic. For at least the period of about 13 to about 10 Ma and for 

the area of the southwest Nevada volcanic field, this migration took the form of a steadily 

advancing front that moved across the region like a wave, migrating both within individual 

structural domains, and across domain boundaries. At other times, such as from about 10 Ma to 

present, it is only the focus of maximum extension rate that appeared to show any regular pattern 

of migration, and activity behind the advancing front, now located in the Death Valley area, has 

been scattered and irregular.

In any place, the evident trend during the westward migration is abrupt onset of a pulse of 

rapid extension, followed by a progressive but slower decline in extension rate as the extensional 

pulse migrated away. Scattered small domains, including a major part of Crater Flat basin, have 

remained technically active at feeble rates long after passage of an extensional pulse.

The structural style of extension in the Crater Flat basin has progressively changed during 

its tectonic evolution; specifically, fault spacing has increased with time and the rate of tilting has 

decreased. Moreover, the area of active tectonism in the basin has been progressively shrinking; 

whereas the 12.7-to-11.6 Ma peak phase of tectonism involved strong deformation throughout 

Crater Flat basin, extension since 11.6 Ma has only involved approximately half of the original 

area of the basin, and the majority of the deformation has been concentrated in less than half of 

that area. Stratigraphic units younger than 10 Ma are little exposed and difficult to date; hence, 

there are large uncertainties in the constraints on the waning phase of evolution of the basin, 

especially for the interval between 10 and 4 Ma.

An oddity of the Crater Flat basin is that more than two-thirds of the thick Tertiary "basin 

fill" in Crater Flat was deposited before the formation of this structural basin. Most of the 

volcanic section, and all of the prevolcanic sedimentary section under Crater Flat and Yucca 

Mountain date back to a period before the 12.7-to-l 1.6-Ma event in which Bare Mountain was 

uplifted and tectonically denuded, and Crater Flat basin subsided. Existing data appears consistent 

with the hypothesis of Hamilton (1989) that the pre-12.6 Ma volcanic rocks of the Bullfrog Hills 

domain slid off of Bare Mountain to the west and north along the Fluorspar Canyon detachment 

fault, and hence were contiguous with the volcanic rocks to the east of Bare Mountain, in Crater 

Flat, before the 12.7-11.6 Ma extensional pulse. The greater thickness of this pre-12.6 Ma 

Tertiary section in western Crater Flat basin and the Bullfrog Hills, relative to surrounding areas, 

suggests this area was a depositional basin of some kind, but additional work would be required 

to reconstruct what the area looked like before the 12.7-11.6 Ma tectonic event, and to determine 

whether Hamilton's hypothesis is in fact accurate.

None of the concealed master structures that have been invoked by previous workers to 

explain the structural characteristics of Crater Flat basin can be proven or disproven based on 

available data. However, it is possible to address two important questions: (1) Is it necessary to 

invoke concealed structures to explain the observed features of the Crater Flat basin?, and (2) Is 

the question of whether these concealed features are present or not important to understanding the 

Crater Flat basin, particularly for the evaluation of seismic hazards for the Yucca Mountain site?

With respect to the caldera hypothesis, any caldera that is concealed under Crater Flat must 

be related to the 13.1 to 13.5 Ma Crater Flat Group or to older, underlying units because the

20
caldera sources of all major younger units have been identified (Sawyer and others, 1994). The 

inferred concealed caldera therefore would not only have predated the formation of the Crater Flat 

basin, but it would have been a fossil structure when this basin formed. Hence, the question of 

whether a caldera is concealed under Crater Flat is irrelevant both to understanding the Crater Flat 

basin and to evaluating seismic hazards for the Yucca Mountain site.

With respect to the detachment hypothesis, the creation of Crater Flat basin and the uplift 

of Bare Mountain all occurred within the 1 m.y. period from 12.7 to 11.6 Ma. Hence, if the 

inferred detachment fault under the Crater Flat basin was once rooted to the west, the uplift of 

Bare Mountain severed the detachment almost immediately after the basin formed. Once it was 

truncated by the range-front fault, the hypothetical detachment fault under Crater Flat basin would 

have been a rootless structure, and there would have been no kinematic reason for significant 

additional movement to occur along it.

Recent mapping (new field data, this study) that was done in part to test the detachment 

hypotheses of Hamilton (1989) and Scott (1990) has documented a number of field relations that 

are difficult to reconcile with these hypotheses: (1) The detachment fault system of the Bullfrog 

Hills appears to have had an eastern termination in the vicinity of the Bare Mountain range-front 

fault, as discussed above, rather than continuing to the east under Crater Flat and Yucca Mountain. 

(2) The postulated detachment fault under Crater Flat and Yucca Mountain was interpreted as 

being located at the basal Tertiary contact. However, gravity and bore-hole data indicate this 

contact was offset by high-angle faults in the 14 to 13.1 Ma tectonic event, before the creation of 

Crater Flat basin, which probably would have prevented it from becoming a detachment fault.

Moreover, the proposed detachment fault under Yucca Mountain and Crater Flat was not 

interpreted from any direct evidence. Rather, it was invoked based on the supposition that, 

because the Crater Flat domain has a tilted-domino structural style that resembles that of many 

areas of extreme extension and detachment faulting, it must therefore have a detachment fault 

under it. This structural style is, however, found throughout the southwest Nevada volcanic field 

wherever the extensional faults formed during or shortly after the peak in eruptive activity. In the 

Crater Flat basin, as in much of the volcanic field, this structural style is developed at low 

percentages of extension, in some cases less than 10%. Detachment faulting at such low 

percentages of extension appears unlikely.

Rather than being an indicator of detachment faulting, the development of a tilted-domino 

structural style along closely spaced faults during regional extension may reflect the influence of 

large-scale crustal magmatism. Specifically, magmatism may alter the style of crustal deformation 

by changing the thermal gradient, pore pressures, and other conditions that influence the strength 

of the crust and the state of stress in it. The common presence of the tilted-domino structural style 

in many areas of extreme extension may indicate that crustal magmatism played a role in the 

creating the conditions for detachment faulting in these areas, as suggested by Parsons and 

Thompson (1993).

A common implication of both the caldera and detachment fault hypotheses is that the 

observed surface structures of the Crater Flat area terminate in the subsurface against a master 

structure in the upper crust. The only ground-truth evidence that can be applied to test this 

implication was supplied by the 1992 earthquake at Little Skull Mountain, about 10 km east of 

Yucca Mountain. The focus of this earthquake was located at 12 km depth, and aftershocks 

defined a planar fault surface with a dip of about 65° extending from 12 km into the upper crust

21
(Harmsen, 1994). These data are compelling evidence that the high-level faults of the Yucca 

Mountain region do not terminate against any upper-crustal structure; rather, they extend down 

to the middle crust, as they do is the rest of the southern Great Basin (Harmsen and Bufe, 1992).

A question could be posed as to whether the deep (10-15 km) seismogenic basement in the 

Yucca Mountain region is a detachment fault or merely the brittle-ductile transition. This question 

is unanswerable and, moreover, is irrelevant both to understanding the origin of Crater Flat basin 

and to evaluating seismic hazards for the Yucca Mountain site.

The strong southwestward increase in vertical-axis rotation within Crater Flat basin, 

coupled with the evident abrupt termination of this distributed strike-slip deformation at the west 

and south boundaries of the basin, is strong suggestive evidence of the presence of a major strikeslip fault at either or both of these two boundaries. If so, however, the strike-slip structure(s) is 

totally concealed. The presence of such a structure would be relevant both to the origin of Crater 

Flat basin and to the evaluation of seismic hazards for the Yucca Mountain site. Testing 

alternative hypotheses that a concealed major strike-slip fault is associated with the Crater Flat 

basin would, however, require additional study. The pattern of oroflexural bending in this basin 

does not require that a master strike-slip fault be present; the strike-slip deformation in the Crater 

Flat basin may simply be distributed rather than discrete.

CONCLUSION

Whereas virtually all of the previously proposed theories for the tectonics of the Crater Flat 

area have tried to explain the structural features of this area in terms of end-member models, the 

field-geologic and geophysical evidence indicates that Crater Flat basin is not an end-member 

example of anything; it is a hybrid basin of complex origin. Structurally, the Crater Flat basin 

reflects three major influences: (1) east-west- to northwest-southwest-directed extension, (2) 

northwest-directed dextral deformation, and (3) doming around the caldera complex, which also 

acted a pivot point for oblique extension. This mixture of influences is consistent with the setting 

of this basin on the flank of a large caldera complex that was active during its formation, and 

within the Walker Lane belt near the boundary between this province, which is characterized by 

both strike-slip deformation and extension, and the northern Basin-and-Range province, which is 

characterized by more purely extensile deformation. The range-front-like fault at the western 

boundary of Crater Flat basin appears to form the eastern limit of extreme extension, detachment 

faulting, and large-scale isostatic uplift, as discussed above. Thus, although the Crater Flat basin 

probably is not underlain by a detachment fault, detachment faulting may nonetheless have played 

an important role in the formation of this basin.

Whereas it is impossible to disprove the presence of a concealed caldera or a detachment 

fault under Crater Flat, there is in fact nothing in the existing data that requires their invocation. 

There also is no clearcut evidence for a master strike-slip fault through this basin or at its 

boundaries; however, distributed strike-slip deformation has played a major role in creating the 

Crater Flat basin, and it continues to play a role in the tectonics of this basin. Determining the 

significance of the strike-slip deformation in this basin, with respect to the basin's origin and to 

seismic risk assessment for the Yucca Mountain site, will require approaching the problem with 

a more regional view than was done in this study.

22
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank colleagues in the USGS, especially Dennis O'Leary, for numerous critical 

discussions of the tectonics of the Yucca Mountain region. Helpful reviews of the manuscript 

were provided by Lauren Wright, Christopher Potter, Thomas Hoisch, Mark Hudson, Ed DeWitt, 

and Bruce Crowe. Jason Price, Michele Murray, F. William Simonds, and Chris Hildenbrand 

assisted the author in the field. Funding was provided by the U. S. Department of Energy Yucca 

Mountain Project.

23
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Schweickert, R. A. 1989, Evidence for a concealed strike-slip fault beneath Crater Flat, Nevada:

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, v. 21, no. 9., p. A90. 

Scott, R. B., 1990, Tectonic setting of Yucca Mountain, southwest Nevada, /«, Weraicke, B. P.,

ed., Basin and range extensional tectonics near the latitude of Las Vegas, Nevada:

Geological Society of America Memoir 176, p. 251-282. 

Scott, R. B., and Bonk, J., 1984, Preliminary geologic map of Yucca Mountain with geologic

sections, Nye County, Nevada: U. S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 84-494,

1:12,000 scale. 

Scott, R. B. and Castellanos, M., 1984, Stratigraphic and structural relations of volcanic rocks

in drill holes USW GU-3 and USW G-3, Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada: U.S.

Geological Survey Open-File Report 84-491, 136 p. 

Simonds, F. W., Whitney, J. W., Fox, K. F., Ramelli, A. R., Yount, J. C., Carr, M. D.,

Menges, C. M., Dickerson, R. P., and Scott, R. B., 1995, Map showing fault activity in

the Yucca Mountain area, Nye County, Nevada: U. S. Geological Survey map 1-2520,

scale 1:24,000. 

Smith, R. L., and Bailey, R. A., 1968, Resurgent cauldrons: Geological Society of America

Memoir 116, p. 613-662. 

Snyder, D. B., and Carr, W. J., 1984, Interpretation of gravity in a complex volcano-tectonic

27
setting, southwestern Nevada: Journal of Geophysical Research, v. 89, no. B12, p. 10193- 

10206.

Spengler, R. W., Byers, F. M., Jr. and Warner, J. B., 1981. Stratigraphy and structure of 

volcanic rocks in drill hole USW-G1, Yucca Mountain, Nevada: U.S. Geological Survey 

Open-File Report 81-1349, 50 p.

Stewart, J. H., 1988, Tectonics of the Walker Lane belt, western Great Basin-Mesozoic and 

Tertiary deformation in a zone of shear, in, Ernst, W. G., ed., Metamorphism and crustal 

evolution of the western United States, Rubey Vol. VII: Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 

Prentice Hall, p. 683-713.

Streitz, R. and Stinson, M. C., 1974, Geologic map of California, Death Valley sheet: California 

Division of Mines and Geology, scale 1:250,000.

Swadley, W C, and Carr, W. J., 1987, Geologic map of the Quaternary and Tertiary deposits of 

the Big Dune Quadrangle, Nye County, Nevada and Inyo County, California: U. S. 

Geological Survey Map 1-1767: scale 1:48,000.

Thordarson, William, Rush, F.E., Spengler, R.W. and Waddell, S.J., 1984. Geohydrologic and 

drill hole data for test well USW H-3, Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada: U.S. 

Geological Survey Open-File Report 84-149, 28 p.

Warren, R. G., Byers, F. M., Jr., and Orkild, P. P., 1985, Post-Silent Canyon caldera structural 

setting for Pahute Mesa: in, Third Symposium on Containment of Underground Nuclear 

Explosions, Idaho Operations Office of the DOE, Idaho Falls, Idaho, v. 2, p. 3-30.

Weiss, S. I., Noble, D. C., Worthington, J. E., IV, andMcKee, E. H., 1993, Neogene tectonism 

from the southwestern Nevada volcanic field to the White Mountains, California, Part 1. 

Miocene volcanic stratigraphy, paleotopography, extensional faulting, and uplift between 

northern Death Valley and Pahute Mesa: in, Lahren, M. M., Trexler, J. H., Jr., and 

Spinosa, C., eds., Crustal Evolution of the Great basin and Sierra Nevada: 

Cordilleran/Rocky Mountain Section, Geological Society of America Guidebook, 

Department of Geological Sciences, University of Nevada, Reno, p 353-382.

Winograd, I. J., and Thordarson, W., 1975, Hydrogeologic and hydrochemical framework, southcentral Great Basin, Nevada-California, with special reference to the Nevada Test Site: U. 

S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 712-C, 125 p.

Wright, L. A., 1989, Overview of the role of strike-slip and normal faulting in the Neogene 

history of the region northeast of Death Valley, California-Nevada, in, Ellis, M. A., ed., 

Late Tertiary evolution of the southern Great Basin, Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology 

Open File 89-1, p. 1-11.

Wright, L. A. and Troxel, B. W., 1993, Geologic map of the Funeral Mountains and adjacent 

areas, Death Valley region, southern California: U. S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous 

Investigations Series map 1-2305, scale 1:24,000.

28
FIGURE CAPTIONS

Figure 1: Location of Yucca Mountain (star) in the southwest Nevada volcanic field (Broxton 

and others, 1989) of the western Great Basin, with schematic representations of 

faults of the Walker Lane Belt that have strike-slip components of offset (dip-slip 

offsets not shown), modified from Stewart (1988).

Figure 2: Generalized map of the Yucca Mountain region showing major physiographic 

features and faults; compiled from Jenkins, 1962; Longwell and others, 1965; 

Cornwall, 1972; Streitz and Stinson, 1974; Ekren and others, 1977; Burchfiel and 

others, 1983; Wright, 1989; Frizzell and Schulters, 1990; Piety, 1993; Sawyer and 

others, 1994.

Figure 3: Map showing structural domains and domain boundaries of the Yucca Mountain 

region and internal fault structures of the Crater Flat basin and selected parts of 

adjacent domains; compiled from Monsen and others, 1992; Simonds and others, 

1995; and Fridrich and others, unpub. data.

Figure 4: Schematic illustrations of (A) resolved sense of strike-slip shear on faults having 

a range of orientations, given a representational stress ellipsoid for the western 

Great Basin, and (B) illustration showing the dynamic sense of strike-slip shear 

along originally north-striking faults when the same stress regime results in vertical 

axis rotation concurrent with extension.

Figure 5: Structure map of Bare Mountain; modified from Monsen and others, 1992; Fridrich 

and others, unpub. data. Data on metamorphic grades modified from Hoisch (this 

volume).

Figure 6: Structure map of Tram Ridge horst and neighboring

areas, showing the migration of activity on the Bare Mountain-Tram Ridge fault 

system and the Fluorspar Canyon fault system. Compiled from Monsen and 

others, 1992; Fridrich and others, unpub. data.

Figure 7: Map showing features relevant to tectonic activity from 13 to 14-1- Ma, including 

thicknesses from the top of the Lithic Ridge Tuff to the top of the Tram Tuff in 

bore holes under Yucca Mountain, outcrop areas of volcanic rocks older than 13 

Ma in the Crater Flat basin and vicinity, and faults active from 13.1 to 14-1- Ma. 

Compiled from Fridrich and others, 1994a; unpub. data.

Figure 8: Map showing features relevant to tectonic activity from 12.7 to 13.1 Ma, including 

contoured thickness from the top of the 13.1 to 13.5 Ma Crater Flat Group to the 

top of the 12.7 to 12.8 Ma Paintbrush Group in the Crater Flat basin, and a very 

local angular unconformity formed in this time interval, as well as faults that were 

active between 12.7 and 13.1 Ma. Map data compiled from Carr, 1982; Carr and

29
Parrish, 1985, Fridrich and others, unpub. data; and Scott and Bonk, 1984. 

Subsurface data compiled from Spengler and others, 1981; Craig and others, 1983; 

Lobmeyer and others, 1983; Maldonado and Koether, 1983; Rush and others, 

1984; Scott and others, 1984; Thordarson and others, 1984; M. Carr and others, 

1986.

Figure 9: Map showing features relevant to tectonic activity from

12.7 to 11.6 Ma in Crater Rat basin and vicinity. Faults in Claim Canyon caldera 

are predominantly related to caldera resurgence which occurred between 12.7 and 

12.5 Ma. Dips in the Claim Canyon caldera reflect resurgent doming of the 

cauldron block. Faults shown in Crater Flat basin are ones known to have been 

active in this interval based on angular unconformities between the 12.7 Ma Tiva 

Canyon Tuff and the 11.4-11.7 Ma Timber Mountain Group. Attitudes in Crater 

Flat are those of the Tiva Canyon Tuff corrected for tilting after 11.6 Ma; with that 

correction, these attitudes represent the degree of angular unconformity between 

the Paintbrush and Timber Mountain Groups in Crater Flat. Also shown are the 

locations and suspected sources areas of rock-avalanche breccias formed in this 

time interval. Map data compiled from Christiansen, and Lipman, 1965; Scott and 

Bonk, 1984; Fridrich and others, unpub. data; Scott, R. B., unpub. data).

Figure 10: Map showing distributions of the 11.6 Ma Rainier Mesa

Tuff, with thicknesses in meters, as well as the distribution of the 11.45 Ma 

Ammonia Tanks Tuff in Crater Flat basin. The distributions and thickness 

variations in these units reflect primarily the topography that these units buried, and 

that was created by faulting, tilting, uplift, and subsidence from 12.7 to 11.6 Ma. 

Compiled from Scott and Bonk, 1984; Faulds and others, 1994; Fridrich and 

others, unpub. data; R. B. Scott, USGS, unpub. data).

Figure 11: Map showing features relevant to tectonic activity

from 11.6 to about 10 Ma in Crater Flat basin, including attitudes of the 11.6 Ma 

Rainier Mesa Tuff, corrected for post-10 Ma tilting, and distibution of 11.3-to-10.5 

Ma basalts. Most of the faults active from 12.7-11.6 Ma (Figure 10) were active 

to some degree from 10-11.6 Ma as well; this figure shows only those faults that 

were active enough from about-10-to-l 1.6 Ma that there are very large thickness 

changes or changes in tilting across them, or their activity resulted in rockavalanching in this time interval. Compiled from Scott and Bonk, 1984; Faulds 

and others, 1994; Fridrich and others, unpub. data; R. B. Scott, USGS, unpub. 

data).

Figure 12: Map showing features relevant to tectonic activity

from about 10 Ma to present in Crater Flat basin, including tilting, active faults, 

and basalts erupted. Compiled from Faulds and others, 1994; F. W. Simonds and 

R. B. Scott, USGS, written comm., 1995; Fridrich and others, unpub. data; R. B. 

Scott, USGS, unpub. data; Menges and others, 1994).

30
31

40*

39-

38"

37*

36' -

120* 119'

 WALKER LANE 

BELT

us* 117* 116* 115* 114*

%>

NV

SOUTHWEST NEVADA 

VOLCANIC FIELD

NEVADA TEST

CA

Figure 1
32

irxr

EXPLANATION

MOCtNC-OUOOCCHC

[ PALEOZOW-PROTOOZOK

 A- HSAJ.UC conaa

NMUM. I 

STMKE-SUP FAUU 

KTMXMNT fAULT

Figure 2
33

116'43-W 

37'WOO- 116'37'3(r 116-30W U61SW

3VW30*

36MS'00'

36'37'30'

T

TRAM 

RIDGE \ 

DOMAIN

WESTERN

AMARGOSA

BASIN

DOUAIN

10 MILES

10 KILOMETERS

EXPLANATION

 *- Coldera norgin

 Right-slip faults

 East dipping nornal faults 

.... yest dipping nornal faults

 Bedrock / alluvlun contact

 Buried contact

 ? Structural donain boundary, 

queried where uncertain

70 ka basalt 

0.9 Ma basalt 

3.7 Ma basalt 

10.5-11.3 Ma basalt

Figure 3
B

Figure 4
35

nt-431

EXPLANATION 

srancc AMI DIP or KDDDC eotf ovCRTuno

NORMAL FAULTS IN TCHTIAtr »O«J 

ANCULM IMCprOMITY KTVCtN T« *NB Tp. 

LAIC NIDCDC UAVtLS 

TV U-ie.7 M. VOLCANIC MCKI /=".«!<». INIRUSIDIS

Tps FAVIIS smic

TOS GBCCN OMCLOCRAIC

PALUB01C AND LAICST PRCCAMKIAN KBIICNTMT BXXJ 

| j KIOM tCTAWMPMIC OAK

rOLK* ANI KOrrSTALLmB (INICBtCtlATt CRAKn 

I .' j UJV MCTAHCOrMIC W»DC

FAULTS Or 1ARC KXM1AIN 

TMWtT

COCJD CA>noi r»uLt rmc" 

y COLB ACC FAULT

NC'SIIKINC LOV-ANCLC NORMM. TAULTS 

N-STIWINC HIGH-ANGLE MOHWL TAU.IS 

 lANGC-MUNBMi FAULTS 

L*n MOCOC Sll»» FAULTS

Figure 5
EXPLANATION 

OUATCRAMtY ALLUVIUH LATE NIOCCNC GRAVELS 

TOJT II 7 No VOLCANIC DOCK!me ii.r DC VOLCANIC next

H-U N> SCDUCNTMT nCKS '17 H> SCIRCNTMr POCKS

PALEOZOIC SCDINCNTART BOCKS MIIOI TAULTS 

n* n\ rAULTt 

nrTurnriiT TAULTS

CALKM HAMmS 

.- UNCOWOHKITY 

\M AIT1TUKS IN TOUNCCR VO.CMICS 

>V ATTITUKS IN OLKR VOLCANIC! 

0 HOHZOHTAL ATTITUKS

RAINIER MESA CALDERA 11.6 Me

ON

3 NILCt
37 .

EXPLANATION

V* FAULTS BOUNDING BURIED CRABEN 

UNDER N. YUCCA MOUNTAIN, BASED 

ON GRAVITY * SUBSURFACE DATA

CALDCRA MARGIN

EXPOSED FAULTS ACTIVE 

BETWEEN 14 AND 13.1 Mo

OUTCROP AREA OF PRE-13 Mo 

VOLCANIC ROCKS

SUBSURFACE THICKNESS CMETERS) 

FROM TOP OF LITHIC RIDGE TUFF 

<M Mo) TO TOP OF TRAM TUFF 

(13.5 Mo>

DEEP BORE HOLE

Figure 7
wanr

CLAIM CANYON CALDERA 

12.7-12.8 Ma

(SOURCE Of PAINTBRUSH GROUP)

\

kilooetcrs

EXPLANATION

THICKNESS (METERS) FROM TOP OF 

CRATER FLAT GROUP TO TOP OF 

PAINTBRUCH GROUP C13.1-12.7 Ma)

D3D SURFACE THICKNESS 

® SUBSURFACE THICKNESS

CALDERA MARGIN

ACTIVE FAULT 

C13.1-12.7 Ma)

BORE HOLE

Figure8
39

/f*

\ t r"

\

\

\

\

\

1 V

1 '" 7 7

/>» /

' /

0 5 10 r~ __j^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^g

kitofwtvrs

EXPLANATION

REVERSE FAULT

ROCK-AVALANCHE BRECCIA 

EMPLACED 11.7-12.7 MQ

SOURCE OF ROCK-AVALANCHE 

CALDERA MARGIN 

HIGH-ANGLE NORMAL FAULT

VH-I

DETACHMENT FAULT

ACTIVE FAULT 

<ll.7-12.7 Ma)

BORE HOLE

L~ ATTITUDES OF Tpc <I2.7 Ma> CORRECTED 

' FOR POST-11.7Ma TILTING

Figure 9
Rainier Mesa Caldera 

(11.6 Ma) Annonia Tanks Caldera 

<11.45 Ma)

10

kflonete

EXPLANATION

THICKNESS (METERS) OF RAINIER 

MESA TUFF CTnr)

f3S SURFACE THICKNESS 

<g> SUBSURFACE THICKNESS 

>**" * CALDERA MARGIN

HIGH-ANGLE NORMAL FAULT

DETACHMENT FAULT

DISTRIBUTION OF 11.6 Ma 

RAINIER MESA TUFF CTnr)

DISTRIBUTION OF 11.45 Ma 

AMMONIA TANKS TUFF (Tna)

BORE HOLE

Figure 10
invar

kilometers

EXPLANATION

3-~

WSTRIBUTIDN OT I0.5-II Mo 

BASALTS

RDCK-AVALANCHe BRECCIA

SOURCE OF ROCK-AVALANCHE 

CALDERA MARGIN 

HIGH-ANGLE NORMAL FAULT

MAJOR ACTIVE FAULT 

(I1.7-I0.7 Mo>

' 

BORE HOLE

ATTITUDES OF Tnr (II.6 Ha> CORRECTED 

ATTITUDES OF Tna <I1.4S Ma) CORRECTED 

HORIZONTAL ATTITUDE

Figure 11
10

Moneters

EXPLANATION

x"

MAJOR ACTIVE FAULT SYSTEMS 

FROM 10 Mo TO PRESENT

CALDERA MARGIN

<^>s QUATERNARY AND PLIOCENE 

^^ BASALTS

» CENTERS 

) FISSURE VENT SYSTEM

 ..U MAJOR SCARP SYSTEM 

'--- (FORMED AFTER 10 Mo> X

10 TILTING AFTER -10 Mo

Figure 12
TADLE 1. ACES' AND GEOGRAPHIC EXTENTS OF TtlE VOLCANIC UNITS OT CRATER FLAT AND VICINITY 

AND STRATICRAPHIC POSITIONS OF UNCONFORMITIES

Unit Age 

(Ha) Exposed area Location Unconformities

Pliocene am Quaternary volcanics;

(intortxdc-d with recent alluvium) 

Lathrop Welt." cone 0.07 

Bishop Tuff ashfall 0.7 

Crater Pint cinder conns O.S older Cratar Flat flows 3.7Latest Miocene units; Lute Miocene basin fill

(locally includes:)

Spearhead TuffUnnamed anhfullBUnnamed related lavas

Thirsty Canyon Tuff 

Daaalts of Jackass Flats 

Donavan Mountain Latitc

Rocks of Rnlnbow Mountain 

landslide breccia

nanalts of west Crater Flat 

Uaialto of Fluorspar Canyon

(10-5)

7.5I.5-7.6

M

9.4

10.5-9.5

10.0

(10.5)

ana 11

SMllsmall 

 oderate

moderate 

 all

8KB 11

large

snailModerateModerate

moderate Moderate

11.3-10.5 sm»)l11,1 Moderate

Malor Volcanic Period (11-14 Ma) units:Timber Mountain Group:

AMMonia Tanks Tuff

tuff of Twiited Canyon

Rainier Mesa Tuff

Rhyo of Fluorspar Canyon rock-avalanch* breccia

Windy Hash lavas/tuffs Paintbrush Group:

Tlva Canyon Tuff

Yucca Mtn Tuff

Pah Canyon Tuff

Topopah Spring Tuff

Calico Hills formation tuffsCratar Flat Group:

Prow Pass Tuff

Bullfrog Tuff

Prospector Pass Rhyolite Train Tuff

Lithlc Rldgo Tuff

older tuffs

rre-southwent Nevada volcanic

11.45

11.611.611.6-11.712.6-11.712.9

12.712.7

12. 

12. «

12.9

13.1

13.25

13.35

13.45

13.9

-14

large

 sailvery largevery largenumerous small

moderate

very largemoderate

small

large Moderate

snailModerate

moderate

Moderate

very smallvery small

field units:

oldest thick welded tuffs 

green conglomerate

ECflJer.tinry, ynitSi Paleozoic/L. Proterozolc 

sedimentary rocks

(17-14.5) small scattered 

(17+7) very small

PCZ-Dov large

southeast Crater Flat only 

widely scattered 

west Crater Flat only 

south Crater Flat only

widespread in subsurfacenorth of Crater Flat only widely scattered 

west Bullfrog Ilillo/ Grapevine Htns only 

north of Crater Flat only Jackaos Flats only 

Bullfrog Hills onlycant Bullfrog Hills 

west Crater Flat

west Crater Flat widely scattered

widespread with gaps

Fluorspar Hills only

widespread

widespread widespread

north Crater Flat only

widespreadnorth Crater Flat only

north Crater Flat only

widespread

north Crater Flat only

east Crater Flat only widespread in subsurface north Crater Flat only widespread In subsurface

widespread In subsurface 

widespread In subsurface

widespread in subsurface?widespread in subsurface? widespread In subsurface?

widespread in subsurface

small angle, Bullfrog 111 11s W.CraterFlat/BullfroglllllA

large, widespread

very local near caldcrs

buried fault scarps

local, northwest Crater Flat 

a dlsconformlty at least 

large angle, widespread?

1 Agon Include "Ar/^Ar determinations from Sawyer and others (1994) and Crowe and others (1995), and K-Ar determinations 

from Monsen and others (1992); ages In parentheses are poorly limited eatlMatcs.