Death Valley turtlebacks: Mesozoic contractional structures overprinted by Cenozoic extension and metamorphism beneath syn-extensional plutons

The term turtleback was first coined to describe the curvilinear fault surfaces that produced a distinctive geomorphic form in the Black Mountains east of Death Valley, and although it was decades before their full significance was appreciated, they remain one of the most distinctive features of the extensional structure of the Death Valley region. Historically the interpretation of the features has varied markedly, and misconceptions about their character continue to abound, including descriptions in popular field guides for the area. It the 1990's, however, the full history of the systems began to be apparent from several key data: 1) the dating of the plutonic assemblage associated with the turtlebacks demonstrated that late Miocene, syn-extensional plutonism was fundamental to their formation; 2) the plutonic assemblage forms an intrusive sheet structurally above the turtlebacks, indicating a tie between much of the high grade metamorphism and Cenozoic plutonism; 3) a modern analog for the syn-extensional plutonism in the Black Mountains was recognized beneath Death Valley with the imaging of a mid-crustal magma body; 4) the Neogene structural history was worked out in the turtlebacks showing that folding of early-formed shear zones formed the turtleback anticlinoria but overprinting by brittle faults produced the final form as they cut obliquely across the older structure; and 5) the pre-extensional structural history was clarified, demonstrating that Mesozoic basement-involved thrust systems are present within the turtlebacks, but have been overprinted by the extensional system. An unresolved issue is the significance of Eocene U-Pb dates for pegmatites within the region, but presumably these relate somehow to the pre-extensional history. Miller and Pavlis (2005; E. Sci. Rev.) reviewed many features of the turtlebacks, and our working model for the region is that the turtlebacks originated as mid-crustal ductile-thrust systems within the Cordilleran fold-thrust belts. Our work to the east of Death Valley suggests these thrusts were part of a NW trending thrust system that overprinted an older NE trending fold-thrust system that tracks into the Death Valley region from Nevada. These NW trending thrusts probably underlie all of the southern Black Mountains (south of the turtlebacks) and we suggest that pre-extensional structural relief along these basement thrusts placed basement at shallow crustal levels throughout what is now the Black Mountains; a conclusion consistent with the absence of rocks younger than Cambrian beneath Tertiary unconformities throughout the southern Death Valley region. In Late Miocene time, a major detachment system formed and the turtlebacks represent a mid-crustal shear zone developed during that time period, but this system is older, and structurally beneath younger detachments systems that comprise the Amargosa fault system. During motion on the detachment, an ~2km thick plutonic sheet was emplaced along the shear zone forming the Miocene plutonic assemblages of the Black Mountains, and produced upper amphibolite facies metamorphic assemblages along the floor of the pluton in what are now the Copper Canyon and Mormon Point turtlebacks, but the Badwater Turtleback escaped this metamorphism due to a different structural position. Motion continued along the floor of the pluton but syn-extensional folding produced structural relief along folds with axes parallel to the extension direction. Ultimately a new detachment system cut obliquely across the older extensional system, removing the roof of the pluton, but cutting down to its floor in the turtlebacks. This fault system formed a complex detachment system updip in the famous 'Amargosa Chaos', and removing the entire cover sequence from the Black Mountains (~10–12km of crustal section). The turtlebacks are therefore a composite structure in which extension contemporaneous with folding, presumably as a result of distributed transcurrent motion during extension, was critical to their formation. In addition, syn-tectonic plutonism played a key role in strain localization and metamorphism within the assemblages that comprise the turtlebacks.