RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN LATE CRETACEOUS BASEMENT STRUCTURES AND LATE CENOZOIC FAULTING AND OVERLAP BASINS OF THE SOUTHERN SIERRA NEVADA REGION, CALIFORNIA

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Saleeby ◽  
◽  
Zorka Saleeby
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Nevada ◽  
Late Cretaceous ◽  
Late Cenozoic ◽  
Basement Structures

scholarly journals Late Cenozoic structure and tectonics of the southern Sierra Nevada–San Joaquin Basin transition, California

Geosphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 1164-1205
Author(s):  
Jason Saleeby ◽  
Zorka Saleeby
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Nevada ◽  
Late Cretaceous ◽  
Fault System ◽  
Mantle Lithosphere ◽  
High Angle ◽  
Late Cenozoic ◽  
Sediment Reworking ◽  
Late Neogene ◽  
Early Neogene ◽  
San Joaquin Basin

AbstractThis paper presents a new synthesis for the late Cenozoic tectonic, paleogeographic, and geomorphologic evolution of the southern Sierra Nevada and adjacent eastern San Joaquin Basin. The southern Sierra Nevada and San Joaquin Basin contrast sharply, with the former constituting high-relief basement exposures and the latter constituting a Neogene marine basin with superposed low-relief uplifts actively forming along its margins. Nevertheless, we show that Neogene basinal conditions extended continuously eastward across much of the southern Sierra Nevada, and that during late Neogene–Quaternary time, the intra-Sierran basinal deposits were uplifted and fluvially reworked into the San Joaquin Basin. Early Neogene normal-sense growth faulting was widespread and instrumental in forming sediment accommodation spaces across the entire basinal system. Upon erosion of the intra-Sierran basinal deposits, structural relief that formed on the basement surface by the growth faults emerged as topographic relief. Such “weathered out” fossil fault scarps control much of the modern southern Sierra landscape. This Neogene high-angle fault system followed major Late Cretaceous basement structures that penetrated the crust and that formed in conjunction with partial loss of the region’s underlying mantle lithosphere. This left the region highly prone to surface faulting, volcanism, and surface uplift and/or subsidence transients during subsequent tectonic regimes. The effects of the early Neogene passage of the Mendocino Triple Junction were amplified as a result of the disrupted state of the region’s basement. This entailed widespread high-angle normal faulting, convecting mantle-sourced volcanism, and epeirogenic transients that were instrumental in sediment dispersal, deposition, and reworking patterns. Subsequent phases of epeirogenic deformation forced additional sediment reworking episodes across the southern Sierra Nevada–eastern San Joaquin Basin region during the late Miocene break-off and west tilt of the Sierra Nevada microplate and the Pliocene–Quaternary loss of the region’s residual mantle lithosphere that was left intact from the Late Cretaceous tectonic regime. These late Cenozoic events have left the high local-relief southern Sierra basement denuded of its Neogene basinal cover and emergent immediately adjacent to the eastern San Joaquin Basin and its eastern marginal uplift zone.

Late Cenozoic uplift of the Sierra Nevada, California? A critical analysis of the geomorphic evidence

2019 ◽  
Vol 319 (6) ◽  
pp. 526-527
Author(s):  
Emmanuel J. Gabet ◽  
Jeffrey P. Schaffer ◽  
William A. Peppin ◽  
Daniel P. Miggins
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Nevada ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Late Cenozoic

scholarly journals Kinematic interpretation and structural evolution of North Oman, Block 6, since the Late Cretaceous and implications for timing of hydrocarbon migration into Cretaceous reservoirs

GeoArabia ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacek B. Filbrandt ◽  
Salah Al-Dhahab ◽  
Abdullah Al-Habsy ◽  
Kester Harris ◽  
John Keating ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Late Cretaceous ◽  
Seismic Velocity ◽  
Horizontal Stress ◽  
Arabian Plate ◽  
Late Cenozoic ◽  
Oblique Collision ◽  
Oman Mountains ◽  
Structural Style ◽  
Platform Margin ◽  
Maximum Horizontal Stress

ABSTRACT On the basis of structural style and differences in Late Cretaceous evolution, the carbonate platform in northern Oman and the allochthonous wedge comprising deepwater sediments and oceanic crust in the Oman Mountains form distinct structural domains. Imbrication associated with the emplacement of the Semail Ophiolite and predominantly SW-verging thrusting of the Arabian Platform margin culminated in the late early Campanian. The structural grain of NW-trending thrust faults and contractional folds contrasts markedly with the style and grain of the region immediately south of the Oman Mountains (our study area) and implies strong strain partitioning. Kinematic indicators from subsurface data, combined with the age of growth faulting, provide the basis for the interpretation that maximum horizontal stress was oriented NW-SE in this foreland region rather than NE-SW during the Campanian. The dominant tectonic control on the formation of faults is believed to have been an oblique “collision” of the Indian Continent with the Arabian Plate during the Santonian-Campanian. Deformation in this domain was dominated by distributed strike-slip and normal faulting. This period of faulting was significant for two reasons: (1) The faults both enhanced existing structures and formed new traps. They also allowed vertical migration of hydrocarbons from Palaeozoic reservoirs (e.g. Haushi clastic accumulations) into Shu’aiba and Natih carbonates above. Until that time, some 75 Ma ago, oil was retained in Late Palaeozoic and older traps. This period of deformation is a “Critical Event” within the context of Oman’s hydrocarbon distribution.(2) Faults with NNW and WNW orientations that developed at that time appear to be directly associated with important fracture systems that affect the productivity of several giant fields comprising Natih and Shu’aiba carbonate reservoirs (e.g. Lekhwair, Saih Rawl). Following this tectonic event, late Maastrichtian to Palaeocene uplift and erosion in excess of 1,000 m, is recorded by truncation of the Aruma Group and Natih Formation, as well as part of the Shu’aiba Formation below the base Cenozoic unconformity. Seismic velocity and porosity anomalies from Lekhwair field in the northwest to the Huqf-Haushi High in the southeast, provide additional support for the areal distribution of this event. Around the Lekhwair and Dhulaima fields, the circular to elliptical subcrop pattern below this unconformity does not support the notion of a peripheral bulge related to the emplacement of the allochthon. The stress field changed during the late Cenozoic with the opening of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, and the collision of the Arabian Plate with the Iranian Plate. NE-SW-oriented maximum horizontal stress during the late Cenozoic led to the formation of major folds resulting in, for example, the surface anticlines over the Natih and Fahud fields as well as causing inversion along the Maradi Fault Zone. This may also have led to the uplift of the Oman Mountains. The regional northerly subsidence caused by crustal loading of the Arabian Plate gently tilted traps during the Pliocene-Pleistocene from Lekhwair to Fahud.

THE LINKED EVOLUTION OF SURFACE UPLIFT AND ATMOSPHERIC CIRCULATION IN THE LATE CENOZOIC SOUTHERN SIERRA NEVADA

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hari Mix ◽  
◽  
Jeremy K. Caves Rugenstein ◽  
Matthew J. Winnick ◽  
Andrea J. Ritch ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Atmospheric Circulation ◽  
Sierra Nevada ◽  
Late Cenozoic ◽  
Surface Uplift
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