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Deformation across the Salton Trough, California, 1973-1977

A trilateration network extending across the San Andreas, San Jacinto, and Elsinore faults in the vicinity of the Salton Sea, California, has been surveyed to very high precision several times in the 5‐year interval 1973–1977. The average strain across the entire network is essentially a uniaxial north‐south contraction at the rate of about 0.3 μstrain/a. There is no substantial strain perpendicul
Authors
James C. Savage, W. H. Prescott, Michael Lisowski, N. King

Comparison of Miocene provincial foraminiferal stages to coccolith zones in the California Continental Borderland

Biostratigraphic ages determined by planktic coccoliths and benthic foraminifera for the same core samples from the California Continental Borderland suggest that a significant overlap exists among provincial Miocene stages of California and that some of the benthic foraminifera commonly used to recognize these stages are time-transgressive. For example, samples assigned to the middle Miocene Disc
Authors
James K. Crouch, David Bukry

Late Jurassic Independence dike swarm in eastern California

The Independence dike swarm in eastern California, more than 250 km long, extends from the eastern Sierra Nevada and Inyo Mountains through the Argus Range, Alabama Hills, and Spangler Hills to the Garlock fault, where it is offset 64 km before continuing into the Mojave Desert. The dike swarm includes a wide variety of rock types, from lamprophyre to granite porphyry belonging to a calc-alkalic s
Authors
J.-H. Chen, James G. Moore

Regional deformation of the Sierra Nevada, California, on conjugate microfault sets

Strike slip microfaults are pervasive throughout the granitic rocks of the eastern Sierra Nevada. Offsets typically range from less than a millimeter to several tens of centimeters but exceed 100 m in some places. The spacing between microfaults varies from a few tens of centimeters to a few tens of meters throughout much of the high Sierra Nevada. Many of these microfaults are loci of slickenside
Authors
J. P. Lockwood, James G. Moore

Emplacement temperatures of unsorted and unstratified deposits of volcanic rock debris as determined by paleomagnetic techniques

Unsorted and unstratified deposits of volcanic rock debris typically flank recently active stratovolcanoes. It is often difficult, using standard geologic procedures, to establish whether a particular deposit was emplaced by a pyroclastic flow, lahar, rock avalanche, or glacier. Determination of the emplacement temperatures of clasts contained in the deposit aids in discriminating among some of th
Authors
Richard P. Hoblitt, Karl S. Kellogg

Vesicularity and CO2 in mid-ocean ridge basalt

Vesicles and included CO2 are enriched in deep-sea basalts that are also enriched in light rare earth and incompatible elements. This enrichment probably results from a unique deep mantle origin of such melts but may have been modified by CO2 bubbles rising in shallow magma chambers.
Authors
James G. Moore

Origin of reverse-graded bedding in air-fall pumice, Coso Range, California

The origin of reverse grading in air-fall pyroclastic deposits has been ascribed to: (1) changing conditions at an erupting vent; (2) deposition in water; or (3) rolling of large clasts over smaller clasts on the surface of a steep slope. Structural features in a deposit of air-fall pumice lapilli in the Coso Range, California, indicate that reverse grading there formed by a fourth mechanism durin
Authors
W. A. Duffield, C. R. Bacon, G.R. Roquemore

A computer-assisted graphical method for identification and correlation of igneous rock chemistries

We have devised a computer-assisted graphical method for correlating chemical analyses in suites of related igneous rocks. The method provides a direct and empirical means of sample identification using all of the reported chemistry. In a study of basalt of the Columbia River plateau, the method has been used for (1) checking field identifications of rocks, (2) spotting analytical errors in analys
Authors
Thomas L. Wright, M.S. Hamilton

Mapped offset on the right-lateral Kern Canyon fault, southern Sierra Nevada, California

The north-trending Kern Canyon fault, the longest fault within the southern Sierra Nevada, has been mapped from lat 36°00′N to its northern end near lat 36°40′N. The fault cuts and offsets granitic plutons as young as 80 m.y., but despite the fact that many recent earthquake foci plot close to the fault, it does not appear to offset an overlying 3.5-m.y.-old basalt flow. Seven granitic plutons are
Authors
James G. Moore, Edward A. du Bray