Fault-related folding during extension: Plunging basement-cored folds in the Basin and Range

Folds are able to form in highly extended areas where stratified cover rocks respond to basement fault offsets. The response of cover rocks to basement faulting can be studied especially well in plunging structures that expose large structural relief. The southern Basin and Range province contains plunging folds kilometres in amplitude at the corners of domino-like tilt blocks of basement rocks, where initially steep transverse and normal faults propagated upward toward the layered cover rocks. Exposed tilted cross sections, as much as 8 km thick, display transitions from faulted basement to folded cover that validate laboratory models of forced folds. The folded cover masks a deeper extensional style of brittle segmentation and uniform steep tilting.