Ash-flow tuffs and paleovalleys in northeastern Nevada: Implications for Eocene paleogeography and extension in the Sevier hinterland, northern Great Basin

Abstract

Northeastern Nevada is generally interpreted as an area of large-magnitude Eocene extension possibly due to gravitational collapse of crust thickened during the Sevier orogeny. The extensional interpretation is based in part on the presence of widespread Eocene conglomerates and lacustrine basins, as well as on thermochronology-based evidence of major Eocene cooling and uplift of the Ruby Mountains–East Humboldt Range core complex. The distribution of 45–40 Ma ash-flow tuffs and interbedded coarse conglomerates and lacustrine deposits, however, indicates they were predominantly deposited in a system of east-draining paleovalleys incised into a plateau or moderate-relief upland. A large, contiguous sedimentary basin probably was never present. Paleovalleys were as much as 10 km wide and 500 m to possibly as much as 1.6 km deep, based on the thickness of intra-valley deposits. Ash-flow tuffs are widely distributed near source calderas but are almost entirely confined to the paleovalleys as little as 20 km from their source. Basal, mostly pre-volcanic conglomerates contain clasts up to 6 m in diameter. The clasts are well rounded, indicating significant fluvial transport, not derivation from nearby fault scarps. Lacustrine deposits also are restricted to paleovalleys and accumulated during two periods that are interpreted to coincide with episodes of minor, northwest-directed extension, one before 41 Ma and possibly as old as 46 Ma, and another between 40 and 38 Ma. Extension formed small displacement, northeast-striking, mostly down-to-the-northwest faults that temporarily dammed the paleovalleys to form lakes. Lakes probably also formed where volcanic rocks or landslides dammed paleovalleys, a common process both in the Eocene and historically in the western United States. The absence of major Eocene extension suggests that gravitational collapse of overthickened crust, even assisted by thermal weakening of lithosphere by intense magmatism, was not sufficient to generate major extension. Absolute elevation of the high plateau is uncertain, but it was high enough to have paleovalleys as much as 1.6 km deep. Based on published paleoflora data, interfluves could have been at elevations of ∼4 km. The Eocene paleovalleys in northeastern Nevada most likely drained eastward to remnants of the Uinta basin. An approximately north-south paleodivide through northeastern Nevada separated these east-draining paleovalleys from paleovalleys that drained westward to the Pacific Ocean.