Crustal structure of the Ruby Mountains metamorphic core complex, Nevada, from passive seismic imaging

Mairi M Litherland,Simon L Klemperer

doi:10.1130/ges01472.1

Mairi M Litherland, Simon L Klemperer

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Journal: Geosphere	Publication Date: Aug 25, 2017
Citations: 7	License type: cc-by

Affiliation: Stanford University

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Crustal structure of the Ruby Mountains metamorphic core complex, Nevada, from passive seismic imaging

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Motivation: The Metamorphic Core Complex “Controversy”Metamorphic core complexes (MCCs) are exposures of deep, ductilely deformed crust in both oceanic and continental settings around the world; the rise of these complexes to the surface is linked to extensional processes (e.g., Whitney et al, 2013; Platt et al, 2015)
Together with intra-crustal receiver-function converters and a possible shift in the fast polarization direction of shear-wave splitting, our results suggest that the Ruby Mountains metamorphic core complex (RMCC) formed primarily by asymmetric lower-crustal flow
Our interpretation of the formation of the RMCC (Figs. 3, 11, and 12) invokes crustal thickening during the Sevier orogeny as a cause of high-grade metamorphism, together with subhorizontal mid-crustal flow not strongly expressed at the surface, to create the large lateral changes in metamorphic grade exposed in the Ruby Mountains and East Humboldt Range

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Introduction

Metamorphic core complexes (MCCs) are exposures of deep, ductilely deformed crust in both oceanic and continental settings around the world; the rise of these complexes to the surface is linked to extensional processes (e.g., Whitney et al, 2013; Platt et al, 2015). A related mechanism that has been applied to explain the development of the RMCC involves the diapiric rise of a thermally buoyant “gneiss dome” associated with regional magmatism and/or crustal thickening (Whitney et al, 2004; Rey et al, 2009), at its simplest dominated by symmetric vertical crustal flow (Fig. 1A). A contrasting model, which has been applied to the RMCC, is dominated by largescale horizontal extension and vertical thinning due to asymmetric uplift along originally low-angle extensional faults rooted in the lower crust or even below the Moho (Wernicke, 1981; Howard, 2003; Fig. 1B). Still other explanations—for example, “rolling-hinge” models (Buck, 1988; Wernicke and Axen, 1988; Lavier et al, 1999)—combine dominantly horizontal and dominantly vertical motions at different levels of the crust (Fig. 1C)

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