Interpretation of gravity data in a complex volcano‐tectonic setting, southwestern Nevada

Abstract

This regional gravity study, based on an irregular 2‐km data grid, was conducted during the past few years at Yucca Mountain, southern Nye County, Nevada, as part of a program to locate a suitable repository for high‐level nuclear waste. About 100 surface rock samples, three borehole gamma‐gamma logs, and one borehole gravity study provide excellent density control. A nearly linear increase in density of 0.26 g/cm3 per kilometer of depth is indicated in the thick tuff sequences that underlie the mountain. Isostatic and 2.0‐g/cm3 Bouguer corrections were applied to the observed gravity values to remove regional gradients and topographic effects, respectively. The Bare Mountain gravity high, with an isostatic anomaly maximum of 48 mGal, is connected with a greater gravity high over the Funeral Mountains, to the southwest; together, these highs result from a continuous block of dense, metamorphosed Precambrian and Paleozoic rocks that stretches across much of the Walker Lane from the east edge of Death Valley to Bare Mountain. The Calico Hills gravity high appears more likely to originate from a northeast trending buried ridge of Paleozoic rocks that extends southwestward beneath Busted Butte, 5 km southeast of the proposed repository, where two‐ and three‐dimensional modeling indicates that the pre‐Cenozoic rocks lie less than 1000 m beneath the surface. Tuff, at least 4000 m thick, fills a large steep‐sided depression in the pretuff rocks beneath Yucca Mountain and Crater Flat. The gravity low and the thick tuff section lie within a large collapse area that includes the Crater Flat‐Timber Mountain‐Silent Canyon caldera complexes. Gravity lows in Crater Flat itself are interpreted to coincide with the source areas of the Prow Pass Member, the Bullfrog Member, and the Tram Member of the Crater Flat Tuff; these source areas add nearly 350 km2 to the previously recognized extent of the local caldera complexes. Southward extension of the broad gravity low associated with Crater Flat into the Amargosa Desert is evidence for sector graben‐type collapse segments related to the formation of the Timber Mountain caldera and superimposed on the other volcanic and extensional structures within Crater Flat.