Large‐scale Quaternary detachments in Ventura Basin, southern California

Abstract

The Ventura basin is an east‐north‐east trending trough in the California Transverse Ranges which records major Quaternary detachment faulting at three levels. The earliest thrusting occurred along weak siltstone interbeds in a sequence dominated by competent basin‐plain turbidite sandstone. Because sedimentation continued during thrusting, the age, rate, and direction of thrusting can be worked out. Faulting began 1.3 m.y. ago and ceased 0.65 m.y. ago, with a maximum slip rate of 2.8 mm/yr to the southeast. The fault set moved up a 45° ramp and ended as a blind thrust. The ramp had topographic expression on the seafloor, diverting turbidites around the ramp and preserving ash beds along with other hemipelagic sediments on its crest. Following the end of deposition 0.2 m.y. ago, the competent basin‐plain turbidites underwent flexural slip folding over an incompetent Miocene sequence dominated by shale; underlying competent Paleogene strata were not folded. The south flank of the Ventura Avenue anticline tilted at 3.4 μrad/yr, the anticlinal crest rose at a rate of 15–16 mm/yr decelerating to 4.3–5.2 mm/yr, and the anticline and an adjacent syncline shortened at a rate of 20 mm/yr. The high rate of folding in the Ventura Avenue oil field resulted in overpressured sandstone reservoirs and oil‐water interfaces which have not had time to reach gravity equilibrium. The Red Mountain, San Cayetano, and Santa Susana faults mark the surface expression of a seismically active midcrustal detachment which produced convergence across the Ventura basin at rates as high as 23 mm/yr. Total convergence across the eastern San Cayetano fault near Fillmore is 11,600±2000 m in the last million years.