Late Miocene-Pleistocene Extensional Faulting, Northern Gulf of California, Mexico and Salton Trough, California

Abstract

A belt of low-angle normal (or detachment) faults ∼250 km long extends from the northern end of the Salton Trough, California to southern Laguna Salada, Baja California, Mexico. The detachment system is divided into two principal segments. The northern segment, here termed the “west Salton detachment system,” comprises top-to-the-east detachment faults along the eastern Peninsular Ranges that root under the Salton Trough. The southern segment, here termed the Laguna Salada detachment system, comprises top-to-the-west detachment faults in northeastern Baja California and the Yuha Desert region of the southwesternmost Salton Trough. Detachments of that system root under Laguna Salada and the Peninsular Ranges of northern Baja California. Both of these systems experienced a major episode of activity in late Miocene to Pleistocene time, synchronous with deposition of the Imperial and Palm Spring formations, and the Laguna Salada detachment system may still be active. Thus, their activity temporally overlapped, partly or completely, with activity on dextral faults of the San Andreas boundary between the Pacific and North American plates, and with accretion of new transitional crust. Some of the detachment faults in the northern segment may have had mid-Miocene normal slip and/or Cretaceous thrust or normal slip as well, although compelling evidence for either is lacking. These detachment faults are distinctly younger than detachments east of the San Andreas fault, which generally ceased activity by middle or late Miocene time and are overlapped by marine or lacustrine rocks (Bouse Formation); these units are equivalent in age to the syntectonic strata of the Salton Trough but are much thinner and essentially undeformed.