Possible Large Right-Lateral Displacement Along Fault and Shear Zones in the Death Valley-Las Vegas Area, California and Nevada

Abstract

Upper Precambrian and Lower Cambrian formations in the southern Great Basin show abrupt changes in facies and thickness along the Death Valley and Furnace Creek fault zones and the Las Vegas shear zone. The coincidence of these changes with the fault zones suggests that the formations have been displaced by strike-slip movement on the faults. The offset is in the right-lateral sense and appears to be about 50 miles across the Death Valley-Furnace Creek fault complex and about 30 miles on the Las Vegas shear zone. Some of this lateral movement is taken up by large-scale bending adjacent to the fault and shear zones, and the zones may die out to the northwest into gigantic structural bends.