Sequence stratigraphy and controls on deposition of the Upper Cenozoic Tulare Formation, San Joaquin Valley, California

This study of the Pliocene-Recent Tulare Formation addresses the fundamental question whether climatic and tectonics controls can be distinguished from each other in terrestrial deposits where deposition was not directly controlled by sea level. The strategy of the research was to compare the synchroneity of depositional cycles in different tectonic settings of the same intermontane basin; widespread ubiquitous cycles would represent regional tectonic or climatic events that can be filtered from singular events produced by local tectonic controls.; Seismic stratigraphy, supported by subsurface well-log correlations, and core data describe three major depositional systems in diverse tectonic settings, the westward tilting of the Sierra Nevada, shortened regions of the Transverse Ranges, strike-slip dominated along the San Andreas, as well as the stable axial region of the northern Great Valley.; Seismic data indicate depositional cycles were generally synchronized, suggesting climate change was a primary control. One notable exception is represented by a thick downlapping parasequence that prograded north across the basin where it laps onto the opposite margin, thus indicating that a local tectonic control on base level overwhelmed the regional control on base-level sedimentation and accommodation rates. Local tectonic factors provided the major control on accommodation space and sediment volume, and climate controlled the tempo of basin-wide deposition.; The overlying terrestrial parasequences of the Tulare Formation have several distinctive aspects. (1) Aspect ratios are very flat, as expected in a shallow lake setting, (2) stratal onlap is rare, (3) transgressive units generally are too thin to resolve with seismic data, and (4) erosion is pervasive within parasequences, which are often bound by lacustrine mud units.; New radiometric ages indicate the base of Tulare Formation is 3.4 Ma and overlies a tectonic sequence boundary of that age. Seismic interpretation of foreland-style wedgetop deposition, analysis of subsidence profiles, and regional changes in lithology indicate that marine and nonmarine wedgetop deposits that overlie an angular unconformity in the Coast Ranges record a later event than the initial uplift of California's Coast Ranges, which began about 6 Ma. A tephra date for the Kern River Formation supplies a new upper age constraint of 6.1 Ma for the Miocene-Pliocene(?) Kern River Formation, apparently older than the Tulare Formation.