Death Valley reconstruction: New piercingpoints in the Panamint Mountains and Resting Springs Range

Geologic mapping in the Panamint Mountains and Resting Springs Range has uncovered a structural piercing point that is used in the reconstruction of the Death Valley Region. Northwest and northeast trends of lineations, folds, and cleavages indicate a piercing point that links the Panamint Mountains and the Resting Springs Range together. The mountain blocks both display linear features that record northwest- and northeast-trending features and fault blocks which contain different histories of folding recorded by the rocks. The Resting Springs Range contains early, northeast-trending structures that have been overprinted by northwest-trending structures and are correlated to the Panamint Mountains which display similar measurements that show two generations of deformation analogous to the Resting Springs Range. Structural data recovered from faults and bedding has indicated that the Panamint Mountains and the Resting Springs Range were once in the same structural sheet for several eastward propagating thrust faults. These faults left behind distinct generations of folds and cleavages that can be used to link together the ranges and serve as piercing point which can be used to reconstruct the order and timing of the region.