Distribution of Neogene extension and strike slip in the Death Valley region, California-Nevada, with implications for palinspastic reconstruction and models of normal faulting

The Death Valley area of California and Nevada has served as a testing ground for ideas about extensional and strike-slip tectonics. Widely adopted concepts that have been refined there include, among others, active low-angle normal faulting and the rolling hinge model. Active low-angle normal faulting offers a way to accommodate extreme amounts of extension but remains a rock-mechanical paradox. The rolling hinge model offers a potential solution, as does domino-style normal faulting. Despite decades of research in Death Valley, the applicability of these models there is still contested.;Additional implications of this dissertation pertain to pull-apart deformation in Death Valley, displacement and displacement-rate budgets of the Eastern California Shear Zone, palinspastic reconstruction of the Cordilleran fold and thrust belt, geometrical quantification of displacement in bookshelf fault systems, and factors favoring bookshelf-style deformation.;This dissertation evaluates evidence for each, focusing on central Death Valley and its bounding strike-slip faults, the Furnace Creek and Sheephead fault zones. Chapter 1 provides an introduction. Chapter 2 reevaluates the single most offset piercing point: the Eagle Mountain Formation. The original, alluvial fan interpretation of these deposits implied ∼104 km of tectonic transport from their source. New sedimentological and stratigraphic data suggest that they are fluvial and do not constrain tectonic transport. Chapter 3 proposes a hypothesis for the distribution of dextral offset along the Furnace Creek fault zone, with an along-strike maximum of ∼50 km. The results imply that total Neogene tectonic transport along the corridor defined by the Eagle Mountain Formation was ∼68 rather than ∼104 km. Furnace Creek fault geometry is inconsistent with an originally continuous, regional detachment. Chapter 4 presents new mapping and structural analysis of the Sheephead fault zone, interpreted as a bookshelf-style structure with dextral offset between a few kilometers and ∼18.5 +/- 8.5 km. The data favor modest over extreme extension, and cast doubt on the rolling hinge interpretation of a throughgoing detachment. Appendix 1 provides additional discussion of the Eagle Mountain Formation. Appendix 2 summarizes preliminary results from an in-progress, thermochronological test of the rolling hinge model. Appendix 3 suggests subjects for future research.