Permian tectonics in the Diamond Mountains, Eureka and White Pine counties, east-central Nevada

New stratigraphic and structural analyses of Permian rocks in the Diamond Mountains of east-central Nevada reveal significant tectonic activity---deformation, uplift, and erosion, followed by deposition of a conglomerate unit---within the Permian. This study documents the Permian section in the central eastern Diamond Mountains, approximately 35 km north of Eureka, Nevada. Permian tectonism folded sedimentary facies of upper Wolfcampian through middle Leonardian age. The deformation resulted in broad, open folds with subhorizontal axes oriented northwest-southeast. These strata were beveled by erosion. A Roadian-Capitanian conglomerate and chert litharenite unit, originating in a highland to the west, was deposited on these strata. Early Permian units, folded under a middle Permian unconformity, document a tectonic event that postdates the classical definition of the Antler orogeny and predates that of the Sonoma orogeny. The age of the overlap conglomerate suggests correlation with the regional P4 unconformity documented in northern Nevada (Trexler et al., 2004). Post-Permian, probably Mesozoic, deformation overprints these strata and is distinguished from the Permian deformation based on style and orientation of the folding. This study, when considered with other documented evidence of late Paleozoic deformation, uplift, erosion, and basin evolution, adds detail to the growing body of data that indicate active compressional tectonism along the late Paleozoic margin of western Laurentia.