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Geologic trough in the western United States
The Walker Lane is a
geologic trough roughly aligned with the
California /
Nevada border southward to where
Death Valley intersects the
Garlock Fault , a major left lateral, or sinistral,
strike-slip fault . The north-northwest end of the Walker Lane is between
Pyramid Lake in Nevada and California's
Lassen Peak
[1]
[2] where the
Honey Lake Fault Zone , the Warm Springs Valley Fault, and the
Pyramid Lake Fault Zone
[3] meet the transverse tectonic zone forming the southern boundary of the
Modoc Plateau and
Columbia Plateau provinces. The Walker Lane takes up 15 to 25 percent of the boundary motion between the
Pacific Plate and the
North American Plate , the other 75 percent being taken up by the
San Andreas Fault system to the west.
[4]
[5] The Walker Lane may represent an incipient major
transform fault zone which could replace the San Andreas as the plate boundary in the future.
[6]
[3]
The Walker Lane deformation belt also accommodates nearly 12 mm/yr of
dextral shear between the
Sierra Nevada–Great Valley Block and
North America .
[7]
[8] The belt is characterized by the northwest-striking trans-current faults and co-evolutionary dip-slip faults formed as result of a spatially segregated displacement field.
[9]
Eastern California shear zone
The eastern California shear zone is the portion of the Walker Lane that extends south from
Owens Valley , and continues across and south of the Garlock Fault, across the
Mojave Desert to the
San Andreas Fault .
[10] Several
magnitude 7+ earthquakes have occurred along the eastern California shear zone, including the
1992 Landers earthquake ,
1999 Hector Mine earthquake , the
2019 Ridgecrest earthquakes sequence, as well as the massive
1872 Lone Pine earthquake in the Owens Valley.
References
^
"Walker Lane" (PDF) . A Tapestry of Time and Terrain: The Union of Two Maps - Geology and Topography .
United States Geological Survey . Retrieved 2010-06-06 .
^
"Active Deformation of the Walker Lane Belt" . Active Tectonics Class Projects . University of Arizona Department of Geosciences. Retrieved 2009-12-20 .
^
a
b Geoff Manaugh (May 2019).
"Nevada by the sea" . Wired . p. 63.
^ Guest, Bernard; Niemi, Nathan;
Wernicke, Brian (1 November 2007). "Stateline fault system: A new component of the Miocene-Quaternary Eastern California shear zone".
Geological Society of America Bulletin . 119 (11–12): 1337–1347.
Bibcode :
2007GSAB..119.1337G .
doi :
10.1130/0016-7606(2007)119[1337:SFSANC]2.0.CO;2 .
ISSN
0016-7606 .
Wikidata
Q70050019 .
^ Wesnousky, Steven (June 2005).
"Active faulting in the Walker Lane" .
Tectonics . 24 (3).
Bibcode :
2005Tecto..24.3009W .
CiteSeerX
10.1.1.463.7174 .
doi :
10.1029/2004TC001645 .
ISSN
0278-7407 .
Wikidata
Q96749837 .
^ Faulds, James E.; Christopher D. Henry; Nicholas H. Hinz (2005). "Kinematics of the northern Walker Lane: An incipient transform fault along the Pacific–North American plate boundary".
Geology . 33 (6): 505.
Bibcode :
2005Geo....33..505F .
doi :
10.1130/G21274.1 .
ISSN
0091-7613 .
Wikidata
Q58457938 .
^ Oldow, J.S.; C.L.V. Aiken; J.L. Hare; J.F. Ferguson; R.F. Hardyman (2001). "Active displacement transfer and differential block motion within the central Walker Lane, western Great Basin".
Geology . 29 (1): 19.
Bibcode :
2001Geo....29...19O .
doi :
10.1130/0091-7613(2001)029<0019:ADTADB>2.0.CO;2 .
ISSN
0091-7613 .
Wikidata
Q29999790 .
^ Unruh, Jeffrey; James Humphrey; Andrew Barron (2003). "Transtensional model for the Sierra Nevada frontal fault system, eastern California".
Geology . 31 (4): 327.
Bibcode :
2003Geo....31..327U .
doi :
10.1130/0091-7613(2003)031<0327:TMFTSN>2.0.CO;2 .
ISSN
0091-7613 .
Wikidata
Q56874549 .
^ Dokka, R.K.; Travis, C.J. (August 1990). "Role of the Eastern California Shear Zone in accommodating Pacific-North American Plate motion".
Geophysical Research Letters . 17 (9): 1323–1326.
Bibcode :
1990GeoRL..17.1323D .
doi :
10.1029/GL017I009P01323 .
ISSN
0094-8276 .
Wikidata
Q96777558 .
^ Frankel, K. L.; Glazner, A. F.; Kirby, E.; Monastero, F. C.; Strane, M. D.; Oskin, M. E.; Unruh, J. R.; Walker, J. D.; Anandakrishnan, S.; Bartley, J. M.; Coleman, D. S.; Dolan, J. F.; Finkel, R. C.; Greene, D.; Kylander-Clark, A.; Morrero, S.; Owen, L.A.; Phillips, F. (2008).
"Active tectonics of the eastern California shear zone" . Field Guide to Plutons, Volcanoes, Faults, Reefs, Dinosaurs, and Possible Glaciation in Selected Areas of Arizona, California, and Nevada .
Geological Society of America . pp. 43–82.
ISBN
978-0-8137-0011-3 .
Further reading
Colin Chupik, Richard Koehler, Amanda Keen‐Zebert; Complex Holocene Fault Ruptures on the Warm Springs Valley Fault in the Northern Walker Lane, Nevada–Northern California. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 2021;; 112 (1): 575–596. doi:
https://doi.org/10.1785/0120200271
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