Photogeologic and kinematic analysis of lineaments at Yucca Mountain, Nevada: Implications for strike-slip faulting and oroclinal bending.

摘要

The main structural grain at Yucca Mountain, as seen from aerial photographs, is a pronounced north-trending linear fabric defined by parallel east-tilted fault-block ridges. The ridges are bounded on the west by normal faults that are easily recognizable on aerial photographs, mainly as isolated, colinear scarps in alluvium and as offset bedrock units. AH ridge-bounding to adjacent faults, most commonly by short northwest-trending fault splays. The generally north-trending high-angle faults primarily display down-to-the-west normal offset, but also have an auxiliary component of left-lateral slip. Left-lateral slip is indicated by offset stream channels, slickenlines, and en echelon fault splays that are structurally linked, commonly by pull-apart grabens. These grabens, best seen on low-sun angle aerial photographs, rangefrom tens of meters to more than 3 kilometers wide. The smallest pull-apart zones are well developed along the Windy Wash and Solitario Canyon faults on the west side of Yucca Mountain; the largest of these features is interpreted to structurally link the Bow Ridge and Solitario Canyon faults in the north-central part of Yucca Mountain; the pronounced northwest-trending drainage system in this part of Yucca Mountain appears to be controlled by tension fractures related to left-lateral strike-slip movement on these north-trending faults. Midway Valley, directly east of this pull-apart graben, may also owe its origin, in part, to a pull-apart mechanism.