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Published 1977 | Published
Journal Article Open

Fracture zone tectonics, continental margin fragmentation, and emplacement of the Kings-Kaweah ophiolite belt, Southwest Sierra Nevada, California

Saleeby, Jason

Abstract

The Sierra Nevada foothill met amorphic belt is a 450 km long assemblage of remnant continent-derived epiclastics, arc volcanics, pelagic-hemipelagic sediments, and ophiolite slices. The various lithologic units range in age from Ordovician to Jurassic. Litho logic units are lenticular at scales ranging up to 150 km and strike about N. 30°W. parallel to the trend of the metamorphic belt (Fig. 1). Many units are penetratively deformed with a variety of near vertical foliation surfaces. The lithologic units are generally bounded by steep dipping fault and melange zones, but locally depositional contacts can be recognized. From at least latitude 38°30'N southward, latest Paleozoic to possibly early Mesozoic disrupted ophiolite occurs as remnant oceanic basement beneath Triassic to Jurassic arc volcanics and interstratified continent-derived epiclastics. Along the northern part of this segment of the metamorphic belt the ophiolitic rocks occur as scattered basement exposures surrounded by the younger volcanic and epiclastic rocks (Morgan and Stern, 1977; Behrman, 1978; Saleeby, unpub. field data). Further south in the Kings-Kaweah terrane deeper structural levels of the foothill metamorphic belt are exposed. Here a nearly continuous 125 km long ophiolite belt occurs with scattered remnants of early Mesozoic arc volcanic and epiclastic rocks depositionally above It. The ophiolite belt is named informally the Kings-Kaweah ophiolite belt after the Kings and Kaweah Rivers which transect it. This ophiolite belt constitutes part of the same oceanic basement terrane that is locally exposed further north amidst the arc volcanics and epiclastics.

Additional Information

© 1977 Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries.

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August 22, 2023
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October 18, 2023