Strain Rates, Patterns, and Partitioning during Continental Transtension

Pennsylvania State Univ University Park, University Park PA

Investigators

Abstract

Burbank 0001044 A long-standing structural problem focuses on the modes of accommodation of the stresses that arise due to oblique motion between crustal blocks. The project will test several hypotheses regarding the nature of continental transtension and a transition from extension to transtension, using the northern Owens Valley, White-Inyo Mountain and Fish Lake Valley, parts of the Eastern California Shear Zone. This study promises to bring detailed U-Th/He, fission-track and ArAr chronologic perspective to bear on the nature of continental transtension. Results are important for reconstruction of the stress field history of southern California from Miocene times to recent, and should be helpful in understanding transtensional behavior elsewhere.