Faulted Fanglomerates at the Mouth of Perry Aiken Creek, Northern Inyo Range, California, Nevada

Citation

Bryson, Robert Pearne (1937) Faulted Fanglomerates at the Mouth of Perry Aiken Creek, Northern Inyo Range, California, Nevada. Master's thesis, California Institute of Technology. doi:10.7907/GVHK-M090. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechTHESIS:01192010-090103391

Abstract

In this thesis some phases of the problem of the mechanics of faulting along the margins of what is believed to be a typical basin and range in the Basin and Range Province will be considered. The structure and the later geologic history of a favorably located area at the margin of this typical basin and range will be presented in detail.

What happens to a fault at depth? For that matter, what happens to it at only a short distance below the surface of the ground is sometimes equally as difficult to answer. This problem immediately presents itself when one attempts to establish the margin of a fault block mountain in a desert region. Gravel waste frequently covers much of its slopes and extends far into its reentrant valleys, completely concealing the boundary between the mountain and the valley blocks.

Renewed movement along such a marginal fault in many cases has found expression in displacement of the overlying fanglomerate cover, with the development of a pattern of gravel scarps which roughly parallel the front of the mountain block. Such a series of gravel scarps may be found at the eastern base of the Northern Inyo Range, California-Nevada, where its gravel fans spread out into Fish Lake Valley.

Study of the scarps and the gravels has disclosed a number of structural and physiographic relationships which can be represented properly only on an accurate and large scale map. At the suggestion of Dr. G. H. Anderson, under whom the work was done, a preliminary map of the gravels of the eastern slopes of the range was supplemented by a detailed plane table map of the geology and topography in the vicinity of the mouth of Perry Aiken Creek, latitude 37°40’, longitude 118°6’. The preliminary mapping was done in company with Mr. M. H. Evans during the first part of the summer field season of 1936, using an enlarged copy of the White Mountain Quadrangle, California-Nevada, as a base. The detailed mapping was done in the spring of 1937 with the assistance of a number of graduate and undergraduate students including Messrs. J. F. Dougherty, W. M. Fielder, L. F. Schombel, M. Sklar and J. C. Wells.

Thesis Files