U-Pb geochronology of detrital zircons from the Snow Lake pendant, central Sierra Nevada—Implications for Late Jurassic– Early Cretaceous dextral strike-slip faulting
- Scott W. Grasse*1,
- George E. Gehrels*1,
- Mary M. Lahren*2,
- Richard A. Schweickert*2 and
- Andrew P. Barth*3
- 1Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA
- 2Department of Geological Sciences, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada 89557, USA
- 3Department of Geology, Indiana/Purdue University, Indianapolis, Indiana 46202, USA
Abstract
The Snow Lake pendant is underlain by a thick (>1500 m) sequence of predominantly quartzite, marble, and schist that has previously been correlated with miogeoclinal strata of the western Mojave Desert. In this study, U-Pb analyses of detrital zircons from the Snow Lake pendant have been conducted to test for possible correlations with strata of the Cordilleran miogeocline, as well as nearby rocks of the Roberts Mountains allochthon and the Shoo Fly Complex. Zircons from Snow Lake strata yield dominant age groups that strongly support correlation of Snow Lake strata with miogeoclinal strata in the Mojave Desert. This correlation provides additional support for previous suggestions that the Snow Lake pendant was displaced ∼400 km northward along the Mojave–Snow Lake fault.
Footnotes
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↵*Present address: Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112; sgrassemines.utah.edu.
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↵1GSA Data Repository item 200135, U-Pb isotopic data and ages, is available on request from Documents Secretary, GSA, P.O. Box 9140, Boulder, CO 80301–9140, editinggeosociety.org, or at http://www.geosociety.org/pubs/ft2001.htm.
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- Accepted December 15, 2000.
- Received June 15, 2000.
- Revision received December 7, 2000.
- Geological Society of America
