A geologic investigation of Death Valley California

File(s)
Date
2007-05-01Author
LaGesse, Amanda
Balgord, Elizabeth A.
Berken, Mark
Hinke, Jeremy
Nickel, Crystal L.
Peterson, Shane
Rowland, Aaron
Chaffee, Matthew
Advisor(s)
Mahoney, J. Brian
Wittkop, Chad A.
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Death Valley, California has a rich geologic history and a landscape shaped by diverse tectonic and volcanic activities. Modern-day Death Valley is the product of extensional tectonism, rhyolitic volcanism, and basin development during Miocene basin and range extension. Fault scarps, turtleback faults, alluvial fans, eolian processes, and weathering can be observed in an environment which lacks vegetation making this an ideal locale to study geologic relationships. The most reent Miocene extensional basin and range tectonics have produced a series of normal faults which shaped the horst and graben features observed on the floor of Death Valley.Extensive Miocene volcanism produced widespread pyroclastic sheets which dominate most of Death Valley. To gain insight on magmatic partitioning a detailed geochemical investigation was conducted on a compound cooling unit of the Miocene (ca. 9 Ma) Resting Springs Tuff, east of Shoshone, California. The sequence included a basal vitrophyre, slightly welded rhyolitic tuff, strongly welded rhyolitic tuff, rhyolitic tuff, and welded rhyolitic tuff. Major and trace element geochemical stratigraphy analyses were conducted using X-ray fluorescence to assess elemental partitioning during pyroclastic transport.
Subject
Geology--Death Valley (Calif. and Nev.)
Death Valley (Calif. and Nev.)
Geology, Stratigraphic--Miocene
Volcanism--Death Valley (Calif. and Nev.)
Posters
Permanent Link
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1793/23190Description
Color poster with charts, graphs and illustrations describing research conducted by Amdna LaGesse, Elizabeth Balgord, Mark, Berken, Jeremy Hinke, Matthew Chaffee, Chrystal Nickel, Shane Peterson and Aaron Rowland advised by J. Brian Mahoney and Chad Wittkop.