A new apatite (U-Th)/He (AHe) dataset from subvertical transects collected in the Teton and Gallatin Ranges in the Teton-Yellowstone region provides insight for the slip history and length of the Teton fault. Along the northernmost segment of the Teton fault, inverse thermal history modeling of AHe data from Eagles Rest Peak yield a ~9 Ma age for onset of fault slip. This age supports previous interpretations that Mount Moran may be the true center of the Teton fault. This refined interpretation coupled with lengthdisplacement fault scaling analysis and previous estimates of total fault displacement (~6 km) indicates that the Teton fault may extend 50-90 km north of Mount Moran. However, this new data precludes the possibility that the Teton and East Gallatin faults represent the same structure. Yet, because these systems share a similar structure trend and initial slip ages (13 Ma and 16 Ma, respectively), they may still be related at a larger scale. To the south, the Teewinot transect yields the oldest onset age of ~32 Ma, however a >500 m vertical data gap in this transect leads us to cautiously interpret the results of this model, particularly as this age conflicts with four other transects along-strike.

This dissertation analyzes the spatial distribution and kinematics of the Late Cenozoic Basin and Range (BR) and cross normal fault (CF) systems and their related graben basins around the Snake River Plain (SRP), and investigates the spatio-temporal patterns of lavas that were erupted by the migrating Yellowstone hotspot along the SRP, applying a diverse set of GIS-based spatial statistical techniques. The spatial distribution patterns of the normal fault systems, revealed by the Ripley's K-function, display clustered patterns that correlate with a high linear density, maximum azimuthal variation, and high box-counting fractal dimensions of the fault traces. The extension direction for normal faulting is determined along the major axis of the fractal dimension anisotropy ellipse measured by the modified Cantor dust method and the minor axis of the autocorrelation anisotropy ellipse measured by Ordinary Kriging, and across the linear directional mean (LDM) of the fault traces. Trajectories of the LDMs for the cross faults around each caldera define asymmetric sub-parabolic patterns similar to the reported parabolic distribution of the epicenters, and indicate sub-elliptical extension about each caldera that may mark the shape of hotspot’s thermal doming that formed each generation of cross faults. The decrease in the spatial density of the CFs as a function of distance from the axis of the track of the hotspot (SRP) also suggests the role of the hotspot for the formation of the cross faults. The parallelism of the trend of the exposures of the graben filling Sixmile Creek Formation with the LDM of their bounding cross faults indicates that the grabens were filled during or after the CF event. The global and local Moran’s I analyses of Neogene lava in each caldera along the SRP reveal a higher spatial autocorrelation and clustering of rhyolitic lava than the coeval basaltic lava in the same caldera. The alignment of the major axis of the standard deviational ellipses of lavas with the trend of the eastern SRP, and the successive spatial overlap of older lavas by progressively younger mafic lava, indicate the migration of the centers of eruption as the hotspot moved to the northeast.