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Analysis of an Exposed Portion of the Badwater Turtleback Shear-zone, Death Valley, California, USA

The exposed shear zone within the footwall of the Badwater turtleback presents an excellent opportunity to explore the brittle-ductile transition. Within this shear zone, a variety of lithologies preserve the last stages of crystal-plastic deformation concurrent with exhumation of the turtleback. The included field study captures a snapshot of each lithologic element during the last stages of ductile deformation.

The exposed shear zone's journey through the brittle-ductile transition is analyzed using the deformation mechanisms of calcite and quartz. A history of strain partitioning is constructed through comparison of the strain and temperature environments needed to facilitate each mechanism of crystal-plastic deformation. As the shear zone cooled, strain was partitioned from quartz-rich mylonitic gneiss to the calcite-dominated marbles and mylonites. Correlation of deformation temperatures with previous studies further constrains the timing of the last stage of ductile deformation to between 13 and 6 Ma.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:uoregon.edu/oai:scholarsbank.uoregon.edu:1794/23181
Date10 April 2018
CreatorsJarrett, Corey
ContributorsMiller, Marli
PublisherUniversity of Oregon
Source SetsUniversity of Oregon
Languageen_US
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
RightsAll Rights Reserved.

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