Fabian Ruiz

B3
The Geology of
The geology of the Basin and Range Province, otherwise known as Great Basin. The Basin and Range
Province is the most famous area that has the basin and range topography. There are 3
parts to the Great Basin area there is the Hydrographic Great Basin which describes
the water flows of the basin, Basin and Range which describes the geology of the
great basin, and the great basins desert.
The basin and range provinces has a dry climate with little water, but while the area
is arid and a lot of the rain that does fall goes down to the lowest of
basins and creates pluvial lakes such as the Great Salt Lake and
Pyramid Lake in Nevada. The Valleys are however arid and dry. The Basin and Range
stretches out 170,000 sq. m reaching out across 5 states, and practically all of Nevada, and
even parts of Mexico. There are lots of ranges in the great basin but some are not actually
quiet in the Great Basin. Some of the great ranges are the Snake Range, Panamint Range,
the White mountains, Sandia Mountains, the Sandia Mountains The highest point in the
great basin is the Mount Whitney summit, elevating at 14,505 ft. (4,421.1 m) and located in
Sierra, Nevada. The lowest point in the great basin is the Bedwater Basin going down at about
-282 ft. (-86 m) .The great basin is believed to have started or have been made due to the lithosphere
stretching out, and thinning, the earth. The Great basins environment or its current state was because of
type of fault forming referred as listric normal faulting (listric= spoon like), these faults level out with
depth normal faults that oppose this link up and create a wave kind of shape called a horst and graben
geometry. Because of these faults it causes a part of land to be sticking out forming mountains to rise
abruptly and steeply making the down dropped sides make low valleys.
The Fault planes go down 1 side of the fault move and goes down into the crust. In some places the relief
of vertical difference between the 2 sides is as much as 10,000 feet. When they rise they will then be
subjected to weathering and erosion exposing the bedrock from things like water, ice, and other natural
substances that decompose rocks. The rock particles then travel down the mountains slopes and cover
faults until they rupture again. The lithosphere under the Basin and Range Province goes out at about 60-
70 kilometers.
The Basin and Range has gone through a long period of time in compression due to the subduction of the
Farallon Plate under the west coast of the North America. The Farallon
plate is an oceanic plate that began subduction under the west coast of
the North American plate then moved to modern day Utah as the
ginormous Pangaea broke apart. It was named Farallon after the Farallon
islands that are located near the west coast of San Francisco.

Many of the tectonic plate movements connected with the Basin and Range Province happened during
the Neogene time and is still going on today.by the Early Miocene time a lot of the Farallon Plate had
been consumed, and the seafloor spreading ridge, that separated the Farallon plate from the Pacific Plate
started heading towards North America. In the Middle Miocene, the East Pacific Plate was subducted
beneath North America ending subduction along some areas in the Pacific Margin, however the Farallon
Plate continued to subduct into the mantle. When this moved the boundary split up the East Pacific Rise
and brought up the San Andreas transform, fault making an oblique strike-slip component. Today, the
Pacific Plate moves north-westwards similarly to North America.

The tectonic Activity that made the Basin and Range expand might possibly be because of crustal
shearing thats connected to the San Andreas Fault caused to the faulting thats close to what happened in
the Great Basin. Plate movement, however, isnt the reason why the Basin and Range region has high
ranges. The western half of the United States is a place of high heat flow which lowers the density of the
lithosphere and stimulates isostatic uplift as a consequence. Lithospheric regions characterized by
elevated heat flow are weak and extensional deformation happen over the broad region.

The Basin and Range is then thought to be unrelated to the kind of extension produced by mantle
upwelling which may cause narrow rift zones. Geologic processes that rise up the heat flow, but some
researchers suggest that heat generated at a subduction zone is transferred to the overriding plate as
subduction continues. Then, fluids along the fault zones transfer heat vertically towards and through the
crust. Once the heat rises it causes the plate to stretch out, after that the crust fractures, it causes fault lines
across the surface. Heat still goes on along the upper crust causing the land to rise as well as the lower
crust causing it to lower a bit. make a This model has led to increasing interest in geothermal systems in
the Basin and Range, and requires consideration of the continued influence of the fully subducted
Farallon plate in the extension that is responsible for the Basin and Range Province.

In some places in the Great Basin and Range, metamorphic layers can be seen up in the surface. This is
caused by Metamorphic Core Complex (MCC). The Metamorphic Core Complex happens when the
lower crust is brought up to the surface due to the result of extension. The Metamorphic Core Complex in
the Basin and Range were not interpreted as being connected to the crustal extension until later in the
1960s. Since then, some similar deformation patterns have been identified in Metamorphic Core
Complex in the Basin and Range and have led geologists to examine them as a group of related geologic
features formed by Cenozoic crustal extension. The study of the Metamorphic Core Complex has changed
how scientists see the extensional processes making the Basin and Range Formation.

The convergence rate of the Farallon and North American Plates were fast, and the angle of the
subduction was shallow, and the slab width was huge. During the Eocene, the
Farallon Plate subduction, connected with the compressive forces of the
Laramide, Sevier and Nevada orogenies ended, plate interaction changed from
orthogonal compression to oblique strike-slip, and volcanism in the Basin and
Range province started to appear and grow.
It is thought that this plate continued to be under thrust until 19 Ma, at which it
was completely consumed and volcanic activity stopped. Olivine Basalt from the
oceanic ridges erupted around 17 MA and extensions began. Some of volcanic areas of the Basin and
Range Province are near: Northwestern Nevada, the Modoc Plateau, Central Nevada, The Great Basing,
Southwestern Nevada, The Mojave Desert, and the Long Valley Caldera region.
Specific volcano areas are places like: Coso Volcanic field, Marysville Volcanic Field, San Juan Volcanic
Field, Indian Peak, Central Colorado volcanic field, Jemez volcanic lineament, Mogollon-Datil volcanic
field, Santa Rosa-Calico, and Boot Heel volcanic field.





Sources:
http://geomaps.wr.usgs.gov/parks/province/basinrange.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basin_and_Range_Province

http://www.nps.gov/grba/planyourvisit/the-great-basin.htm

http://www.iris.edu/hq/files/programs/education_and_outreach/aotm/15/BasinRa
nge_Background.pdf