The faulted alluvial¹ fans near Badwater in Death Valley are amongst the most visited and classic landforms in the U.S. New mapping and dating of these landforms, presented in this open-access study by Kurt Frankel and colleagues, help to determine the timing² of past earthquakes and how tectonic deformation³ is distributed across the western U.S. This in turn provides important data for seismic⁴ hazard mitigation and for understanding how the great landscapes of the western U.S. have evolved over recent geologic⁵ time. Death Valley constitutes one of the most dramatic landscapes in North America, and it is famous for its faulted mountain fronts, spectacular alluvial fans, and extensive saline playa. Moreover, the valley is the type example of a pull-apart basin, which is controlled by the northern Death Valley-Fish Lake Valley fault zone, the Black Mountains fault zone, and the southern Death Valley fault zone. These three fault zones make up the Holocene fault zones of the Death Valley fault system. This Death Valley pull-apart often provides an analog⁶ for the evolution, including stress transfer and depositional systems, in other tectonically active transtensional regimes, such as the Dead Sea, East Africa, and Alpine⁷ fault of New Zealand.

 

FEATURED ARTICLE Timing and rates of Holocene normal faulting along the Black Mountains fault zone, Death Valley, USA K.L. Frankel et al., School of Earth And Atmospheric⁸ Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA. This article is OPEN ACCESS online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/L464.1.

 

Other recently published Lithosphere⁹ articles are highlighted below:

 

Precollisional development and Cenozoic evolution of the Southalpine retrobelt (European Alps) S. Zanchetta et al., Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Ambiente e del Territorio e di Scienze della Terra, Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca, Piazza¹⁰ della Scienza 1, Milano 20126, Italy. This paper is online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/L466.1.

点击收听单词发音