Triangular facet, Cortez Mountains, Nevada

Triangular facets, Kung Co rift, Tibet.

Project Summary

These projects center is on the dynamics of a system of intraplate normal faults in the Basin and Range Province and Himalayan-Tibetan orogen using geologic mapping, tectonic geomorphology, paleoseismology, geochronology, and thermochronology on range front and orogen parallel normal faults. In the Basin and Range Province, research goals include placing geologic constraints on geodynamic hypotheses proposed for the forces that drive extension, comparing geologic fault slip rates (strain release) with geodetic studies of contemporary strain accumulation across the province, and landscape evolution. In Himalayan-Tibetan orogen, our research is motivated by the observation that extension is ongoing in a region of continental collision, convergence, and profound crustal thickening. Our research goals center on deciphering the geologic and tectonic processes that drive extension orthogonal and parallel to the orogen.

A newly NSF funded project on normal faults in the western Basin and Range will support two MS research students. For details, contact Jeff: jeff@geology.cwu.edu.

• Mitsuishi, M., Wallis, S.R., Aoya, M., Lee, J., and Wang, Y., 2012, E-W extension at 19 Ma in the Kung Co area, S. Tibet: Evidence for contemporaneous E–W and N–S extension in the Himalayan orogen, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, v. 325-326, p. 10-20, doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2011.11.013. [PDF]
• Lee, J., Hager, C.*, Wallis, S.R., Stockli, D.F., Whitehouse, M.J., Aoya, M., and Wang, Y., 2011, Middle to late Miocene extremely rapid exhumation and thermal reequilibration in the Kung Co rift, southern Tibet, Tectonics, 30, TC2007, doi:10.1029/2010TC002745. [PDF]
• Lee, J., Stockli, D.F., Owen, L.A., Finkel, R.C., and Kislitsyn, R.*, 2009, Exhumation of the Inyo Mountains, California: Implications for the timing of extension along the western boundary of the Basin and Range Province and distribution of dextral fault slip rates across the Eastern California Shear Zone, Tectonics, v. 28, TC1001, doi:10.1029/2008TC002295. [PDF]
• Le, K.*, Lee, J., Owen, L.A., and Finkel, R., 2007, Late Quaternary slip rates along the Sierra Nevada frontal fault zone, California: Slip partitioning across the western margin of the Eastern California Shear Zone-Basin and Range Province. Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 119, p. 240–256; doi: 10.1130/B25960.1. [PDF]
• Friedrich, A.M., Lee, J., Wernicke, B.P., and Sieh, K. 2004, Geologic context of geodetic data across a Basin and Range normal fault, Crescent Valley, Nevada. Tectonics, 23, TC2015, doi:10.1029/2003TC001528. [PDF]

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