ALBERT

Description: A complex array of faulted arc rocks and variably metamorphosed forearc accretionary complex rocks form a mappable arc–forearc boundary in southern Alaska known as the Border Ranges fault (BRF). We use detrital U–Pb zircon dating of metasedimentary rocks within the Knik River terrane in the western Chugach Mountains to show that a belt of Early Cretaceous amphibolite-facies metamorphic rocks along the BRF was formed when older mélange rocks of the Chugach accretionary complex were reworked in a sinistral-oblique thrust reactivation of the BRF during a period of forearc plutonism. The metamorphic subterrane of the Knik River terrane has a maximum depositional age (MDA) of 156.5 ± 1.5 Ma and a detrital zircon age spectrum that is indistinguishable from the Potter Creek assemblage of the Chugach accretionary complex, supporting correlation of these units. These ages contrast strongly with new and existing data that show Triassic to earliest Jurassic detrital zircon ages from metamorphic screens in the plutonic subterrane of the Knik River terrane, a fragmented Early Jurassic plutonic assemblage generally interpreted as the basement of the Peninsular terrane. Based on these findings, we propose the following new terminology for the Knik River terrane: (1) "Carpenter Creek metamorphic complex" for the Early Cretaceous "metamorphic subterrane", (2) "western Chugach trondhjemite suite" for the Early Cretaceous forearc plutons within the belt, (3) "Friday Creek assemblage" for a transitional mélange unit that contains blocks of the Carpenter Creek complex in a chert–argillite matrix, and (4) "Knik River metamorphic complex" in reference to metamorphic rocks engulfed by Early Jurassic plutons of the Peninsular terrane that represent the roots of the Talkeetna arc. The correlation of the Carpenter Creek metamorphic complex with the Chugach mélange indicates that the trace of the BRF lies ~1–5 km north of the map trace shown on geologic maps, although, like other segments of the BRF, this boundary is blurred by local complexities within the BRF system. Ductile deformation of the mélange is sufficiently intense that few vestiges of its original mélange fabric exist, suggesting the scarcity of rocks described as mélange in the cores of many orogens may result from misidentification of rocks that have been intensely overprinted by younger, ductile deformation.

Description: Abstract As new techniques exploiting the Earth's ambient seismic noise field are developed and applied, such as for the observation of temporal changes in seismic velocity structure, it is crucial to quantify the precision with which wave‐type measurements can be made. This work uses array data at the Homestake mine in Lead, South Dakota and an array at Sweetwater, Texas to consider two aspects that control this precision: the types of seismic wave contributing to the ambient noise field at microseism frequencies and the effect of array geometry. Both are quantified using measurements of wavefield coherence between stations in combination with Wiener filters. We find a strong seasonal change between body‐wave and surface‐wave content. Regarding the inclusion of underground stations, we quantify the lower limit to which the ambient noise field can be characterized and reproduced; the applications of the Wiener filters are about 4 times more successful in reproducing ambient noise waveforms when underground stations are included in the array, resulting in predictions of seismic timeseries with less than a 1% residual, and are ultimately limited by the geometry and aperture of the array, as well as by temporal variations in the seismic field. We discuss the implications of these results for the geophysics community performing ambient seismic noise studies, as well as for the cancellation of seismic Newtonian gravity noise in ground‐based, sub‐Hz, gravitational‐wave detectors.

Description: Previous studies in the Yakataga fold-thrust belt of the St. Elias orogen in southern Alaska have demonstrated high exhumation rates associated with alpine glaciation; however, these studies were conducted with only a rudimentary treatment of the actual structures responsible for the deformation that produced long-term uplift. We present results of detailed geologic mapping in two corridors across the onshore fold-thrust system: the Duktoth River transect just west of Cape Yakataga and the Icy Bay transect in the Mount St. Elias region. In the Duktoth transect, we recognize older, approximately east-west–trending structures that are overprinted by open, northwest-trending fold systems, which we correlate to a system of northeast-trending, out-of-sequence, probably active thrusts. These younger structures overprint a fold-thrust stack that is characterized by variable structural complexity related to detachment folding along coal-bearing horizons and duplexing within Eocene strata. In the Icy Bay transect, we recognize a similar structural style, but a different kinematic history that is constrained by an angular unconformity at the base of the syntectonic Yakataga Formation. At high structural levels, near the suture, structures show a consistent northwest trend, but fold-thrust systems rotate to east-west to northeast trends in successively younger structures within the Yakataga Formation. We present balanced cross sections for each of these transects where we project the top of basement from offshore seismic data and assume a subsurface structure with duplex systems similar to, but simplified from, structures observed in the onshore transects. These sections can account for 150–200 km of shortening within the fold-thrust system, which is 〈33% of the likely convergence based on the subsurface geometry of the subducted Yakutat terrane lithosphere. This mismatch with known convergence is the result of loss of the earliest thrust belt structures by erosion and recycling into the orogen, sediment subduction, and three-dimensional (3D) motions that move mass through the cross section. Based on order of magnitude estimates and regional geophysical studies, we suggest that sediment subduction has been significant and probably accounts for previously recognized low Vp/Vs (compressional to shear wave velocity) ratios in the mantle wedge above subducting Yakutat lithosphere. Our section restorations also provide a simple explanation for the observed elongate bullseye pattern of low-temperature cooling ages in the thrust belt as a consequence of exhumation above the growing duplex and/or antiformal stack. Comparison with analog model studies suggests that structural feedbacks between erosion and development of décollement horizons in coal-bearing strata led to this structural style. Although previous studies based on thermochronology suggested an active backthrust at the northern edge of the thrust belt, section restorations indicate that a backthrust is allowable but not required by available data. The Yakataga fold-thrust belt has been treated as a dominantly 2D system, yet our work indicates that 3D processes are prominent. In the Duktoth transect, we interpret a group of northeast-trending thrusts as younger, out-of-sequence structures formed in response to the rapid destruction of the orogenic wedge by glacial erosion and deposition immediately offshore. We infer that these northeast-trending thrusts transfer slip downdip into a duplex system that forms the antiformal stack modeled in cross-section restorations, and we infer that these structures represent thrusting stepping back from the active thrust front attempting to rebuild an orogenic wedge that is being destroyed as rapidly as, or more rapidly than, it is being rebuilt. In the Icy Bay transect, we use the relative chronology provided by an angular unconformity beneath the syntectonic Yakataga Formation to infer that early, northwest-trending fold-thrust systems were formed along the Fairweather transform as transpressional structures. Continued strike slip carried these structures into the tectonic corner between the Fairweather and Yakataga segments of the orogen, producing a counterclockwise rotation of the shortening axis until the rocks reached their present position.

Description: Detrital zircon U-Pb ages are presented from the Liberty Creek schist in the central Chugach Mountains that indicate two distinct periods of preservation of blueschist-facies metamorphism along the southern Alaskan margin. A maximum depositional age (MDA) of 136 Ma demonstrates that the Liberty Creek schist was deposited long after the Early Jurassic cooling ages (196–185 Ma) recorded in other western Alaskan schist bodies containing blueschist-facies rocks, thus revealing two distinct blueschist-facies preservation events: an Early Jurassic event and a post–Early Cretaceous event. This Early Cretaceous depositional age also indicates that there have been major reorganizations within this subduction complex because the Potter Creek assemblage (MDA of 169–156 Ma), directly south of the Liberty Creek schist, is an older but more shallowly exhumed assemblage. Strike-slip faulting has rearranged the accretionary complex by carrying the Potter Creek assemblage outboard and south of the Liberty Creek schist. The predominance of 140–130 Ma zircons in the Liberty Creek schist sample and a population of detrital zircons that is distinct from nearby terranes suggest a sedimentary source different from other related accretionary assemblages. Three suggested Cordilleran source terranes are the Chitina Valley batholith immediately to the east; the Firvale suite of the Coast plutonic complex, ~1500 km to the southeast near Vancouver, British Columbia; or our preferred source, the southern Mexican Guerrero terrane, ~3000 km to the southeast. The detrital zircon signature of the Liberty Creek schist and these distances to potential sources support models suggesting thousands of kilometers of strike-slip movement along the western Cordillera since Cretaceous time, consistent with the Baja–British Columbia hypothesis.

Description: Detrital zircon U-Pb ages are presented from the Liberty Creek schist in the central Chugach Mountains that indicate two distinct periods of preservation of blueschist-facies metamorphism along the southern Alaskan margin. A maximum depositional age (MDA) of 136 Ma demonstrates that the Liberty Creek schist was deposited long after the Early Jurassic cooling ages (196–185 Ma) recorded in other western Alaskan schist bodies containing blueschist-facies rocks, thus revealing two distinct blueschist-facies preservation events: an Early Jurassic event and a post–Early Cretaceous event. This Early Cretaceous depositional age also indicates that there have been major reorganizations within this subduction complex because the Potter Creek assemblage (MDA of 169–156 Ma), directly south of the Liberty Creek schist, is an older but more shallowly exhumed assemblage. Strike-slip faulting has rearranged the accretionary complex by carrying the Potter Creek assemblage outboard and south of the Liberty Creek schist. The predominance of 140–130 Ma zircons in the Liberty Creek schist sample and a population of detrital zircons that is distinct from nearby terranes suggest a sedimentary source different from other related accretionary assemblages. Three suggested Cordilleran source terranes are the Chitina Valley batholith immediately to the east; the Firvale suite of the Coast plutonic complex, ~1500 km to the southeast near Vancouver, British Columbia; or our preferred source, the southern Mexican Guerrero terrane, ~3000 km to the southeast. The detrital zircon signature of the Liberty Creek schist and these distances to potential sources support models suggesting thousands of kilometers of strike-slip movement along the western Cordillera since Cretaceous time, consistent with the Baja–British Columbia hypothesis.

Description: Geologic observations from the Resting Spring and Nopah Ranges (California, USA) together with a synthesis of regional data indicate that previous reconstructions of the Death Valley extensional terrane need to be revised because they do not account for three-dimensional, preextensional structures that complicate structural markers used in these reconstructions. This conclusion arises from detailed mapping that indicates structural overprinting of early northeast-trending fold-thrust systems of the Sevier orogenic belt by younger northwest-trending structures. The northwest-trending fold-thrust system includes a series of folds and a major thrust that includes the Nopah Peak and the Gerstley faults. This thrust fully involved crystalline basement, and there are extensive basement exposures in the hanging wall of the thrust in the southern Nopah Range. Basement involvement presumably produced a large ramp anticline to the southwest of the Nopah Range in what is now the Death Valley extensional terrane. The existence of this ramp anticline is supported by occurrences of successively older rocks to the southwest, beneath the Tertiary unconformity. The northwest-trending fold-thrust system is also recognizable to the north and east of the Gerstley–Nopah Peak fault as a series of west-northwest– to northwest-trending folds that have been known for more than 30 years, but were overlooked in earlier reconstructions. We use our observations together with recently published data on the State Line fault and extensional structure in Pahrump Valley to consider two preliminary map-view restorations of the Resting Spring and Nopah Ranges relative to the Spring Mountains, a relatively unextended block to the east. These restorations place the northwest-trending thrust system along strike from the southern Spring Mountains, where a similar overprinting is observed, supporting the basic restoration. One restoration that strictly adheres to published estimates for motion across the Pahrump Valley suggests, however, that the widely cited correlation of the Wheeler Pass and Chicago Pass thrust system is highly suspect. Our preferred interpretation concludes that the Chicago Pass–Shaw thrust system of the Resting Spring–Nopah Ranges is an along-strike equivalent of the Lee Canyon thrust; the Wheeler Pass thrust correlates to the Montgomery Mountains thrust; and both thrust systems have an uncertain continuation into the Death Valley extensional terrane. The Resting Spring–Nopah–Spring Mountains restoration provides a template for future restorations. We emphasize that the three-dimensional preextensional geometry, together with other markers like Mesozoic magmatic belts and older sedimentary facies trends, provides an opportunity for using modern visualization and database systems to develop high-precision reconstructions using the abundance of crosscutting markers. Thus, although this study, along with other recent studies, indicates that previous reconstructions are not workable, future studies that include the full three-dimensional data could lead to a nearly unique solution to the preextensional paleogeography.

Description: Structural syntaxes, tectonic aneurysms, and fault-bounded fore-arc slivers are important tectonic elements of orogenic belts worldwide. In this study we used high-resolution topography, geodetic imaging, seismic, and geologic data to advance understanding of how these features evolved during accretion of the Yakutat Terrane to North America. Because glaciers extend over much of the orogen, the topography and dynamics of the glaciers were analyzed to infer the location and nature of faults and shear zones that lie buried beneath the ice. The Fairweather transform fault system terminates by oblique-extensional splay faulting within a structural syntaxis, where thrust faulting and contractional strain drive rapid tectonic uplift and rock exhumation beneath the upper Seward Glacier. West of the syntaxis, oblique plate convergence created a dextral shear zone beneath the Bagley Ice Valley that may have been reactivated by reverse faulting when the subduction megathrust stepped eastward during the last 5–6 Ma. The Bagley fault zone dips steeply through the upper plate to intersect the subduction megathrust at depth, forming a fault-bounded crustal sliver capable of partitioning oblique convergence into strike-slip and thrust motion. Since ca. 20 Ma the Bagley fault accommodated more than 50 km of dextral shearing and several kilometers of reverse motion along its southern flank during terrane accretion. The fault is considered capable of generating earthquakes because it is suitably oriented for reactivation in the contemporary stress field, links to faults that generated large historic earthquakes, and is locally marked by seismicity.