Jurassic Cordilleran dike swarm-shear zones: Implications for the Nevadan orogeny and North American plate motion

Abstract

A cogenetic and coeval tonalitic and mafic dike swarm has been identified within a southern fragment (the Owens Mountain area) of the western Foothills terrane (California). The dikes were mylonitized and transposed (rotated into subparallel orientation) during emplacement, from 155 to 148 Ma (U-Pb zircon data), which coincides in time with the Nevadan orogeny. Steeply southeast-plunging fold axes and S-fold geometries indicate a sinistral-sense of shear, possibly with some dip-slip motion as well. This shear zone may be the southern and possibly deeper extension of the Bear Mountains fault zone. This and other Late Jurassic Cordilleran dike swarms record a complex pattern of sinistral-sense transtension-transpression that developed at the apparent-polar-wander J2 cusp (∼150 Ma) and during subsequent, rapid, northwestward acceleration of North America. The Late Jurassic Nevadan orogeny is a manifestation of these dramatic changes in magnitude and direction of North American motion.