This is an interdisciplinary study, entailing geologic mapping, stratigraphy, sedimentology, biostratigraphy and structural geology. The purpose is to determine the distribution and kinematics (deformational style) of late Paleozoic deformation across Nevada. The conventional understanding of the evolution of western North America recognizes only two orogenic (mountain-building) events during Paleozoic time. However, this team of investigators has found unequivocal evidence for previously-unrecognized Mississippian, Pennsylvanian and Permian contractional deformation events in the Pinon Range and Adobe Range, Nevada. Their work, along with published mapping by numerous other workers, indicates that these events may be widespread. This broad geographic extent and temporal persistence of contraction between the previously recognized orogenies raises some fundamental questions regarding the tectonic processes acting on western North America in Late Paleozoic time. This project is extending the investigation north to the Idaho border, and south into eastern California. This study has the potential to revise current thinking about unifying tectonic models for the Paleozoic evolution of western North America. It will, unequivocally, result in a better understanding of the extent, geometry, kinematics and timing of Late Paleozoic deformation in Nevada. It may also result in a reinterpretation of when and why contractional deformation occurred in the western part of the continent.
The results of this study will be of use to the mining and energy industries, because of the importance of these rocks and structures to producing and trapping hydrocarbons and to hosting gold deposits in Nevada. They may also relate to groundwater supplies for the ever-growing population of Nevada, because the structures may disrupt or displace aquifers. Research results from these workers are already being used to build more accurate hydrologic models locally in southern Nevada.
