9706255 Louie There is a large debate over the possibility of generating regionally extensive, large-magnitude extensional faults at moderate to shallow depths. Indeed, most shallow faults can be shown from a variety of methods to be steeply dipping. This study has identified the Dixie Valley fault system as having a high potential to be active and shallow, and the data to be collected should be able to discriminate between competing hypotheses. If the fault can be shown to be active and of low dip, it will have a significant impact on the models of both active and ancient deformation in extensional regimes.
