Active foundering of a continental arc root beneath the southern Sierra Nevada in California

George Zandt (), Hersh Gilbert, Thomas J. Owens, Mihai Ducea, Jason Saleeby and Craig H. Jones
Additional contact information
George Zandt: University of Arizona
Hersh Gilbert: University of Arizona
Thomas J. Owens: University of South Carolina
Mihai Ducea: University of Arizona
Jason Saleeby: California Institute of Technology
Craig H. Jones: University of Colorado

Nature, 2004, vol. 431, issue 7004, 41-46

Abstract: Abstract Seismic data provide images of crust–mantle interactions during ongoing removal of the dense batholithic root beneath the southern Sierra Nevada mountains in California. The removal appears to have initiated between 10 and 3 Myr ago with a Rayleigh–Taylor-type instability, but with a pronounced asymmetric flow into a mantle downwelling (drip) beneath the adjacent Great Valley. A nearly horizontal shear zone accommodated the detachment of the ultramafic root from its granitoid batholith. With continuing flow into the mantle drip, viscous drag at the base of the remaining ∼35-km-thick crust has thickened the crust by ∼7 km in a narrow welt beneath the western flank of the range. Adjacent to the welt and at the top of the drip, a V-shaped cone of crust is being dragged down tens of kilometres into the core of the mantle drip, causing the disappearance of the Moho in the seismic images. Viscous coupling between the crust and mantle is therefore apparently driving present-day surface subsidence.

Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02847 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:431:y:2004:i:7004:d:10.1038_nature02847

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature02847

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().