Marine Terraces and Quaternary Tectonism,Northwest Baja California,Mexico |
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| Authors: | Antony R Orme |
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| Institution: | University of California , Los Angeles |
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| Abstract: | Deformed marine terraces provide excellent measures of Quaternary tectonism along 400 km of the Pacific coast of Baja California between Ensenada and Punta Blanca. The nature and magnitude of deformation are well expressed by the present elevation of the marine limit, of Upper Pliocene or Lower Pleistocene age, which has been upwarped to 345m, 357m, and at least 195m in three separate localities, while occurring at lower levels elsewhere. Multiple terraces are found below this marine limit where appreciable uplift has occurred. Where relative subsidence has prevailed, fewer broader terraces or thick alluvial and eolian deposits occur. Terraces are further dislocated by NW-SE strike-slip faulting and by normal faults that trend NE-SW across the coast. Folding and faulting are less significant on the younger terraces than on the older features, and negligible for the Sangamonian terrace, except close to major faults. Crustal movements revealed by these terraces, and by similar features in southern California, Baja California Sur, and around the Gulf of California, are interpreted in terms of plate tectonics. Over the past 5 million years, the Peninsular Ranges have been carried northwestwards away from mainland Mexico, at an average rate of 6cm/yr, on the dis located limb of a spreading sea floor associated with the East Pacific Rise now found beneath the Gulf of California. The Pacific coast of the Peninsular Ranges comprises several discrete crustal slivers which, on the evidence of the marine terraces, have been warped and dislocated in response to tec tonic forces associated with rafting and subsequent crowding against transverse structures to the north. Uplift rates range as high as 1.0m/1000 yrs locally but are generally less, and are much less than rates found in the Transverse Ranges farther north. As in the latter province, basins typified by net sub sidence during Quaternary time are also found. |
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| Keywords: | thunderstorms climate variability storm damages |
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