Tectonic setting of the Tertiary volcanic rocks of the Olympic Peninsula, Washington
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Abstract
Lower and middle Eocene abyssal and Hawaiian type tholeiitic basalts form two accumulations that apparently were once far out on the east flank of the Juan de Fuca Ridge, within the Juan de Fuca plate. One of these (more than 15 km thick) is near the eastern and southeastern periphery of the Olympic Peninsula, and the other (about 5 km thick) is on the north. The tholeiites stratigraphically overlie and interfinger with Paleocene(?) and lower and middle Eocene marine turbidites and shales; one flow includes boulders that, like clasts in the sediments, were derived from the North American continental plate immediately to the east. The basalts are overlain stratigraphically by middle Eocene to middle Miocene clastic marine sedimentary rocks, which are in turn overlapped unconformably on the south and west by upper Miocene (?) and Pliocene, chiefly shallow-marine clastic rocks. These various peripheral rocks flank a middle or late Miocene structurally complex dome, or orocline convex to the east, in which originally east dipping and low angle late Eocene to late Miocene underthrusts are flexed. The outermost underthrust of the complex separates the chiefly volcanic peripheral rocks to the north, east, and south from stratigraphically correlative and comparable, though predominantly sedimentary, core rocks arranged in northwest trending arcuate belts or packets bounded by fault zones. Before underthrusting, and perhaps oroclinal folding connected with doming, the pre-middle Miocene section was possibly 150 to 200 km wide compared with the present Olympic Peninsula which is 120 km wide. The section accumulated on the ocean floor near the western margin of the continent, before and during subduction of the oceanic crust.
Study Area
| Publication type | Article |
|---|---|
| Publication Subtype | Journal Article |
| Title | Tectonic setting of the Tertiary volcanic rocks of the Olympic Peninsula, Washington |
| Series title | Journal of Research of the U.S. Geological Survey |
| Volume | 3 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Year Published | 1975 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | U.S. Geological Survey |
| Publisher location | Reston, VA |
| Description | 10 p. |
| First page | 573 |
| Last page | 582 |
| Country | United States |
| State | Washington |
| Other Geospatial | Olympic Peninsula |
| Online Only (Y/N) | N |
| Additional Online Files (Y/N) | N |
| Google Analytic Metrics | Metrics page |