Geologic map of Paleozoic rocks in the Calico Hills, Nevada Test Site, southern Nevada

Open-File Report 98-101
Prepared in cooperation with the Nevada Operations Office U.S. Department of Energy
By:  and 

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Abstract

The Calico Hills area in the southwestern part of the Nevada Test Site, Nye County, Nevada, exposes a core of pre-Tertiary rocks surrounded by middle Miocene volcanic strata. This map portrays the very complex relationships among the pre-Tertiary stratigraphic units of the region. The Devonian and Mississippian rocks of the Calico Hills are distinct from age-equivalent carbonate-shelf or submarine-fan strata in other parts of the Nevada Test Site. The Calico Hills strata are interpreted to have been deposited beyond the continental shelf edge from alternating silicic and carbonate clastic sources.

Structures of the Calico Hills area record the compounded effects of: 1) eastward-directed, foreland-vergent thrusting; 2) younger folds, kink zones, and thrusts formed by hinterland-vergent deformation toward northwesterly and northerly directions; and 3) low-angle normal faults that displaced blocks of Middle Paleozoic carbonate strata across the contractionally deformed terrane. All of these structures are older than any of the middle Miocene volcanic rocks that were erupted across the Calico Hills.

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Publication type Report
Publication Subtype USGS Numbered Series
Title Geologic map of Paleozoic rocks in the Calico Hills, Nevada Test Site, southern Nevada
Series title Open-File Report
Series number 98-101
DOI 10.3133/ofr98101
Year Published 1998
Language English
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Description Report: i, 17 p.; 1 Plate: 48.03 x 33.72 inches
Country United States
State Nevada
Other Geospatial Calico Hills
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