Abstract
The Jurassic history of the Sierra Nevada Metamorphic Belt has long been controversial, with various workers disagreeing about the allochthonous or local origin of the Jurassic arc terrane, duration and timing of the ‘Nevadan’ orogeny, and age and kinematics of movement along the Foothills Fault System. Recent mapping, combined with published age determinations, indicates:
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1)
Mafic metavolcanic and related hypabyssal intrusive rocks, similar to less deformed Jurassic rocks to the west, occur east of the Sonora Fault near Calaveritas. They intrude and are tectonically interleaved with the Calaveras Complex. U-Pb dates on plutons show that juxtaposition of the Jurassic arc assemblage and the Calaveras Complex occurred before 177 Ma.
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2)
Formation of NNW-trending cleavage in the eastern part of the Jurassic arc terrane began after 177 Ma, and before 166 Ma; cleavage development continued until at least 160 Ma.
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3)
The Sonora Fault, often cited as a Jurassic plate boundary (the Foothills Suture), is a major west-vergent reverse fault, but is not a major terrane boundary. It, or some ‘ancestral’ Sonora Fault, had formed by 177 Ma; later, large amounts of displacement occurred between 166 and 148 Ma.
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4)
Although there are conflicting data, movement along the Melones Fault was probably dextral, with a significant reverse component; offset occurred dominantly during the early Cretaceous.
Together these data indicate: 1) the Jurassic arc was, at least in part, formed at the western edge of North America; 2) the ‘Nevadan’ orogeny was a protracted event that lasted at least 20 million years, with volcanism, plutonism, sedimentation and deformation occurring simultaneously, and; 3) displacement along the Melones Fault Zone occurred late in the history of the area and resulted from oblique convergence between North America and oceanic crust to the west.
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Albino, G.V. (1992). Jurassic History of the Central Sierra Nevada and the ‘Nevadan’ Orogeny. In: Mason, R. (eds) Basement Tectonics 7. Proceedings of the International Conferences on Basement Tectonics, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0833-3_20
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