Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-2017

Abstract

Tectonic reorganization induced by a rapid increase in plate motion ­obliquity and rate beginning at ca. 100 Ma affected California’s Andean-style convergent margin, with concomitant changes in the accretionary prism of the Franciscan Complex, the Great Valley forearc basin, and the Sierran continental arc. Using facies analysis and a combined provenance approach, we suggest that this ca. 100 Ma tectonic signal is preserved in a Cenomanian (Upper Cretaceous) boulder-conglomerate outcrop along the San Luis Reservoir (SLR) in the southern Great Valley, which represents the thickest and coarsest deep-water deposit ever described in the Great Valley Group (GVG). We document a 1.8-km-thick by 4-km-long depositional-dip profile of an interpreted SE-directed (axial) submarine channel system that is part of a conglomeratic package that stretches 20 km along the east-central Diablo Range. Our facies analysis of the SLR area documents five facies associations within four aggradational channel complex sets, followed by regional abandonment.

Sandstone petrography and mudrock geochemical data suggest a dissected continental Sierra Nevadan arc source. Conglomerate clast counts show abundant ophiolitic-type clasts that may be derived from the Coast Range Ophiolite and/or the Western Sierra Nevada Metamorphic Belt. Detrital-­zircon geochronology data also indicate western and central Sierra Nevadan sources; however, we interpret an anomalous (relative to other Cenomanian localities) 105–95 Ma zircon population to indicate the initial erosional products from the volcanic carapace associated with the Late Cretaceous magmatic flare-up within the eastern Sierran arc. This flare-up has been linked to an increase in arc-parallel plate motion that induced deformation along shear zones in the eastern Sierra Nevada, allowing for widespread plutonism. Our provenance interpretation makes the SLR area the earliest Upper Cretaceous GVG locality to receive significant detritus from the flare-up, effectively linking tectonic plate motion changes and coarse-grained, deep-water forearc sedimentation.

Identifier

10.1130/GES01422.1

Publisher

Geological Society of America

Publication Information

Geosphere

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