Detachment fault

View from Wheeler Peak, Snake Range, Nevada, is one of the tallest peaks within the Great Basin, and was formed by detachment faulting.

Detachment faulting is associated with large-scale extensional tectonics. Detachment faults often have very large displacements (tens of km) and juxtapose unmetamorphosed hanging walls against medium to high-grade metamorphic footwalls that are called metamorphic core complexes. They are thought to have formed as either initially low-angle structures or by the rotation of initially high-angle normal faults modified also by the isostatic effects of tectonic denudation.

Examples of detachment faulting include:

• The Snake Range detachment system of the Basin and Range Province of western North America which was active during the Miocene
• The Nordfjord-Sogn Detachment of western Norway active during the Devonian Period ^[1]
• The Whipple detachment in southeastern California ^[2]

Detachment faults have been found on the sea floor close to divergent plate boundaries characterised by a limited supply of upwelling magma. These detachment faults are associated with the development of oceanic core complex structures.

References

1. ^ Fossen H. (1992). The role of extensional tectonics in the Caledonides of South Norway. Journal of Structural Geology, 14:1033–1046.
2. ^ Davis GA. (1988). Rapid upward transport of mid-crustal mylonitic gneisses in the footwall of a Miocene detachment fault, Whipple Mountains, southeastern California. Geologische Rundschau, 77/1:191–209.

George H Davis, Stephen J Reynolds, (1996), Structural Geology of Rocks and Regions, 2nd Edition, John Wiley and Sons Inc. ISBN 0-471-52621-5.

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