The Big Bend region is a giant rhomb-shaped structure with the Presidio (west) and Black Gap (east) pull-apart grabens marking the north-northwest-trending ends and the north and south branches of the Texas lineament (TL) marking its west-northwest-trending strike-slip ends. This large rhomb is broken internally by many faults (west, west-northwest, and north-northwest trends) that have generated numerous small to large pull-apart grabens.

Black Gap graben is divided into segments by west-northwest faults that drop each segment deeper (250-1,050 m, 820-3,450 ft, structural relief) and southeastward in the United States part. The continuation into Mexico has not been studied.

Presidio graben also has a complex bounding fault pattern of north-northwest-, west-northwest-, and west-trending segments. Depth of the graben in unknown, although outcrop and well data give a minimum of 800 m (2,600 ft). The internal shape is poorly known because of widespread pediment gravel cover.

The Presidio and Black Gap grabens are the southeastern continuation of the Rio Grande graben system that terminates southward against the north-branch of the TL (that extends from El Paso to Valentine Black Gap across Texas). The south-branch of TL extends east-southeast from near Presidio across Mexico to the Gulf of Mexico near the mouth of the Rio Grande.

Right slip along the west-northwest trends is demonstrated in the Sierra del Carmen by slickensides and by a first-motion study of the Valentine earthquake. Strike-slip displacement is presumably modest across the region (under 10 km, 6 mi, ?), but actual slips are indeterminate with the present data set.

The Presidio graben lies along the eastern boundary of the Laramide Chihuahua overthrust belt. The Black Gap graben lies along the eastern boundary of the Laramide Rocky Mountain front.

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