Abstract

The Terlingua uplift is a 100 square-mile region of structurally high Cretaceous limestone adjacent to Big Bend National Park, Texas. The uplift is bounded to the south and west by the Terlingua and Fresno monoclines respectively; the monoclines are cored by high-angle reverse faults. The eastern boundary is the Yellow Hill fault and to the north, the Solitario.

The Terlingua uplift formed during Laramide deformation. Sinistral strike slip movement along faults underlying the Terlingua monocline and along the Tascotal Mesa fault produced a transpressional regime which raised the uplift as a push-up block. Small thrust faults along the Fresno and Terlingua monoclines, and northeast-trending faults and grabens formed simultaneously with the uplift. Later, during Basin and Range deformation, transtensional deformation of this area formed northwest-trending grabens within the uplift.