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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

West Texas Geological Society

Abstract


GUADALUPE MOUNTAINS REVISITED, 1988
Pages 171-176

A Three-Hundred-Mile Fault Zone: The Trans-Pecos Rift?

Bruce Pearson

Abstract

From the New Mexico border southeast across Trans-Pecos Texas to the Rio Grande at Big Bend National Park and on into Mexico there is aligned a series of fault-bounded basins: Salt Basin, Valentine Basin, Marfa Basin and Tornillo Basin. All are related to the same Tertiary fault system, which is as much as 300 miles long. There is evidence of right-lateral movement along the length of the fault zone as well as northeast-southwest extension across it. The fault zone diminishes and splays out to the north and northeast in flexures or buckles in southeastern New Mexico.

The fault zone has the character of a rift and may be related to the Rio Grande rift. Alternatively, it may be linked to the Front Range of Colorado by way of the New Mexico structural lineament described by Kelley (1971).


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