T31A-2827
Preliminary Vertical Slip Rate for the West Tahoe Fault from six new Cosmogenic 10Be Exposure Ages of Late Pleistocene Glacial Moraines at Cascade Lake, Lake Tahoe, California
Wednesday, 16 December 2015
Poster Hall (Moscone South)
Ian Kerens Driscoll Pierce, Center for Neotectonic Studies and Nevada Seismological Laboratory, University of Nevada, Reno, NV, United States, Steven G Wesnousky, University of Nevada Reno, Reno, NV, United States, Graham M Kent, Nevada Seismological Lab, University of Nevada Reno, Reno, NV, United States and Lewis A Owen, University of Cincinnati Main Campus, Cincinnati, OH, United States
Abstract:
The West Tahoe Fault is the primary range bounding fault of the Sierra Nevada at the latitude of Lake Tahoe. It is a N-NW striking, east dipping normal fault that has a pronounced onshore quaternary scarp extending from highway 50 southwest of Meyers, CA to Emerald Bay. At Cascade Lake, the fault cuts and progressively offsets late Pleistocene right lateral moraines. The fault vertically offsets the previously mapped Tahoe moraine ~83 m and the Tioga moraine ~23 m, measured from lidar data. Seventeen samples were collected for 10Be cosmogenic age analysis from boulders on both the hanging and footwalls of the fault along the crests of these moraines.We report here the initial analysis of 6 of these boulders and currently await processing of the remainder. The 10Be exposure ages of 3 boulders each on the younger Tioga and older Tahoe moraines range from 12.7 +/- 1.6 to 20.7 +/- 3.3 ka and 13.3 +/- 2.1 to 72.5 +/- 8.8 ka, respectively. Using the oldest ages as minima, these preliminary results suggest that the slip rate has averaged ~1 mm/yr since the penultimate glaciation, in accord with estimates of previous workers, and place additional bounds on the age of glaciation in the Lake Tahoe basin. The Last Glacial Maxima and penultimate glaciation near Lake Tahoe thus appear to coincide with the Tioga and Tahoe II glaciations of the Eastern Sierra.
