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Active foundering of a continental arc root beneath the southern Sierra Nevada in California

Nature volume 431, pages 41–46 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

Seismic data provide images of crust–mantle interactions during ongoing removal of the dense batholithic root beneath the southern Sierra Nevada mountains in California. The removal appears to have initiated between 10 and 3 Myr ago with a Rayleigh–Taylor-type instability, but with a pronounced asymmetric flow into a mantle downwelling (drip) beneath the adjacent Great Valley. A nearly horizontal shear zone accommodated the detachment of the ultramafic root from its granitoid batholith. With continuing flow into the mantle drip, viscous drag at the base of the remaining ∼35-km-thick crust has thickened the crust by ∼7 km in a narrow welt beneath the western flank of the range. Adjacent to the welt and at the top of the drip, a V-shaped cone of crust is being dragged down tens of kilometres into the core of the mantle drip, causing the disappearance of the Moho in the seismic images. Viscous coupling between the crust and mantle is therefore apparently driving present-day surface subsidence.

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Figure 1: Study area and major results.
Figure 2: Cross-sections through the three-dimensional model of stacked receiver functions migrated into the depth domain and associated topography.
Figure 3: Synthetic stacked receiver function cross-section generated with a finite-difference wave-propagation technique for the seismic model shown beneath the image.
Figure 4: A sequential history of the foundering of the ultramafic root of the southern Sierra Nevada batholith.

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Acknowledgements

G.Z. thanks G. Gehrels, P. Kapp and B. Hacker for comments on preliminary interpretations and manuscripts.Authors' contributions G.Z., H.G., T.J.O. and C.H.J. cooperated on the seismology analysis and interpretation. M.D. and J.S. provided the geologic and tectonic context. C.H.J. led the PASSCAL deployment to collect the data. G.Z. wrote the Article with contributions from all the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, 85721, USA

    George Zandt, Hersh Gilbert & Mihai Ducea

  2. Department of Geological Sciences, University of South Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 29208, USA

    Thomas J. Owens

  3. Department of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, 91125, USA

    Jason Saleeby

  4. Department of Geological Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, 80309, USA

    Craig H. Jones

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Correspondence to George Zandt.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Discussion

This discussion further expands on the processes related to the removal of the batholithic root beneath the Sierra Nevada. Topics include crustal anisotropy, crustal imaging resolution, and alternative basal shear-zone models. (PDF 855 kb)

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Zandt, G., Gilbert, H., Owens, T. et al. Active foundering of a continental arc root beneath the southern Sierra Nevada in California. Nature 431, 41–46 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02847

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