Award Date

12-1-2012

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Geoscience

First Committee Member

Eugene I. Smith

Second Committee Member

Terry L. Spell

Third Committee Member

Wanda T. Taylor

Fourth Committee Member

Chih-Hsiang Ho

Number of Pages

103

Abstract

The southern Quinn Canyon Range lies in an area of the Great Basin subjected to large-volume Oligocene-Miocene silicic volcanism and smaller volume basaltic volcanism during the Pliocene. Three major ash-flow tuff units were correlated in the southern Quinn Canyon Range (the Pahranagat Tuff, Clifford Spring Tuff, and the Cow Canyon Tuff) with regional units by utilizing U/Pb and 40 Ar/ 39Ar geochronology, geochemical correlation, and field mapping. Isotopic analysis suggests that basalt in the southern Quinn Canyon Range is part of the Death Valley-Pancake Range Basalt Zone and is similar to Reveille Range Episode 1 and 2 basalts. Further comparison of geochemical data from samples within the Death Valley-Pancake Range Basalt Zone show isotopic differences between the northern and southern end of the Death Valley-Pancake Range Basalt Zone with the northern end having an asthenospheric derived signature. Depth of melting calculations of basalt samples also suggest an asthenospheric source.

Keywords

Ash-flow tuff correlation; Geochemistry; Geochronometry; Igneous petrology; Igneous rocks; Nevada; United States – Great Basin; Volcanic ash; tuff; etc.; Volcanology

Disciplines

Geochemistry | Geology | Volcanology

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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