Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

Subsurface structural evolution along the northern Whittier fault zone of the eastern Los Angeles basin, Southern California

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  • The Whittier fault forms the central part of a fault system extending from the East Montebello fault at Whittier Narrows to the Elsinore fault, which is traced as far as the Mexican border. The Whittier fault forms a restraining bend in this fault system, resulting in uplift of the Puente Hills. The northwestern part of the Whittier fault in the Whittier oil field in the eastern Los Angeles basin strikes approximately N65°W and dips 70-75° northeast. The fault is near the range front of the Puente Hills northwest of Turnbull Canyon, and within the Puente Hills to the southeast. The central reach of the Whittier fault had normal separation in the Relizian and Luisian stages of the middle Miocene. From the Mohnian through Repettian stages of the late Miocene and early Pliocene, little, if any, offset occurred until the initiation of reverse offset in the Venturian stage of the late Pliocene. A component of right-lateral strike-slip may have been added near the end of the Pliocene, coinciding with the formation of the Elsinore fault. The Workman Hill and Whittier Heights faults may have formed in the late Pliocene to early Pleistocene, coinciding with the possible initiation of strike-slip on the Whittier fault. The present sense of slip on the Whittier fault southeast of the study area is nearly pure right-lateral strike-slip, with a slip rate of 2-3 mm/yr. The northwestern part of the Whittier fault has a component of reverse slip of approximately 1 mm/yr. The amount of strike-slip on this part of the fault was not determined by this study. The Rideout Heights, 304, and 184 low-amplitude anticlines formed in the Whittier oil field area in the late Miocene and early Pliocene. The Rideout Heights anticline is a southwest-verging fault-propagation fold trending northwesterly from the mouth of Turnbull Canyon through the Rideout Heights area. Strata are overturned in the southwest limb of the fold, and normally dipping in the northeast limb; the fold has been cut along its hinge by the Whittier fault. The 304 and 184 anticlines are north-verging and appear to be beddingplane shear folds in the northeast limb of the La Habra syncline. Recent strike-slip on the Whittier fault may have reactivated the 184 anticline, causing uplift of the footwall block south of Turnbull Canyon. North of Turnbull Canyon, the Whittier fault is at the range front with no evidence of Quaternary footwall uplift. The 304 anticline could be a fault-propagation fold from a previously-unknown southwest dipping blind reverse fault south of the Whittier fault; uplift on this fold could also be the cause of footwall uplift south of Turnbull Canyon. Active fault traces, possibly strike-slip, are on or near the Whittier fault south of Turnbull Canyon, but to the north, recent offsets appear to be northeast of the Whittier fault in the Puente Hills. These offsets may represent an attempt of the Whittier fault to straighten itself by bypassing the restraining bend at Turnbull Canyon. so, this movement is too recent to offset conglomerate beds more than a few tens of meters.
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  • File scanned at 300 ppi (Monochrome, 256 Grayscale, 24-bit Color) using Capture Perfect 3.0 on a Canon DR-9050C in PDF format. CVista PdfCompressor 4.0 was used for pdf compression and textual OCR. Plates: Master map file scanned at 600 dpi, 24-bit color on a Paradigm ImagePRO GxT 42 HD (OEM version of ColortracSmartLF Bx 42). Image manipulated by SmartLF1.3.05.
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