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Keith B. Ketner

Publications and source records attributed to Keith B. Ketner.

28 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
USGS1982

Mid-Paleozoic age of the Roberts thrust unsettled by new data from northern Nevada

The Roberts thrust is a major thrust in Nevada on which Ordovician to Devonian siliceous facies rocks were carried more than 80 km eastward over contemporaneous carbonate facies. For more than two decades, a mid-Paleozoic age for this structure has been widely accepted. The bases for dating the thrust are (1) the assumption that the Roberts thrust formed at the time of the Antler orogeny—a reliably dated mid-Paleozoic event, and (2) the concept of an overlapping assemblage consisting of sedimentary strata deposited on both the allochthon and autochthon. The first assumption is unproved, and the second relies on another assumption: that the overlap assemblage was not cut and telescoped by the Roberts thrust. In the years since a mid-Paleozoic age for the Roberts thrust became widely accepted, much new information on the stratigraphy and facies relations of Mississippian rocks in northern Nevada has accumulated. One interpretation of these new data suggests that in the Pinon Range, where a mid-Paleozoic age for the thrust was most convincingly displayed, the overlap assemblage actually may have been cut by a major thrust that juxtaposed contrasting facies of Mississippian rocks. If so, the principal evidence used to date the Roberts thrust is compromised, and the time has come for an agonizing reappraisal of all evidence bearing on the question. A mid-Paleozoic age can no longer be taken for granted, and a post-Paleozoic age cannot be ruled out.

Nevada↗
USGS1981

Permian and Triassic rocks near Quinn River Crossing, Humboldt County, Nevada

Permian and Triassic rocks near Quinn River Crossing, Humboldt County, Nevada, consist of four structural blocks: (1) a Lower Permian volcanic block; (2) a Permian(?) chert-arenite block; (3) a Lower Permian limestone block; and (4) a Permian and Triassic block. The contacts between the Permian volcanic block and the others are interpreted as thrust faults or glide surfaces. None of these rocks are metamorphosed, in contrast to those of the surrounding mountain ranges. Each of the blocks is lithically similar in some respects to rocks of the Osgood Mountains area 80 km to the southeast. The fusulinid and brachiopod faunas of two of the blocks display affinities to those of the McCloud Limestone of northern California and the Coyote Butte Limestone of central Oregon, and the fauna of another block has elements in common with autochthonous rocks of eastern Nevada and Utah. All four blocks probably are allochthonous with respect to the rocks exposed in the surrounding mountain ranges, but their points of origin remain obscure. The rocks at Quinn River Crossing provide a link among the Permian rocks of north-central Nevada, northern California, and central Oregon and a possible key to their original relations, but more comparative data are needed.

Nevada↗
USGS1980

Map showing the Elko crater field, Elko County, Nevada

The Elko crater field consists of two arrays of rimmed craters in the valleys of Dorsey, Susie, and McClellan Creeks, 30 to 50 km north of Elko, Nevada. In the principal array, more the 165 craters are scattered irregularly in an area 3 km wide and 20 km long. Most of the the craters are circular but some, formed by overlap, are oval or irregular. They range from 5 m to 250 m in diameter and the relief of the largest ones, from the sedimentary floor of the cater to the top of the rim, is at least 6 m. The surficial material of the rims is principally gravel similar to that in the surrounding terrane. The surficial material inside the craters is primarily silt, probably blown in by the wind, and pebbles, apparently washed in from the rims. There is also a later of volcanic ash at a depth of about 2 m. This ash was identified by its physical and mineralogical composition as the Mazama ash (R. E. Wilcox, oral commun., 1976), a ±6600 year old ash bed also present in the alluvium of Dorsey and Susie Creeks. The craters are presently interpreted as having been formed by a meteor shower although no meteor material has been discovered. Investigation is continuing.

Nevada↗
USGS1979

Map showing high-purity silica sand of Middle Ordovician age in the Midwestern states

Certain quartz sands of Middle Ordovician age in the Midwestern States are well known for their purity and are exploited for a wide variety of industrial uses. The principal Middle Ordovician formations containing high-purity sands are the St. Peter Sandstone which crops out extensively from Minnesota to Arkansas; the Everton Formation principally of Arkansas; and the Oil Creek, McLish, and Tulip Creek Formations (all of the Simpson Group) of Oklahoma. The St. Peter and sandy beds in the other formations are commonly called "sandstones," but a more appropriate term is "sands" for in most fresh exposures they are completely uncemented or very weakly cemented. On exposure to air, uncemented sands usually become "case hardened" where evaporating ground water precipitates mineral matter at the surface; but this is a surficial effect. This report summarizes the available information on the extent of exposures, range of grain size, and chemical composition of the Middle Ordovician sands.

Arkansas;Illinois;Iowa;Minnesota;Missouri;Oklahoma↗
USGS1976

Pre-Eocene rocks of Java, Indonesia

The exposed pre-Eocene rocks of Java can be divided into two compound units for purposes of reconnaissance mapping and structural interpretation: a sedimentary sequence and melange. The sedimentary sequence consists of moderately deformed and little-metamorphosed conglomerate, sandstone, mudstone, claystone, chert, and limestone. The melange consists of a chaotic mechanical mixture of rocks identical to those of the sedimentary sequence and their metamorphic equivalents, such as schist, phyllite, quartzite, and marble. In addition, it contains a large proportion of quartz porphyry and smaller amounts of granite, basalt, gabbro, peridotite, pyroxenite, and serpentinite. The sedimentary sequence is at least partly of Early Cretaceous age and the melange is of Early Cretaceous to very early Paleocene age. They are overlain unconformably by Eocene rocks. The presence in the melange of blocks of quartz porphyry and granite is not easily reconcilable with current plate tectonic concepts in which the sites of formation of melange and plutonic rocks should be hundreds of kilometres apart.

Java↗
USGS1975

Replacement barite deposit, southern Independence Mountains, Nevada

Allochthonous Devonian chert, metaquartzite, and greenstone in the Blue Basin quadrangle,, southern Independence Mountains, Nevada, are mineralized with barite forming a deposit of possible commercial grade and size. Textural evidence indicates that the barite was deposited in the host rocks principally by replacement, to a lesser extent by a process involving displacement and expansion of the host-rock material, and to a very minor extent by fracture filling.

Nevada↗
USGS1974

Folds and overthrusts of late Jurassic or early Cretaceous age in northern Nevada

The partly isoclinal, partly overturned Adobe syncline extends for at least 75 mi northeastward across the northern Cortez Mountains, the northern Pinon Range, and along the entire length of the Adobe Range. The folded rocks range in age from Ordovician through Jurassic and may include some rocks of Cretaceous age. This syncline is flanked by anticlines in the central and southern parts of the Pinon Range and in the southern Independence Mountains. In places the Adobe syncline is discordantly overlain by nearly flat-lying thrust plates composed of Ordovician, Devonian, Mississippian, and Permian rocks. The geometric relations indicate that these thrust plates moved at least 6 mi, but postfold thrust movement was not great, because the Mississippian and Permian rocks of the thrust plates closely resemble correlative autochthonous rocks nearby. The Ordovician and Devonian rocks have been thrust to their present position in at least two stages; the earlier movement or movements took place long before folding of the Adobe syncline and the later movement immediately afterward. The folding and last stage of thrusting were in Late Jurassic or Early Cretaceous time.

Nevada↗