Lower Permian sediment-gravity-flow sequence, eastern California
The Lower Permian (middle Wolfcampian) Zinc Hill sequence, a 65- to 110-m-thick series of beds in the Owens Valley Group in east-central California, comprises sediment-gravity-flow deposits consisting of carbonate sediment that originated on, and siliciclastic sediment that may have been generally ponded behind, a carbonate shelf to the east and northeast. Thickness patterns and paleocurrent indicators show that the sediment forming this sequence was transported primarily southeastward and deposited in a southeast-trending, lobe-shaped body. Evidently, the sediment was carried from the shelf by sediment-gravity flows that travelled westward down the slope and then turned southeastward upon reaching a southeast-trending basin at the base of the slope. Data derived from the study of this basin, which paralleled the shelf edge and is thought to have formed parallel to a southeast-oriented segment of the Early Permian continental margin, constitute one of the most important arguments favoring a Pennsylvanian to Early Permian age of truncation of the western North American continental margin.