POST-MIOCENE STRUCTURAL AND TECTONIC EVOLUTION OF THE CRESCENT CITY HEADLANDS, NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
AALTO, K. R., Geology, Humboldt State Univ, Arcata, CA 95521, kra1@axe.humboldt.edu and ROBINSON, D. T., California Environmental Protection Agency, 5796 Corporate Ave, Cypress, CA 90630,

The late Miocene St. George Fm [units 1-3] dips easterly along Pebble Beach and is preserved in an open, NW-trending syncline north of Point St. George (PSG). The newly-described ‘Pebble Beach thrust fault’ (PBF) has an NNW strike and WSW vergence and runs onshore from mid-Pebble Beach to north of PSG, cross-cutting Pleistocene marine terraces and displacing a Holocene peat [radiocarbon date of 3000+/- 60 BP]. St. George rocks are folded into an anticline-syncline pair disrupted by a smaller reverse fault. The folds are U-shaped, symmetrical, have widths of about 8 m and plunge NNW at about 10o. They do not appear on the north side of PSG. The reverse fault extends to the north side, for in its line of projection are two reverse faults drop Pleistocene terrace deposits south side down against basal St. George Fm in a step-like manner. North of PSG, dip reversal across the lower plate (re. PBF) syncline exposes a Franciscan [KJf] paleosol-basal St. George conglomerate contact to the south, and paleosol with rooted stumps overlain by swash-cross-stratified sands to the north. Dips across this fold do not exceed 20o and flexural slip formed bedding-parallel mudstone breccias. Fold and clustered fracture data record ENE-WSW crustal shortening in the lower, and NNW-SSE extension in the upper plates. Offshore structures trend north-south and record east-west shortening. Contrasting orientations of structures along the PBF reflect movement over an oblique thrust ramp and local thrust sheet rotation.

Cordilleran Section - 97th Annual Meeting, and Pacific Section, American Association of Petroleum Geologists (April 9-11, 2001)
Session No. 8
New Insights in Structural Geology
Sheraton Universal: Studio IV
8:10 AM-11:30 AM, Monday, April 9, 2001