BIG BEND RANCH STATE PARK'S FAULT SCARPS AND RIFTING

Several faults in the northeastern area of Big Bend Ranch State Park of west Texas, USA, have the potential to be linked to Basin and Range tectonic activity during the Paleogene Period. The three faults in this study are used as a potential for fault-scarp age dating. Further assessments of the faults’ relationship to the Rio Grande rifting rather than the nearby volcanic activity can lead to a better understanding of the region’s geologic history. This study interprets active tectonics, earthquake hazards, and paleoseismology by interpolating fault-scarp chronologies with a fault-scarp diffusion-equation. A diffusion constant (K) is determined with this equation. The modeling created through this equation assumes that the rate of change in scarp face elevation points is a function of climate and material properties - slope curvature and scarp K. This study utilizes field observations and light detection and range (LiDaR) data to solidify the presence of a fault with characteristics ideal for the diffusion-equation methodology. Identification of the second fault in the study area changes its previous status of uncertainty to known and ID Texas-BBRSP-Fault-001. Comparisons made between models from manually and remotely collected datasets determine the validity of the diffusion-equation’s estimations.