Geologic map of Paleozoic rocks in the Calico Hills, Nevada Test Site, southern Nevada

Abstract

The Calico Hills area in the southwestern part of the Nevada Test Site, Nye County, Nevada, exposes a core of pre-Tertiary rocks surrounded by middle Miocene volcanic strata. This map portrays the very complex relationships among the pre-Tertiary stratigraphic units of the region. The Devonian and Mississippian rocks of the Calico Hills are distinct from age-equivalent carbonate-shelf or submarine-fan strata in other parts of the Nevada Test Site. The Calico Hills strata are interpreted to have been deposited beyond the continental shelf edge from alternating silicic and carbonate clastic sources. Structures of the Calico Hills area record the compounded effects of: 1) eastward-directed, foreland-vergent thrusting; 2) younger folds, kink zones, and thrusts formed by hinterland-vergent deformation toward northwesterly and northerly directions; and 3) low-angle normal faults that displaced blocks of Middle Paleozoic carbonate strata across the contractionally deformed terrane. All of these structures are older than any of the middle Miocene volcanic rocks that were erupted across the Calico Hills.