Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Web of Science (3) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Booth, D. B. Articles by Hagstrum, J. T. Search for Related Content GeoRef GeoRef Citation

Deformation of Quaternary strata and its relationship to crustal folds and faults, south-central Puget Lowland, Washington State

¹ Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195-1310, USA
² U.S. Geological Survey, MS-975, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA

Folded Quaternary deposits across the south-central Puget Lowland, an area just south of the Seattle fault that extends across the Seattle uplift and its boundary with the adjacent Tacoma basin, provide increased resolution of the character and rate of crustal deformation. They also constrain alternative, and partly incompatible, views of crustal structure previously suggested by geophysical investigations. Tectonic deformation has been progressive for at least the past few hundred thousand years: older sediments display greater deformation than the youngest exposed deposits in the study area. Strain rates across the Seattle uplift have probably been between 0.25 and 1.0 mm/yr during this period, accounting for 10% of the total strain shortening of the western Washington crust. The Seattle uplift displays Quaternary deformation across its full north-south extent and has structural discontinuities at both its northern and southern boundaries. Previous workers have already established the faulted nature of its northern boundary; exposed Quaternary strata across its southern boundary display intense folding, the location of which generally corresponds to the projection of a "Tacoma fault" suggested by prior geophysical studies.

Key Words: Washington • deformation • folding • Seattle fault • tectonics • Quaternary

This article has been cited by other articles:

				E. S. Cheney and N.W. Hayman The Chiwaukum Structural Low: Cenozoic shortening of the central Cascade Range, Washington State, USA Geological Society of America Bulletin, June 1, 2009; 121(7-8): 1135 - 1153. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				K. G. Troost, K. G. Troost, and D. B Booth Geology of Seattle and the Seattle area, Washington Reviews in Engineering Geology, November 1, 2008; 20(0): 1 - 36. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				L. M. Liberty and T. L. Pratt Structure of the Eastern Seattle Fault Zone, Washington State: New Insights from Seismic Reflection Data Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, August 1, 2008; 98(4): 1681 - 1695. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				E. S. Cheney and N. W. Hayman Regional Tertiary sequence stratigraphy and structure on the eastern flank of the central Cascade Range, Washington Field Guides, January 1, 2007; 9(0): 179 - 208. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				Interpretation of the Seattle Uplift, Washington, as a Passive-Roof Duplex Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, August 1, 2004; 94(4): 1379 - 1401.