Adobe Hills

Adobe Hills
Basalt outcrop in the Adobe Hills
Highest point
Elevation2,322 m (7,618 ft)
Geography
Adobe Hills
Location of Adobe Hills in California[1]
CountryUnited States
StateCalifornia
DistrictMono County
Range coordinates37°59′47.746″N 118°39′25.469″W / 37.99659611°N 118.65707472°W / 37.99659611; -118.65707472
Topo mapUSGS Indian Meadows

The Adobe Hills are a low mountain range located in Mono County, Eastern California.[1] It is also a volcanic field located on a fault zone within the western Mina Deflection near the northern Eastern California shear zone (ECSZ) and the Walker Lane belt (WLB). This fault has an east-west horizontal expansion of about 0.1 millimeters a year.[2][3]

Geology

The rocks they make up the Adobe hills are mainly dominated by tuffaceous sandstone, basaltic lavas and basaltic cinder cones that are of Pliocene age forming around 3.13 ±0.02 to 3.43 ±0.01 million years ago. There is also an unconformity causing the Pliocene rocks to overlay latite ignimbrite rocks that formed during the Middle Miocene epoch around 11.17 ±0.04 million years ago. Overlying the Pliocene age deposits are tuffaceous sands, alluvium, and lacustrine deposits from the Quaternary period.[2]

Spillways

The Adobe hills have been the site of spillways at least twice that occurred around 760,000 years ago and possibly as late as just 100,000 years ago. Discharge from prehistoric Lake Russell spilled southward through the Adobe hills and into the OwensDeath Valley lake system.[3]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Adobe Hills". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior. Retrieved May 4, 2009.
  2. ^ a b Nagorsen-Rinke, Sarah; Lee, Jeffrey; Calvert, Andrew (January 1, 2013). "Pliocene Sinistral Slip across the Adobe Hills, Eastern California-Western Nevada: Kinematics of Fault Slip Transfer across the Mina Deflection". Geosphere.
  3. ^ a b Reheis, Marith C.; Stine, Scott; Sarna-Wojcicki, Andrei M. (August 2002). "Drainage reversals in Mono Basin during the late Pliocene and Pleistocene". Geological Society of America Bulletin. 114 (8): 991–1006. doi:10.1130/0016-7606(2002)114<0991:DRIMBD>2.0.CO;2. ISSN 0016-7606. Archived from the original on May 22, 2025.

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