TECTONICS OF DEATH VALLEY REGION, CALIFORNIA
The north-northwest-trending Death Valley and Furnace Creek right-lateral slip fault zones border the Black Mountains, California. Other tectonic features in the Death Valley region appear compatible with this strike-slip strain system of northeast-southwest shortening and northwest-southeast relative extension. Accordingly, some of the Basin and Range structures of Tertiary to Recent age may be characterized by strike-slip rather than dip-slip faulting, and result from compressional rather than tensional dynamics.