Thrust faults of southern Diamond Mountains, central Nevada: Implications for hydrocarbons in Diamond Valley and at Yucca Mountain

Overmature Mississippian hydrocarbon source rocks in the southern Diamond Mountains have been interpreted to be a klippe overlying less mature source rocks and represented as an analogy to similar conditions near Yucca Mountain (Chamberlain, 1991). Geologic evidence indicates an alternative interpretation. Paleogeologic mapping indicates the presence of a thrust fault, referred to here as the Moritz Nager Thrust Fault, with Devonian rocks emplaced over Permian to Mississippian strata folded into an upright to overturned syncline, and that the overmature rocks of the Diamond Mountains are in the footwall of this thrust. The upper plate has been eroded from most of the Diamond Mountains but remnants are present at the head of Moritz Nager Canyon and at Sentinel Mountain. Devonian rocks of the upper plate comprised the earliest landslide megabreccia. Later, megabreccias of Pennsylvanian and Permian rocks of the overturned syncline of the lower plate were deposited. By this interpretation the maturity of lower-plate source rocks in the southern Diamond Mountains, which have been increased by tectonic burial, is not indicative of conditions in Diamond Valley, adjacent to the west, where upper-plate source rocks might be present in generating conditions. The interpretation that overmature source rocks of the Diamond Mountains are in a lower plate rather than in a klippe means that this area is an inappropriate model for the Eleana Range near Yucca Mountain