The relationship between normal and strike-slip faults in Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada, and its implications for stress rotation and partitioning of deformation in the east-central Basin and Range

This study expands on our earlier studies of the evolution of fracturing and faulting in the Jurassic aeolian Aztec Sandstone exposed over a large area in the Valley of Fire State Park, southeastern Nevada. Based on a nearly three-dimensional data set collected from 200-m-high cliff-face exposures with stair-case morphology composed of steep and flat parts, we find that a series of inclined, relatively low-angle normal faults and their splay fractures are precursors of the strike-slip fault network that we previously documented. We discuss the significance of this finding in terms of the tectonics of the broader area, stress rotation, partitioning of deformation, and the development of fracture clusters with compartmentalization of the structures as a function of spatial, depositional and deformational domains.