Description:
The area examined in this report is located in the
extreme southwestern corner of Arizona, principally in the Sonoran
Desert subprovince of the southern Basin and Range province. A very
small portion of this corner of Arizona lies within the Salton Trough
subprovince, a deep sediment-filled structural depression that trends
northwest through Mexico, Arizona, and California.
At least a dozen geothermal anomalies have been identified in the
Salton Trough (Elders, 1979). The geothermal anomalies are generally
located above segments of the East Pacific Rise, an oceanic spreading
center that extends up the Gulf of California and beneath its landward
extension, the Salton Trough. The region is interpreted as a complex,
transitional plate boundary that takes up stress created by two different
tectonic regimes: spreading at the East Pacific Rise and transform
motion along the San Andreas fault system as the Pacific plate moves
northwestward. As a result of this continuing motion, the Gulf of California-
Salton Trough system is a actively growing rift. (27 pages)