Description:
Mesquite Mountain, situated on the Colorado River Indian Reservation of westcentral
Arizona, records a continuous progression of deformational styles characterized
by older, penetrative, ductile fabrics to younger, more localized, brittle structures in the
footwall of the regional Whipple-Buckskin-Rawhide detachment system. Rock types
consist primarily of deformed migmatitic gneiss, herein termed the Mesquite Gneiss, and
minor amounts of deformed intrusive and metasedimentary rocks. Eight phases of
deformation are recognized, beginning with D1 development of gneissic compositional
layering and intrafolial folding associated with in situ partial melting and injection of the
Mesquite Gneiss in Late Cretaceous time.