The Wood Hills are a structurally complex terrain of metamorphosed and unmetamorphosed Paleozoic strata and Cenozoic surficial, volcanic, and volcaniclastic rocks. These rocks form a gentle structural and topographic dome (Thorman, 1970) with no known range-bounding normal faults. Structurally, rocks within the Wood Hills record deep tectonic burial and metamorphism during the Mesozoic and ductile to brittle extension that accommodated exhumation of metamorphosed strata during the Cenozoic. The purpose of this map and accompanying text is to describe and discuss structures in the Wood Hills. More regional tectonic and structural interpretations that integrate geologic data discussed herein from the Wood Hills are presented elsewhere (e.g., Camilleri and Chamberlain, 1997; Camilleri and McGrew, 1997; Camilleri, 1998; Camilleri, 2009).
The Wood Hills are structurally divided into two plates separated by a low-angle normal fault, the Wood Hills fault (figs. 1 and 2). This fault separates unmetamorphosed Paleozoic and Cenozoic strata in its hanging wall from regionally metamorphosed and polydeformed Paleozoic strata in its footwall. For simplicity, the description of the structure in the Wood Hills is divided into three main parts. The first and second parts focus on the markedly different structures within rocks in the footwall and hanging wall of the Wood Hills fault, respectively. The third part discusses high angle normal faults that occur in both the hanging wall and footwall of the Wood Hills fault. Original Product Code: M172a