Geophysical Terranes of the Great Basin and Parts of Surrounding Provinces

Potential field (gravity and magnetic) studies are particularly useful to define the location, depth, and extent of buried basement sources and fundamental structural or compositional boundaries.

They especially serve in imaging the subsurface in areas of extensive Cenozoic cover or where surface outcrops may be detached from the deeper crust. Identifying buried compositional or structural boundaries has applications, for example, in tectonic and earthquake hazard studies as they may reflect unmapped or buried faults. In many places, such features act as guides or barriers to fluid or magma flow or form favorable environments for mineralization and are therefore important to mineral, groundwater, and geothermal studies.