Heterogeneous Neogene cooling and exhumation of the Los Cabos block, southern Baja California: Evidence from fission-track thermochronology

Abstract

The Los Cabos block is a massif of Mesozoic crystalline basement at the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula and has long been considered a distinct tectonostratigraphic terrane separated from the rest of the peninsula by the La Paz fault along its western margin. Although the region is cut by an extensive array of active north-northwest-striking normal faults, none of them correspond to the proposed La Paz fault. The largest fault in the array and arguably one of the dominant Neogene structures in the Gulf extensional province is the San José del Cabo fault, which is an east-dipping normal fault that has a strike length of ~ 150 km, a topographic escarpment in excess of 1000 m, and..