The Walker Lane is a geologic trough

Trough (geology)

In geology, a trough generally refers to a linear structural depression that extends laterally over a distance, while being less steep than a trench.A trough can be a narrow basin or a geologic rift....

 roughly aligned with the California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

/Nevada

Nevada

Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...

 border southward to where Death Valley

Death Valley

Death Valley is a desert valley located in Eastern California. Situated within the Mojave Desert, it features the lowest, driest, and hottest locations in North America. Badwater, a basin located in Death Valley, is the specific location of the lowest elevation in North America at 282 feet below...

 intersects the Garlock Fault

Garlock Fault

The Garlock Fault is a left-lateral strike-slip fault running approximately northeast-southwest in the Mojave Desert of southern California. It runs for much of its length along the southern base of the Tehachapi Mountains...

, a major left-lateral strike-slip fault. The north-northwest end of the Walker Lane is between Pyramid Lake in Nevada and California's Lassen Peak

Lassen Peak

Lassen Peak is the southernmost active volcano in the Cascade Range. It is part of the Cascade Volcanic Arc which is an arc that stretches from northern California to southwestern British Columbia...

 where the Honey Lake Fault meets the transverse tectonic zone forming the southern boundary of the Modoc Plateau

Modoc Plateau

The Modoc Plateau lies in the northeast corner of California as well as parts of Oregon and Nevada. It is a mile-high expanse of lava flows with cinder cones, juniper flats, pine forests, and seasonal lakes. The plateau is thought to have been formed approximately 25 million years ago...

 and Columbia Plateau

Columbia Plateau

The Columbia Plateau is a geologic and geographic region that lies across parts of the U.S. states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. It is a wide flood basalt plateau between the Cascade Range and the Rocky Mountains, cut through by the Columbia River...

 provinces. The Walker Lane takes up 15 to 25 percent of the boundary motion between the Pacific Plate

Pacific Plate

The Pacific Plate is an oceanic tectonic plate that lies beneath the Pacific Ocean. At 103 million square kilometres, it is the largest tectonic plate....

 and the North American Plate

North American Plate

The North American Plate is a tectonic plate covering most of North America, Greenland, Cuba, Bahamas, and parts of Siberia, Japan and Iceland. It extends eastward to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and westward to the Chersky Range in eastern Siberia. The plate includes both continental and oceanic crust...

, the other 75 percent being taken up by the San Andreas Fault

San Andreas Fault

The San Andreas Fault is a continental strike-slip fault that runs a length of roughly through California in the United States. The fault's motion is right-lateral strike-slip...

 system to the west. The Walker Lane may represent an incipient major transform fault

Transform fault

A transform fault or transform boundary, also known as conservative plate boundary since these faults neither create nor destroy lithosphere, is a type of fault whose relative motion is predominantly horizontal in either sinistral or dextral direction. Furthermore, transform faults end abruptly...

 zone which could replace the San Andreas as the plate boundary in the future.

The Walker Lane deformation belt accommodates nearly 12 mm/yr of dextral shear between the Sierra Nevada-Great Valley Block

Sierra Nevada-Great Valley Block

The Sierra Nevada-Great Valley Block is a section of the earth's crust in California encompassing most of the region east of the Great Valley fault system which runs along the eastern foot of the Coast Ranges, and west of the Sierra Nevada Fault which runs along the foot of the Sierra Nevada's...

 and North America

North American Plate

The North American Plate is a tectonic plate covering most of North America, Greenland, Cuba, Bahamas, and parts of Siberia, Japan and Iceland. It extends eastward to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and westward to the Chersky Range in eastern Siberia. The plate includes both continental and oceanic crust...

. The belt is characterized by the northwest-striking trans-current faults and co-evolutionary dip-slip faults formed as result of a spatially segregated displacement field.

Eastern California shear zone

The eastern California shear zone is the portion of the Walker Lane that extends south from Owens Valley

Owens Valley

Owens Valley is the arid valley of the Owens River in eastern California in the United States, to the east of the Sierra Nevada and west of the White Mountains and Inyo Mountains on the west edge of the Great Basin section...

, and continues across and south of the Garlock Fault, across the Mojave Desert

Mojave Desert

The Mojave Desert occupies a significant portion of southeastern California and smaller parts of central California, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah and northwestern Arizona, in the United States...

 to the San Andreas Fault

San Andreas Fault

The San Andreas Fault is a continental strike-slip fault that runs a length of roughly through California in the United States. The fault's motion is right-lateral strike-slip...

.