J. Chery | USGS Science

USGS2004

A mechanical model of the San Andreas fault and SAFOD Pilot Hole stress measurements

Stress measurements made in the SAFOD pilot hole provide an opportunity to study the relation between crustal stress outside the fault zone and the stress state within it using an integrated mechanical model of a transform fault loaded in transpression. The results of this modeling indicate that only a fault model in which the effective friction is very low (<0.1) through the seismogenic thickness of the crust is capable of matching stress measurements made in both the far field and in the SAFOD pilot hole. The stress rotation measured with depth in the SAFOD pilot hole (???28??) appears to be a typical feature of a weak fault embedded in a strong crust and a weak upper mantle with laterally variable heat flow, although our best model predicts less rotation (15??) than observed. Stress magnitudes predicted by our model within the fault zone indicate low shear stress on planes parallel to the fault but a very anomalous mean stress, approximately twice the lithostatic stress. Copyright 2004 by the American Geophysical Union.

Geophysical Research Letters↗

USGS2003

Late Pleistocene to Holocene slip rates for the Gurvan Bulag thrust fault (Gobi-Altay, Mongolia) estimated with 10Be dates

We surveyed morphotectonic markers along the central part of the Gurvan Bulag thrust, a fault that ruptured with the Bogd fault during the Gobi-Altay earthquake (1957, M 8.3), to document climatic and tectonic processes along the fault for the late Pleistocene- Holocene period. The markers were dated using 10Be produced in situ. Two major periods of alluviation ended at 131 ?? 20 and 16 ?? 4.8 ka. These appear to be contemporaneous with global climatic changes at the terminations of marine isotope stages (MIS) 6 and 2. The vertical slip rates, determined from offset measurements and surfaces ages, are 0.14 ?? 0.03 mm/yr over the late Pleistocene-Holocene and between 0.44 ?? 0.11 and 1.05 ?? 0.25 mm/yr since the end of the late Pleistocene. The higher of these slip rates for the last ???16 kyr is consistent with paleoseismic investigations along the fault [Prentice et al., 2002], and suggests that, at the end of late Pleistocene, the fault evolved from quiescence to having recurrence intervals of 4.0 ?? 1.2 kyr for surface ruptures with ???4 m vertical offset (similar to that of 1957). The inferred recurrence interval is comparable to that of the Bogd fault (3.7 ?? 1.3 kyr) suggesting that the two faults may have ruptured together also earlier during the last ???16 kyr.

Journal of Geophysical Research B: Solid Earth↗