Earthquake travel time tomography of the southern Santa Cruz Mountains: Control of fault rupture by lithological heterogeneity of the San Andreas fault zone
- Lawrence Berkeley Lab., CA (United States)
The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake occurred along the stretch of the San Andreas fault zone within the southern Santa Cruz Mountains that last failed as a major earthquake in 1906. The southeastern end of the 1989 rupture marks the transition from stable, aseismic slip on the central creeping section of the San Andreas fault to unstable failure on the locked 1906 segment. The authors investigate this transition and the rupture characteristics of the 1989 earthquake using a 3-D P wave velocity model of the southern Santa Cruz Mountains section of the fault zone. The model images a large anomalous high-velocity body at midcrustal depths within the rupture zone of the 1989 earthquake that the available evidence suggests might have gabbroic or other mafic composition. On the basis of the relationship of the lithological features interpreted from the velocity model to the seismicity and surface creep the authors propose a model in which the high-velocity body is primarily responsible for the transition from stable to unstable fault slip at Pajaro Gap. The active plane of the San Andreas fault cuts throughout the body. The fault system attempts to circumvent this barrier by transferring slip to secondary faults, including splay faults that have propagated along the frictionally favorable contact between the high-velocity rock mass and Franciscan country rocks. However, the near arrest of the stable sliding causes stress to concentrate within the body, and the high-strength, unstable contact within it evolves from a barrier to the asperity that failed in the 1989 earthquake. The general features of the 1989 rupture predicted by this asperity model agree with several rupture histories computed for the earthquake. The model implies that as proposed by other workers, the Loma Prieta earthquake did not involve a repeat of the 1906 slip, which has an important bearing on earthquake recurrence estimates for the Santa Cruz Mountains segment of the fault. 114 refs., 11 figs.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC03-76SF00098
- OSTI ID:
- 67988
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 98, Issue B10; Other Information: PBD: 10 Oct 1993
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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