Spatio-Temporal Mapping of Plate Boundary Faults in California Using Geodetic Imaging

The Pacific–North American plate boundary in California is composed of a 400-km-wide network of faults and zones of distributed deformation. Earthquakes, even large ones, can occur along individual or combinations of faults within the larger plate boundary system. While research often focuses on the primary and secondary faults, holistic study of the plate boundary is required to answer several fundamental questions. How do plate boundary motions partition across California faults? How do faults within the plate boundary interact during earthquakes? What fraction of strain accumulation is relieved aseismically and does this provide limits on fault rupture propagation? Geodetic imaging, broadly defined as measurement of crustal deformation and topography of the Earth’s surface, enables assessment of topographic characteristics and the spatio-temporal behavior of the Earth’s crust. We focus here on crustal deformation observed with continuous Global Positioning System (GPS) data and Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) from NASA’s airborne UAVSAR platform, and on high-resolution topography acquired from lidar and Structure from Motion (SfM) methods. Combined, these measurements are used to identify active structures, past ruptures, transient motions, and distribution of deformation. The observations inform estimates of the mechanical and geometric properties of faults. We discuss five areas in California as examples of different fault behavior, fault maturity and times within the earthquake cycle: the M6.0 2014 South Napa earthquake rupture, the San Jacinto fault, the creeping and locked Carrizo sections of the San Andreas fault, the Landers rupture in the Eastern California Shear Zone, and the convergence of the Eastern California Shear Zone and San Andreas fault in southern California. These examples indicate that distribution of crustal deformation can be measured using interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR), Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), and high-resolution topography and can improve our understanding of tectonic deformation and rupture characteristics within the broad plate boundary zone.

[1]  X. Zhanga,et al.  AIRBORNE LIGHT DETECTION AND RANGING ( LIDAR ) DERIVED DEFORMATION FROM THE MW 6 . 0 24 AUGUST , 2014 SOUTH NAPA EARTHQUAKE ESTIMATED BY TWO AND THREE DIMENSIONAL POINT CLOUD CHANGE DETECTION TECHNIQUES , 2016 .

[2]  David T. Sandwell,et al.  El Mayor‐Cucapah (Mw 7.2) earthquake: Early near‐field postseismic deformation from InSAR and GPS observations , 2014 .

[3]  Kerry E Sieh,et al.  Slip along the San Andreas fault associated with the great 1857 earthquake , 1984 .

[4]  Charles K. Toth,et al.  The B4 Project: Scanning the San Andreas and San Jacinto Fault Zones , 2005 .

[5]  Kenneth W. Hudnut,et al.  Mobile Laser Scanning Applied to the Earth Sciences , 2013 .

[6]  C. Prentice,et al.  Fault zone structure from topography: Signatures of en echelon fault slip at Mustang Ridge on the San Andreas Fault, Monterey County, California , 2010 .

[7]  S. Akciz,et al.  Applications of airborne and terrestrial laser scanning to paleoseismology , 2012 .

[8]  Christopher J. Crosby,et al.  Illuminating Northern California's Active Faults , 2009 .

[9]  Mary Rakowski DuBois,et al.  Near-Field Deformation from the El Mayor-Cucapah Earthquake Revealed by Differential LIDAR , 2012 .

[10]  Srikanth Saripalli,et al.  Rapid mapping of ultrafine fault zone topography with structure from motion , 2014 .

[11]  B. E. Shaw,et al.  Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast, Version 3 (UCERF3)—The Time‐Independent Model , 2014 .

[12]  P. Harsh,et al.  Slip on the San Andreas fault in central California from alinement array surveys , 1980 .

[13]  Timothy E. Dawson,et al.  Key recovery factors for the August 24, 2014, South Napa Earthquake , 2014 .

[14]  Meghan S. Miller,et al.  Present‐day motion of the Sierra Nevada block and some tectonic implications for the Basin and Range province, North American Cordillera , 2000 .

[15]  S. Mudd,et al.  Hillslopes Record the Growth and Decay of Landscapes , 2013, Science.

[16]  Kenneth W. Hudnut,et al.  Co-seismic displacements of the 1994 Northridge, California, earthquake , 1996, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

[17]  Andrea Donnellan,et al.  1855 and 1991 surveys of the San Andreas fault: Implications for fault mechanics , 1994, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

[18]  Richard H. Jahns,et al.  Holocene activity of the San Andreas fault at Wallace Creek , 1984 .

[19]  R. E. Wallace.  The San Andreas Fault System, California , 1990 .

[20]  K. Sieh,et al.  Long dormancy, low slip rate, and similar slip-per-event for the Emerson fault, eastern California shear zone , 1997 .

[21]  Marlon Pierce,et al.  Potential for a large earthquake near Los Angeles inferred from the 2014 La Habra earthquake , 2015, Earth and space science.

[22]  Eric J. Fielding,et al.  Triggered surface slips in southern California associated with the 2010 El Mayor-Cucapah, Baja California, Mexico, earthquake , 2010 .

[23]  M. Lisowski,et al.  Structural explanation for low creep rates on the San Andreas fault near Monarch Peak, central California , 1984 .

[24]  Andrea Donnellan,et al.  Discrepancy between geological and geodetic deformation rates in the Ventura basin , 1993, Nature.

[25]  Jamieson H Steidl,et al.  Report on the August 2012 Brawley Earthquake Swarm in Imperial Valley, Southern California , 2013 .

[26]  George E. Hilley,et al.  Morphologic dating of fault scarps using airborne laser swath mapping (ALSM) data , 2010 .

[27]  W. Prescott,et al.  Short-range distance measurements along the San Andreas fault system in central California, 1975 to 1979 , 1981 .

[28]  David Jon Furbish,et al.  How does grid-resolution modulate the topographic expression of geomorphic processes? , 2016 .

[29]  Viswanath Nandigam,et al.  Online access and processing of LiDAR topography data in Geoinformatics: Cyberinfrastructure for the Solid Earth Sciences, eds , 2011 .

[30]  Sean C. Solomon,et al.  Geodetic slip rate for the eastern California shear zone and the recurrence time of Mojave desert earthquakes , 1994, Nature.

[31]  Srikanth Saripalli,et al.  Coseismic fault zone deformation revealed with differential lidar: Examples from Japanese Mw ∼7 intraplate earthquakes , 2014 .

[32]  P. Shearer,et al.  Locking depths estimated from geodesy and seismology along the San Andreas Fault System: Implications for seismic moment release , 2011 .

[33]  Rowena B. Lohman,et al.  Earthquake swarms driven by aseismic creep in the Salton Trough, California , 2007 .

[34]  T. Dixon,et al.  Strain accumulation across the Carrizo segment of the San Andreas Fault, California : Impact of laterally varying crustal properties , 2006 .

[35]  D. Wells,et al.  New empirical relationships among magnitude, rupture length, rupture width, rupture area, and surface displacement , 1994, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.

[36]  George E. Hilley,et al.  Geomorphic response to uplift along the Dragon's Back pressure ridge, Carrizo Plain, California , 2008 .

[37]  J. Avouac,et al.  The 2012 Brawley swarm triggered by injection-induced aseismic slip , 2015 .

[38]  Giancanio Sileo,et al.  Partitioned postseismic deformation associated with the 2009 Mw 6.3 L'Aquila earthquake surface rupture measured using a terrestrial laser scanner , 2010 .

[39]  Harry Fielding Reid,et al.  The California Earthquake of April 18, 1906: Report of the State Earthquake Investigation Commission ... , 2010 .

[40]  K. Wegmann,et al.  Miocene rejuvenation of topographic relief in the southern Appalachians , 2013 .

[41]  T. Farr,et al.  Shuttle radar topography mission produces a wealth of data , 2000 .

[42]  Jerome A. Treiman,et al.  Near-Field Investigations of the Landers Earthquake Sequence, April to July 1992 , 1993, Science.

[43]  Hiroo Kanamori,et al.  The 2010 Mw 7.2 El Mayor-Cucapah Earthquake Sequence, Baja California, Mexico and Southernmost California, USA: Active Seismotectonics along the Mexican Pacific Margin , 2010 .

[44]  John B. Rundle,et al.  Statistical physics approach to understanding the multiscale dynamics of earthquake fault systems , 2003 .

[45]  Steven M. Day,et al.  Dynamics of fault interaction: parallel strike‐slip faults , 1993 .

[46]  Richard A. Bennett,et al.  Present-day strain accumulation and slip rates associated with southern San Andreas and eastern California shear zone faults , 2010 .

[47]  S. Willett,et al.  On steady states in mountain belts , 2002 .

[48]  Olaf Zielke,et al.  Slip in the 1857 and Earlier Large Earthquakes Along the Carrizo Plain, San Andreas Fault , 2010, Science.

[49]  Kurt L. Feigl,et al.  Space geodetic measurement of crustal deformation in central and southern California , 1993 .

[50]  Jaime Hueso Gonzalez,et al.  TanDEM-X: A satellite formation for high-resolution SAR interferometry , 2007 .

[51]  Andrea Donnellan,et al.  Rate change observed at JPLM after the Northridge Earthquake , 1998 .

[52]  Jun Wang,et al.  GeoGateway: A system for analysis of UAVSAR data products , 2016, 2016 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS).

[53]  Andrea Donnellan,et al.  GPS observations of fault afterslip and upper crustal deformation following the Northridge earthquake , 1998 .

[54]  T. Rockwell,et al.  Late Quaternary slip rate of the southern Elsinore fault, Southern California: Dating offset alluvial fans via 230Th/U on pedogenic carbonate , 2011 .

[55]  Alejandro Hinojosa-Corona,et al.  Optimization of legacy lidar data sets for measuring near‐field earthquake displacements , 2014 .

[56]  E. Brabb,et al.  Geologic Map and Map Database of Eastern Sonoma and Western Napa Counties, California , 2007 .

[57]  L. Owen.  Landscapes on the Edge: New horizons for Research on Earth's Surface, National Research Council. The National Academies Press, Washington D.C (2010), 163 p. , 2011 .

[58]  Kenneth W. Hudnut,et al.  THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA INTEGRATED GPS NETWORK (SCIGN) , 2001 .

[59]  K. Aki.  Characterization of barriers on an earthquake fault , 1979 .

[60]  Yunjin Kim,et al.  An L- and S-band SAR Mission Concept for Earth Science and Applications , 2014 .

[61]  Sebastien Leprince,et al.  Fault kinematics and surface deformation across a releasing bend during the 2010 MW 7.1 Darfield, New Zealand, earthquake revealed by differential LiDAR and cadastral surveying , 2013 .

[62]  Sylvain Barbot,et al.  Seismic and geodetic evidence for extensive, long-lived fault damage zones , 2009 .

[63]  Lei Wang,et al.  Plate Boundary Observatory and related networks: GPS data analysis methods and geodetic products , 2016 .

[64]  K. Feigl,et al.  The displacement field of the Landers earthquake mapped by radar interferometry , 1993, Nature.

[65]  K. Sieh,et al.  Behavior of the southernmost San Andreas Fault during the past 300 years , 1990 .

[66]  Scott Hensley,et al.  First deformation results using the NASA/JPL UAVSAR instrument , 2009, 2009 2nd Asian-Pacific Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar.

[67]  L. G. Ludwig,et al.  Century-long average time intervals between earthquake ruptures of the San Andreas fault in the Carrizo Plain, California , 2010 .

[68]  S. Wesnousky.  The San Andreas and Walker Lane fault systems, western North America: transpression, transtension, cumulative slip and the structural evolution of a major transform plate boundary , 2005 .

[69]  L. G. Ludwig,et al.  High-Resolution Topography-Derived Offsets along the 1857 Fort Tejon Earthquake Rupture Trace, San Andreas Fault , 2012 .

[70]  P. Rosen,et al.  SYNTHETIC APERTURE RADAR INTERFEROMETRY TO MEASURE EARTH'S SURFACE TOPOGRAPHY AND ITS DEFORMATION , 2000 .

[71]  Robert E. Kayen,et al.  Terrestrial-LIDAR Visualization of Surface and Structural Deformations of the 2004 Niigata Ken Chuetsu, Japan, Earthquake , 2006 .

[72]  P. Vincent.  Aseismic Slip Events along the Southern San Andreas Fault System Captured by Radar Interferometry , 2001 .

[73]  Sebastien Leprince,et al.  Quantifying near‐field and off‐fault deformation patterns of the 1992 Mw 7.3 Landers earthquake , 2015 .

[74]  Brendan J. Meade,et al.  Block models of crustal motion in southern California constrained by GPS measurements , 2005 .

[75]  J. C. Savage,et al.  The Eastern California Shear Zone as the northward extension of the southern San Andreas Fault , 2016 .

[76]  G. Sadowy,et al.  UAVSAR: a new NASA airborne SAR system for science and technology research , 2006, 2006 IEEE Conference on Radar.

[77]  Marlon Pierce,et al.  UAVSAR observations of triggered slip on the Imperial, Superstition Hills, and East Elmore Ranch Faults associated with the 2010 M 7.2 El Mayor‐Cucapah earthquake , 2014 .

[78]  N. Chamberlain,et al.  The UAVSAR instrument: Description and first results , 2008, 2008 IEEE Radar Conference.

[79]  George E. Hilley,et al.  Multitemporal ALSM change detection, sediment delivery, and process mapping at an active earthflow , 2012 .

[80]  K. Johnson,et al.  Fault coupling and potential for earthquakes on the creeping section of the central San Andreas Fault , 2013 .

[81]  Hilla Peretz,et al.  Ju n 20 03 Schrödinger ’ s Cat : The rules of engagement , 2003 .

[82]  E. Hearn,et al.  Kinematics of the southern Walker Lane Belt and motion of the Sierra Nevada block, California , 1998 .

[83]  Patience A. Cowie,et al.  Physical explanation for the displacement-length relationship of faults using a post-yield fracture mechanics model , 1992 .

[84]  P. Bodin,et al.  Eureka Peak fault afterslip following the 28 June 1992 Landers earthquake , 1994 .

[85]  Felix W. Landerer,et al.  Seasonal variation in total water storage in California inferred from GPS observations of vertical land motion , 2014 .

[86]  T. P. Harding.  Seismic Characteristics and Identification of Negative Flower Structures, Positive Flower Structures, and Positive Structural Inversion , 1985 .

[87]  Robert W. King,et al.  Present day kinematics of the Eastern California Shear Zone from a geodetically constrained block model , 2001 .

[88]  M. Rymer.  Triggered Surface Slips in the Coachella Valley Area Associated with the 1992 Joshua Tree and Landers, California, Earthquakes , 2000 .

[89]  G. Noriega,et al.  Stream Channel Offset and Late Holocene Slip Rate of the San Andreas Fault at the Van Matre Ranch Site, Carrizo Plain, California , 2006 .

[90]  Olaf Zielke,et al.  Fault slip and earthquake recurrence along strike-slip faults - Contributions of high-resolution geomorphic data , 2015 .

[91]  T. Rockwell,et al.  Late Quaternary rate of slip along the San Jacinto fault zone near Anza, southern California , 1990 .

[92]  Piyush Agram,et al.  Aseismic slip and seismogenic coupling along the central San Andreas Fault , 2015 .

[93]  Michael B. Heflin,et al.  Plate motion and crustal deformation estimated with geodetic data from the Global Positioning System , 1995 .

[94]  References , 1971 .

[95]  Hannes Isaak Reuter,et al.  A first assessment of Aster GDEM tiles for absolute accuracy, relative accuracy and terrain parameters , 2009, 2009 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium.

[96]  Akira Iwasaki,et al.  Characteristics of ASTER GDEM version 2 , 2011, 2011 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium.

[97]  James H. Dieterich,et al.  Progressive failure on the North Anatolian fault since 1939 by earthquake stress triggering , 1997 .

[98]  J Ramón Arrowsmith,et al.  Original forms and initial modifications of the Galway Lake Road scarp formed along the Emerson Fault during the 28 June 1992 Landers, California, earthquake , 1994 .

[99]  W. Ryan,et al.  Global Multi‐Resolution Topography synthesis , 2009 .

[100]  K. Whipple,et al.  Expression of active tectonics in erosional landscapes , 2012 .

[101]  S. Titus,et al.  Thirty-Five-Year Creep Rates for the Creeping Segment of the San Andreas Fault and the Effects of the 2004 Parkfield Earthquake: Constraints from Alignment Arrays, Continuous Global Positioning System, and Creepmeters , 2006 .

[102]  Stephen B. DeLong,et al.  Rates and patterns of surface deformation from laser scanning following the South Napa earthquake, California , 2015 .

[103]  Kristy F. Tiampo,et al.  Virtual California: Fault Model, Frictional Parameters, Applications , 2006 .

[104]  Timothy Masterlark,et al.  Strong interseismic coupling, fault afterslip, and viscoelastic flow before and after the Oct. 9, 1995 Colima‐Jalisco earthquake: Continuous GPS measurements from Colima, Mexico , 2002 .

[105]  Andrea Donnellan,et al.  Geodetic measurement of deformation in the Ventura basin region , 1993 .

[106]  Dimitri Lague,et al.  Analyzing High Resolution Topography for Advancing the Understanding of Mass and Energy Transfer Through Landscapes: A Review , 2015 .

[107]  Ross D. Hartleb,et al.  The Surface Rupture and Slip Distribution of the 17 August 1999 İzmit Earthquake (M 7.4), North Anatolian Fault , 2002 .

[108]  L. G. Ludwig,et al.  Reconciling Precariously Balanced Rocks (PBRs) with Large Earthquakes on the San Andreas Fault System , 2015 .

[109]  Timothy E. Dawson,et al.  Tearing the terroir: Details and implications of surface rupture and deformation from the 24 August 2014 M6.0 South Napa earthquake, California , 2016 .

[110]  Olaf Zielke,et al.  Tectonic geomorphology of the San Andreas Fault zone from high resolution topography: an example from the Cholame segment , 2009 .

[111]  O. Kreylos,et al.  Coseismic slip variation assessed from terrestrial lidar scans of the El Mayor–Cucapah surface rupture , 2013 .