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Published August 2004 | public
Journal Article

Six similar sequential ruptures of the San Andreas fault, Carrizo Plain, California

Abstract

We document the precise sizes, but not the dates, of the six latest offsets across the San Andreas fault at Wallace Creek, California. Three and perhaps four of these, including the latest in 1857, show dextral offset of 7.5–8 m. The third and fourth offsets, however, are just 1.4 and 5.2 m. The predominance of similar offsets for the latest six events suggests that the fundamental properties of the fault system that control slip size do not vary greatly from event to event. The large offsets imply that ruptures involving this site are typically more than 200 km long.

Additional Information

© 2004 Geological Society of America. Manuscript received 12 January 2004. Revised manuscript received 27 April 2004. Manuscript accepted 30 April 2004. We thank B. Maehr, J. Nye, C. Stevens, C. Madden, and L. Zeng for field assistance and J. Rice for useful comments on recent modeling efforts. Ramon Arrowsmith's review was very helpful in improving the manuscript. This research was partially supported by U.S. Geological Survey grants 99-HQ-GR-0043 and 01-HQ-GR-0002 and by the Southern California Earthquake Center and private funds. This is Seismological Laboratory contribution 8962.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 25, 2023