The Wister Mud Pot Lineament: Southeastward Extension or Abandoned Strand of the San Andreas Fault?
- Creators
- Lynch, David K.
-
Hudnut, Kenneth W.
Abstract
We present the results of a survey of mud pots in the Wister Unit of the Imperial Wildlife Area. Thirty-three mud pots, pot clusters, or related geothermal vents (hundreds of pots in all) were identified, and most were found to cluster along a northwest-trending line that is more or less coincident with the postulated Sand Hills fault. An extrapolation of the trace of the San Andreas fault southeastward from its accepted terminus north of Bombay Beach very nearly coincides with the mud pot lineament and may represent a surface manifestation of the San Andreas fault southeast of the Salton Sea. Additionally, a recent survey of vents near Mullet Island in the Salton Sea revealed eight areas along a northwest-striking line where gas was bubbling up through the water and in two cases hot mud and water were being violently ejected.
Additional Information
© 2008 Seismological Society of America. Manuscript received 10 October 2007. We would like to thank the Adolfo Hernandez and Randy VonNordheim of the California Department of Fish and Game, Wister Unit of the Imperial Wildlife Refuge, for help in locating many of the mud pots. We gratefully acknowledge Hobart King, Carl L. Strand, Karen Felzer, and Nancy King for comments on early drafts of this article. Mike Rymer and Don Nicholson provided useful discussions on tectonics of the Salton Trough. We are indebted to Christian Schoneman, Jason Wilson, and Daniel Gomez of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for help in surveying the vents near Mullet Island. Bob Dollar of the USGS helped with the seismisity KMZ files, and Greg Anderson and Duncan Agnew digitized the Clark fault map and put it into KML for us.Attached Files
Published - LYNbssa08.pdf
Files
| Name | Size | Download all |
|---|---|---|
|
md5:44ee3321da176df27830da7a5586ea12
|
517.5 kB | Preview Download |
Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 12061
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:LYNbssa08
- Created
-
2008-10-21Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-08Created from EPrint's last_modified field