Journal ArticleDOI
New evidence on the state of stress of the San Andreas fault system
Mark D. Zoback,Mary Lou Zoback,Van S. Mount,John Suppe,J. P. Eaton,John H. Healy,David H. Oppenheimer,Paul A. Reasenberg,Lucile M. Jones,C. Barry Raleigh,Ivan G. Wong,Oona Scotti,Carl M. Wentworth +12 more
TLDR
F Fault-normal crustal compression in central California is proposed to result from the extremely low shear strength of the San Andreas and the slightly convergent relative motion between the Pacific and North American plates.Abstract:
Contemporary in situ tectonic stress indicators along the San Andreas fault system in central California show northeast-directed horizontal compression that is nearly perpendicular to the strike of the fault. Such compression explains recent uplift of the Coast Ranges and the numerous active reverse faults and folds that trend nearly parallel to the San Andreas and that are otherwise unexplainable in terms of strike-slip deformation. Fault-normal crustal compression in central California is proposed to result from the extremely low shear strength of the San Andreas and the slightly convergent relative motion between the Pacific and North American plates. Preliminary in situ stress data from the Cajon Pass scientific drill hole (located 3.6 kilometers northeast of the San Andreas in southern California near San Bernardino, California) are also consistent with a weak fault, as they show no right-lateral shear stress at approximately 2-kilometer depth on planes parallel to the San Andreas fault.read more
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The Mechanics of Earthquakes and Faulting
TL;DR: The connection between faults and the seismicity generated is governed by the rate and state dependent friction laws -producing distinctive seismic styles of faulting and a gamut of earthquake phenomena including aftershocks, afterslip, earthquake triggering, and slow slip events.
Journal ArticleDOI
Current plate motions
TL;DR: A global plate motion model, named NUVEL-1, which describes current plate motions between 12 rigid plates is described, with special attention given to the method, data, and assumptions used as discussed by the authors.
Current plate motions
TL;DR: In this paper, a new global model (NUVEL-1) was proposed to describe the geologically current motion between 12 assumed-rigid plates by inverting plate motion data.
Journal ArticleDOI
Earthquakes and friction laws
TL;DR: The traditional view of tectonics is that the lithosphere comprises a strong brittle layer overlying a weak ductile layer, which gives rise to two forms of deformation: brittle fracture, accompanied by earth-quakes, in the upper layer, and aseismic ductile flow in the layer beneath as mentioned in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI
First‐ and second‐order patterns of stress in the lithosphere: The World Stress Map Project
TL;DR: In this paper, more than 7300 in situ stress orientations have been compiled as part of the World Stress Map project and over 4400 are considered reliable tectonic stress indicators, recording horizontal stress orientation to within <±25°.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Friction of Rocks
TL;DR: This paper showed that at low normal stress the shear stress required to slide one rock over another varies widely between experiments and at high normal stress that effect is diminished and the friction is nearly independent of rock type.
Present-day plate motions
TL;DR: A data set comprising 110 spreading rates, 78 transform fault azimuths, and 142 earthquake slip vectors has been inverted to yield a new instantaneous plate motion model, designated Relative Motion 2 (RM2).
Journal ArticleDOI
Present‐day plate motions
TL;DR: In this article, a data set comprising 110 spreading rates, 78 transform fault azimuths and 142 earthquake slip vectors was inverted to yield a new instantaneous plate motion model, designated RM2.
Journal ArticleDOI
Role of fluid pressure in mechanics of overthrust faulting: I. Mechanics of fluid-filled porous solids and its application to overthrust faulting
M. King Hubbert,William W. Rubey +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, it was shown that the critical value of the shearing stress can be made arbitrarily small simply by increasing the fluid pressure p. This can be further simplified by expressing p in terms of S by means of the equation which, when introduced into equation (4), gives
Journal ArticleDOI
Implications of Plate Tectonics for the Cenozoic Tectonic Evolution of Western North America
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the history of plate motions between the American and Pacific plates in the late Cenozoic and found that the two plates were fixed with respect to one another until 5 m.y.