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1 University of California,
Irvine
Department of Environmental Health, Science and Policy
Irvine,
California 92697-7070
(G.R.N., L.B.G.)
2 Arizona State
University
Department of Geological Sciences
Tempe, Arizona
85287-1404
(J R.A., J.J.Y.)
Sets of well-preserved channels offset across the San Andreas fault
(SAF) at the Van Matre Ranch (VMR) site in the
northwestern Elkhorn Hills area of the Carrizo Plain offer the opportunity to
measure slip rate and examine geomorphic development of the channels. The fault
zone and offset channels were exposed by excavation in one fault-perpendicular
and five fault-parallel trenches. The geomorphology and stratigraphy in the
channels reveal a record of filling by fluvial sedimentation, lateral
colluviation, and pedogenesis. The buried thalweg of the currently active
channel is offset 24.8 ± 1 m, while the geomorphic channel is offset
approximately 27.6 ± 1 m. Seventeen samples were collected from channel
margin deposits for 14C dating. An OxCal model of the radiocarbon
dates with stratigraphic control suggests that the oldest date for channel
incision was
A.D. 1160. Minimum and maximum slip rates ranging
from 29.3 to 35.6 mm/yr are derived from different assumptions about the timing
of channel incision and offset. The resulting slip rates at VMR agree
well with the late-Holocene slip rate of 33.9 ± 2.9 mm/yr at Wallace
Creek, approximately 18 km to the northwest, and imply that within measurement
uncertainty the 3037 mm/yr velocity gradient across the SAF
from decadal time- scale geodetic measurements is accommodated across the
several-meter-wide SAF zone at VMR over the last
millennium.
Online material: Supplemental unit descriptions, trench logs, and 14C data.
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