Interaction of extensional, contractional, and strike-slip elements at Mount Diablo and the surrounding eastern Coast Ranges, San Francisco Bay area, California: A model-based analysis

Author(s):  
Donald A. Medwedeff

ABSTRACT This study presents three regional cross sections, a structural map analysis, and a schematic map restoration. The sections are constrained by surface geology and petroleum wells and were developed using model-based methods to be consistent with the regional tectonic context and balancing concepts. Together, these products depict the geometry and kinematics of the major fault systems. Insights from this research include the following. Franciscan complex blueschist-facies rocks in the Mount Diablo region were unroofed west of their current location and subsequently thrust beneath the Great Valley sequence in the mid-Eocene. East Bay structures are complicated by overprinting of Neogene compression and dextral strike-slip motion on a Paleogene graben system. Net lateral displacement between the Hayward fault and the Central Valley varies from 26 km toward 341° to 29 km toward 010° in the southern and northern East Bay Hills, respectively. Uplift above a wedge thrust generates the principal Neogene structural high, which extends from Vallejo through Mount Diablo to the Altamont Ridge. Anomalous structural relief at Mount Diablo is due to strike-parallel thrusting on the crest of a fault-propagation fold formed on the west-verging roof thrust. Uplift that exposes the Coast Range ophiolite in the East Bay Hills is formed by oblique thrusting generated by slip transfer at the northern termination of the Calaveras fault. The Paleogene extensional fault system likely extends farther west than previously documented. An east-dipping branch of that system may underlie the Walnut Creek Valley. Three-dimensional restoration should be applied to constrain geologic frameworks to be used for seismic velocity modeling.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Unruh

ABSTRACT Late Cenozoic growth of the Mount Diablo anticline in the eastern San Francisco Bay area, California, USA, has produced unique 3D exposures of stratigraphic relationships and normal faults that record Late Cretaceous uplift and early Tertiary extension in the ancestral California forearc basin. Several early Tertiary normal faults on the northeast flank of Mount Diablo have been correlated with structures that accommodated Paleogene subsidence of the now-buried Rio Vista basin north of Mount Diablo. Stepwise restoration of deformation at Mount Diablo reveals that the normal faults probably root into the “Mount Diablo fault,” a structure that juxtaposes blueschist-facies rocks of the Franciscan accretionary complex with attenuated remnants of the ophiolitic forearc basement and relatively unmetamorphosed marine forearc sediments. This structure is the local equivalent of the Coast Range fault, which is the regional contact between high-pressure Franciscan rocks and structurally overlying forearc basement in the northern Coast Ranges and Diablo Range, and it is folded about the axis of the Mount Diablo anticline. Apatite fission-track analyses indicate that the Franciscan rocks at Mount Diablo were exhumed and cooled from depths of 20+ km in the subduction zone between ca. 70−50 Ma. Angular unconformities and growth relations in the Cretaceous and Paleogene stratigraphic sections on the northeast side of Mount Diablo, and in the Rio Vista basin to the north, indicate that wholesale uplift, eastward tilting, and extension of the western forearc basin were coeval with blueschist exhumation. Previous workers have interpreted the structural relief associated with this uplift and tilting, as well as the appearance of Franciscan blueschist detritus in Late Cretaceous and early Tertiary forearc strata, as evidence for an “ancestral Mount Diablo high,” an emergent Franciscan highland bordering the forearc basin to the west. This outer-arc high is here interpreted to be the uplifted footwall of Coast Range fault. The stratigraphic and structural relations exposed at Mount Diablo support models for exposure of Franciscan blueschists primarily through syn-subduction extension and attenuation of the overlying forearc crust in the hanging wall of the Coast Range fault, accompanied by (local?) uplift and erosion of the exhumed accretionary prism in the footwall.


Author(s):  
Roey Shimony ◽  
Zohar Gvirtzman ◽  
Michael Tsesarsky

ABSTRACT The Dead Sea Transform (DST) dominates the seismicity of Israel and neighboring countries. Whereas the instrumental catalog of Israel (1986–2017) contains mainly M<5 events, the preinstrumental catalog lists 14 M 7 or stronger events on the DST, during the past two millennia. Global Positioning System measurements show that the slip deficit in northern Israel today is equivalent to M>7 earthquake. This situation highlights the possibility that a strong earthquake may strike north Israel in the near future, raising the importance of ground-motion prediction. Deep and narrow strike-slip basins accompany the DST. Here, we study ground motions produced by intrabasin seismic sources, to understand the basin effect on regional ground motions. We model seismic-wave propagation in 3D, focusing on scenarios of Mw 6 earthquakes, rupturing different active branches of the DST. The geological model includes the major structures in northern Israel: the strike-slip basins along the DST, the sedimentary basins accompanying the Carmel fault zone, and the densely populated and industrialized Zevulun Valley (Haifa Bay area). We show that regional ground motions are determined by source–path coupling effects in the strike-slip basins, before waves propagate into the surrounding areas. In particular, ground motions are determined by the location of the rupture nucleation within the basin, the near-rupture lithology, and the basin’s local structure. When the rupture is located in the crystalline basement or along material bridges connecting opposite sides of the fault, ground motions behave predictably, decaying due to geometrical spreading and locally amplified atop sedimentary basins. By contrast, if rupture nucleates or propagates into shallow sedimentary units of the DST strike-slip basins, ground motions are amplified within, before propagating outside. Repeated reflections from the basin walls result in a “resonant chamber” effect, leading to stronger regional ground motions with prolonged durations.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Ovink

Latino/a enrollments at U.S. colleges are rapidly increasing. However, Latinos/as remain underrepresented at four-year universities, and college completion rates and household earnings lag other groups’. Yet, little theoretical attention has been paid to the processes that drive these trends, or to what happens when students not traditionally expected to attend college begin to enroll in large numbers. Longitudinal interviews with 50 Latino/a college aspirants in the San Francisco East Bay Area reveal near-universal college enrollment among these mostly low-income youth, despite significant barriers. East Bay Latino/a youth draw on a set of interrelated logics (economic, regional, family/group, college-for-all) supporting their enrollment, because they conclude that higher education is necessary for socioeconomic mobility. In contrast to the predictions of status attainment and rational choice models, these rationally optimistic college aspirants largely ignore known risks, instead focusing on anticipated gains. Given a postrecession environment featuring increasing costs and uncertain employment, this approach led many to enroll in low-cost, less supportive two-year institutions, resulting in long and winding pathways for some. Results suggest that without structural supports, access to college fails to meaningfully redress stratification processes in higher education and the postrecession economy that significantly shape possibilities for mobility.


Actuators ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 230
Author(s):  
Gianpietro Di Rito ◽  
Benedetto Luciano ◽  
Nicola Borgarelli ◽  
Marco Nardeschi

The work deals with the development of deterministic model-based condition-monitoring algorithms for an electromechanical flight control actuator with fault-tolerant architecture, in which two permanent magnets synchronous motors are coupled with differential ball screws in speed-summing paradigm, so that the system can operate even after a motor fault, an inverter fault or a mechanical jamming. To demonstrate the potential applicability of the system for safety-critical aerospace applications, the failure transients related to major fault modes have to be characterised and analysed. By focusing the attention to jamming faults, a detailed nonlinear model of the actuator is developed from physical first principles and experimentally validated in both time and frequency domains for normal condition and with different types of jamming. The validated model is then used to design the condition-monitoring algorithms and to characterize the system failure transient, by simulating mechanical blocks in different locations of the transmission. The operability after the fault, obtained via fault-tolerant control strategy and position regulator reconfiguration, is also verified, by highlighting and discussing possible enhancements and criticalities.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Zhang ◽  
Zhiping Wu ◽  
Yanjun Cheng

<p>The horsetail structure, also named brush structure, generally refers to a sets of secondary faults converged to the primary fault on the plane. Based on 2-D and 3-D seismic data, the structural characteristics, evolution and mechanism of the horsetail structure of Liaodong Bay area in Bohai Bay Basin and Weixinan area in Beibuwan Basin are analyzed. In the Liaodong Bay area, the primary fault of the horsetail structure is the NNE-striking branch fault of Tan-Lu strike-slip fault zone. The NE-striking secondary extensional faults converged to the primary strike-slip fault. Fault activity analysis shows that both the primary and secondary faults intensively activated during the third Member of the Shahejie Formation (42~38 Ma). In the Weixinan area, the NE-striking Weixinan fault is the primary fault of the horsetail structure, which is an extensional fault. A large amount of EW-striking secondary extensional faults converged to the primary NE-striking Weixinan fault. Fault activity analysis shows that NE-striking primary fault intensively activated during the second Member of the Liushagang Formation (48.6~40.4 Ma), whereas the EW-striking secondary faults intensively activated during the Weizhou Formation (33.9~23 Ma). The different structure and evolution of the horsetail structure in the Liaodong Bay area and Weixinan area are mainly resulted from the regional tectonic settings. About 42 Ma, the change of subduction direction of the Pacific plate and the India-Eurasian collision resulted in the right-lateral strike-slip movement of NNE-striking Tan-Lu fault and the formation of NE-striking extensional faults along the bend of the strike-slip fault, therefore, the horsetail structure of Liaodong Bay area formed. However, the formation of the horsetail structure of Weixinan area is related to the clockwise rotation of extension stress in the South China Sea (SCS): 1) During Paleocene to M. Eocene (65~37.8 Ma), the retreat of Pacific plate subduction zone resulted in the formation of NW-SE extensional stress field in the north margin of the SCS, NE-striking primary fault of horsetail structure formed; 2) During L. Eocene to E. Oligocene (37.8~28.4 Ma), the change of subduction direction of the Pacific plate and the India-Eurasian collision resulted in the clockwise rotation of extension direction from NW-SE to N-S in the north margin of the SCS, a large amount of EW-striking secondary faults of horsetail structure formed, and the horsetail structure was totally formed in the Weixinan area until this stage.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 390-414
Author(s):  
AA Shah ◽  
◽  
A Rajasekharan ◽  
N Batmanathan ◽  
Zainul Farhan ◽  
...  

<abstract> <p>Our recent mapping of the Dras fault zone in the NW Himalaya has answered one of the most anticipated searches in recent times where strike-slip faulting was expected from the geodetic studies. Therefore, the discovery of the fault is a leap towards the understanding of the causes of active faulting in the region, and how the plate tectonic convergence between India and Eurasia is compensated in the interior portions of the Himalayan collision zone, and what does that imply about the overall convergence budget and the associated earthquake hazards. The present work is an extended version of our previous studies on the mapping of the Dras fault zone, and we show details that were either not available or briefly touched. We have used the 30 m shuttle radar topography to map the tectonic geomorphological features that includes the fault scarps, deflected drainage, triangular facets, ridge crests, faulted Quaternary landforms and so on. The results show that oblique strike-slip faulting is active in the suture zone, which suggests that the active crustal deformation is actively compensated in the interior portions of the orogen, and it is not just restricted to the frontal portions. The Dras fault is a major fault that we have interpreted either as a south dipping oblique backthrust or an oblique north dipping normal fault. The fieldwork was conducted in Leh, but it did not reveal any evidence for active faulting, and the fieldwork in the Dras region was not possible because of the politically sensitive nature of border regions where fieldwork is always an uphill task.</p> </abstract>


2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Petr Špaček ◽  
Vít Ambrož

Preliminary results of a research into the late Quaternary slip of a major fault in the seismically active Upper Morava Basin are given. Three trenches, up to 6 m deep, were excavated at the foot of the Kosíř Fault scarp near Stařechovice and Čelechovice. The exposed complex sequences of colluvium and loess, now only partly dated by OSL and 14C, is heavily faulted. The faulting is explained by a tectonic slip at the Kosíř Fault and, in the Stařechovice trench, also by simultaneous slope deformations. None of the faults do off set the Holocene topsoil but the youngest of them were clearly active aft er the deposition of the youngest loess and indicate the slip of up to 1.4 m in Late Pleistocene. In Čelechovice trenches the minimum vertical throw of 4 m is indicated for the lower part of the sequence with assumed Late Pleistocene age. The geometry of the deformed zone suggests an oblique normal faulting with significant strike-slip component. The sense of shearing in the horizontal plane was not resolved. Minimum tectonic slip rate of 0.1‒0.3 mm/year in Late Pleistocene is suggested but this must be confi rmed by new dating. Our observations reveal surprisingly young and large deformation which may suggest a temporary increase of tectonic activity during Late Pleistocene.


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