Recency of Faulting and Subsurface Architecture of the San Diego Bay Pull-Apart Basin, California, USA

In Southern California, plate boundary motion between the North American and Pacific plates is distributed across several sub-parallel fault systems. The offshore faults of the California Continental Borderland (CCB) are thought to accommodate ∼10–15% of the total plate boundary motion, but the exact distribution of slip and the mechanics of slip partitioning remain uncertain. The Newport-Inglewood-Rose Canyon fault is the easternmost fault within the CCB whose southern segment splays out into a complex network of faults beneath San Diego Bay. A pull-apart basin model between the Rose Canyon and the offshore Descanso fault has been used to explain prominent fault orientations and subsidence beneath San Diego Bay; however, this model does not account for faults in the southern portion of the bay or faulting east of the bay. To investigate the characteristics of faulting and stratigraphic architecture beneath San Diego Bay, we combined a suite of reprocessed legacy airgun multi-channel seismic profiles and high-resolution Chirp data, with age and lithology controls from geotechnical boreholes and shallow sub-surface vibracores. This combined dataset is used to create gridded horizon surfaces, fault maps, and perform a kinematic fault analysis. The structure beneath San Diego Bay is dominated by down-to-the-east motion on normal faults that can be separated into two distinct groups. The strikes of these two fault groups can be explained with a double pull-apart basin model for San Diego Bay. In our conceptual model, the western portion of San Diego Bay is controlled by a right-step between the Rose Canyon and Descanso faults, which matches both observations and predictions from laboratory models. The eastern portion of San Diego Bay appears to be controlled by an inferred step-over between the Rose Canyon and San Miguel-Vallecitos faults and displays distinct fault strike orientations, which kinematic analysis indicates should have a significant component of strike-slip partitioning that is not detectable in the seismic data. The potential of a Rose Canyon-San Miguel-Vallecitos fault connection would effectively cut the stepover distance in half and have important implications for the seismic hazard of the San Diego-Tijuana metropolitan area (population ∼3 million people).

Subdifferential Decomposition of 1D-regularized Total Variation with Nonhomogeneous Coefficients

In this paper, we consider a convex function defined as a 1D-regularized total variation with nonhomogeneous coefficients, and prove the Main Theorem concerned with the decomposition of the subdifferential of this convex function to a weighted singular diffusion and a linear regular diffusion. The Main Theorem will be to enhance the previous regularity result for quasilinear equation with singularity, and moreover, it will be to provide some useful information in the advanced mathematical studies of grain boundary motion, based on KWC type energy.

Regularities of Structural Rearrangements in Single- and Bicrystals Near the Contact Zone

The chapter is devoted to the analysis of the features of local structural rearrangementsin nanostructured materialsunder shear loadingand nanoindentation. The study was carried out using molecular dynamics-based computer simulation. In particular, we investigated the features of symmetric tilt grain boundary migration in bcc and fcc metals under shear loading. The main emphasis was on identifying atomic mechanisms responsible for the migration of symmetric tilt grain boundaries. We revealed that grain boundaries of this type can move with abnormally high velocities up to several hundred meters per second. The grain boundary velocity depends on the shear rate and grain boundary structure. It is important to note that the migration of grain boundary does not lead to the formation of structural defects. We showed that grain boundary moves in a pronounced jump-like manner as a result of a certain sequence of self-consistent displacements of grain boundary atomic planes and adjacent planes. The number of atomic planes involved in the migration process depends on the structure of the grain boundary. In the case of bcc vanadium, five planes participate in the migration of the Σ5(210)[001] grain boundary, and three planes determine the Σ5(310)[001] grain boundary motion. The Σ5(310)[001] grain boundary in fcc nickel moves as a result of rearrangements of six atomic planes. The stacking order of atomic planes participating in the grain boundary migration can change. A jump-like manner of grain boundary motion may be divided into two stages. The first stage is a long time interval of stress increase during shear loading. The grain boundary is motionless during this period and accumulates elastic strain energy. This is followed by the stage of jump-like grain boundary motion, which results in rapid stress drop. The related study was focused on understanding the atomic rearrangements responsible for the nucleation of plasticity near different crystallographic surfaces of fcc and bcc metals under nanoindentation. We showed that a wedge-shaped region, which consists of atoms with a changed symmetry of the nearest environment, is formed under the indentation of the (001) surface of the copper crystallite. Stacking faults arise in the (111) atomic planes of the contact zone under the indentation of the (011) surface. Their escape on the side free surface leads to a step formation. Indentation of the (111) surface is accompanied by nucleation of partial dislocations in the contact zone subsequent formation of nanotwins. The results of the nanoindentation of bcc iron bicrystal show that the grain boundary prevents the propagation of structural defects nucleated in the contact zone into the neighboring grain.