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Spatial Scaling Of Crustal And Lithospheric Deformation In The Western United States, Cody W. Bomberger

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Deformation of continental lithosphere can extend great distances laterally from tectonic plate boundaries. This extent has been used to argue for a variety of constitutive laws for continental materials, based on the underlying principles in continuum mechanics that identify a relationship between characteristic spatial scale and material properties. Although the relationship between observed deformation and material models is always non-unique, quantifying one or more characteristic scales of deformation in a region can rule out some models of how the lithosphere deforms. In the western United States active deformation occurs at the plate boundary between North America and either the Pacific …