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Full-Text Articles in Geology

Comparisons Of Gravity Anomalies At Pseudofaults, Fracture Zones, And Nontransform Discontinuities From Fast To Slow Spreading Areas, Sarah E. Kruse, Sarah F. Tebbens, David F. Naar, Qingyuan Y. Lou, Robert T. Bird Dec 2000

Comparisons Of Gravity Anomalies At Pseudofaults, Fracture Zones, And Nontransform Discontinuities From Fast To Slow Spreading Areas, Sarah E. Kruse, Sarah F. Tebbens, David F. Naar, Qingyuan Y. Lou, Robert T. Bird

Geology Faculty Publications

Published mechanisms for rift tip propagation at spreading centers include extensional deformation and an initial period of slow spreading. We investigate whether the gravity signal and inferred crustal structure at pseudofaults formed in medium to superfast spreading environments resemble the gravity signal at fracture zones or nontransform discontinuities formed in slow spreading environments. We find that altimetry-based gravity anomalies on the Mathematician, Bauer, Easter, Juan Fernandez, and northern Chile Ridge pseudofaults, located in 75–150 mm/yr (full rate) seafloor spreading environments, are similar in amplitude and form to Atlantic fracture zones with 20–30 mm/yr spreading rates. A 5–15 mGal positive mantle …


New Kinematic Models For Pacific‐North America Motion From 3 Ma To Present, Ii: Evidence For A “Baja California Shear Zone”, Timothy Dixon, Fred Farina, Charles Demets, Francisco Suarez-Vidal, John Fletcher, Bertha Marquez-Azua, M. Meghan Miller, Osvaldo Sanchez, Paul Umhoefer Dec 2000

New Kinematic Models For Pacific‐North America Motion From 3 Ma To Present, Ii: Evidence For A “Baja California Shear Zone”, Timothy Dixon, Fred Farina, Charles Demets, Francisco Suarez-Vidal, John Fletcher, Bertha Marquez-Azua, M. Meghan Miller, Osvaldo Sanchez, Paul Umhoefer

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

We use new models for present‐day Pacific‐North America motion to evaluate the tectonics of offshore regions west of the Californias. Vandenburg in coastal Alta California moves at the Pacific plate velocity within uncertainties (∼1 mm/yr) after correcting for strain accumulation on the San Andreas and San Gregorio‐Hosgri faults with a model that includes a viscoelastic lower crust. Modeled and measured velocities at coastal sites in Baja California south of the Agua Blanca fault, a region that most previous models consider Pacific plate, differ by 3–8 mm/yr, with coastal sites moving slower that the Pacific plate. We interpret these discrepancies in …


Present‐Day Motion Of The Sierra Nevada Block And Some Tectonic Implications For The Basin And Range Province, North American Cordillera, Timothy H. Dixon, M. Meghan Miller, Frederic Farina, Hongzhi Wang, Daniel Johnson Feb 2000

Present‐Day Motion Of The Sierra Nevada Block And Some Tectonic Implications For The Basin And Range Province, North American Cordillera, Timothy H. Dixon, M. Meghan Miller, Frederic Farina, Hongzhi Wang, Daniel Johnson

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Global Positioning System (GPS) data from five sites on the stable interior of the Sierra Nevada block are inverted to describe its angular velocity relative to stable North America. The velocity data for the five sites fit the rigid block model with rms misfits of 0.3 mm/yr (north) and 0.8 mm/yr (east), smaller than independently estimated data uncertainty, indicating that the rigid block model is appropriate. The new Euler vector, 17.0°N, 137.3°W, rotation rate 0.28 degrees per million years, predicts that the block is translating to the northwest, nearly parallel to the plate motion direction, at 13–14 mm/yr, faster than …


Multibeam Sonar Backscatter Lineaments And Anthropogenic Organic Components In Lacustrine Silty Clay, Evidence Of Shipping In Western Lake Ontario, C F Michael Lewis, L A. Mayer, Prasanta K. Mukhopadhyay, Michael A. Kruge, John P. Coakley, M D. Smith Jan 2000

Multibeam Sonar Backscatter Lineaments And Anthropogenic Organic Components In Lacustrine Silty Clay, Evidence Of Shipping In Western Lake Ontario, C F Michael Lewis, L A. Mayer, Prasanta K. Mukhopadhyay, Michael A. Kruge, John P. Coakley, M D. Smith

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

A multibeam sonar survey (95 kHz) covering more than 500 km2 of western Lake Ontario revealed anomalous lineaments of relatively high backscatter. The lineaments did not align with or parallel the most prominent structural zones beneath the lake as expected. Instead, the principal lineaments lay on lines between ports on opposite sides of the lake, especially between Toronto and Welland Canal, and Toronto and Niagara River mouth. As the lineaments underlie current and historical shipping routes used during the steamship era, they are interpreted as an acoustic response to shipping debris cumulated in the near-surface bottom sediment. An exploratory …