Tectonic Inheritance With Dipping Faults and Deformation Fabric in the Brittle and Ductile Southern California Crust

Plate motions in Southern California have undergone a transition from compressional and extensional regimes to a dominantly strike‐slip regime in the Miocene. Strike‐slip motion is most easily accommodated on vertical faults, and major transform fault strands in the region are typically mapped as near vertical on the surface. However, some previous work suggests that these faults have a dipping geometry at depth. We analyze receiver function arrivals that vary harmonically with back azimuth at all available broadband stations in the region. The results show a dominant signal from contrasts in dipping foliation as well as dipping isotropic velocity contrasts from all crustal depths, including from the ductile middle to lower crust. We interpret these receiver function observations as a dipping fault‐parallel structural fabric that is pervasive throughout the region. The strike of these structures and fabrics is parallel to that of nearby fault surface traces. We also plot microseismicity on depth profiles perpendicular to major strike‐slip faults and find consistently NE dipping features in seismicity changing from near vertical (80–85°) on the Elsinore Fault in the Peninsular Ranges to 60–65° slightly further inland on the San Jacinto Fault to 50–55° on the San Andreas Fault. Taken together, the dipping features in seismicity and in rock fabric suggest that preexisting fabrics and faults may have acted as strain guides in the modern slip regime, with reactivation and growth of strike‐slip faults along northeast dipping fabrics both above and below the brittle‐ductile transition

Estimating the Rayleigh-Wave Impulse Response Between Seismic Stations with the Cross Terms of the Green Tensor

The development of ambient noise tomography has provided a powerful tool to investigate the Earth\u27s subsurface with increased resolution. Most commonly, surface-wave tomography is performed on inter-station estimates of the vertical component of Rayleigh waves, stemming from crosscorrelations of ocean-generated noise. Here, we estimate the cross terms of the Rayleigh-wave Green tensor, and show this is less sensitive to signal not in-line with the seismic stations. We illustrate this result with the Batholiths temporary seismic deployment, showing estimates of the Rayleigh wave with a higher signal-to-noise ratio and a consequently better phase-velocity dispersion curve. This approach provides an opportunity for reliable ambient noise crosscorrelations over shorter time windows and more closely spaced stations in the future

Tectonic Inheritance With Dipping Faults and Deformation Fabric in the Brittle and Ductile Southern California Crust

Plate motions in Southern California have undergone a transition from compressional and extensional regimes to a dominantly strike‐slip regime in the Miocene. Strike‐slip motion is most easily accommodated on vertical faults, and major transform fault strands in the region are typically mapped as near vertical on the surface. However, some previous work suggests that these faults have a dipping geometry at depth. We analyze receiver function arrivals that vary harmonically with back azimuth at all available broadband stations in the region. The results show a dominant signal from contrasts in dipping foliation as well as dipping isotropic velocity contrasts from all crustal depths, including from the ductile middle to lower crust. We interpret these receiver function observations as a dipping fault‐parallel structural fabric that is pervasive throughout the region. The strike of these structures and fabrics is parallel to that of nearby fault surface traces. We also plot microseismicity on depth profiles perpendicular to major strike‐slip faults and find consistently NE dipping features in seismicity changing from near vertical (80–85°) on the Elsinore Fault in the Peninsular Ranges to 60–65° slightly further inland on the San Jacinto Fault to 50–55° on the San Andreas Fault. Taken together, the dipping features in seismicity and in rock fabric suggest that preexisting fabrics and faults may have acted as strain guides in the modern slip regime, with reactivation and growth of strike‐slip faults along northeast dipping fabrics both above and below the brittle‐ductile transition

Crustal Deformation in Southern California Constrained by Radial Anisotropy From Ambient Noise Adjoint Tomography

We build a new radially anisotropic shear wave velocity model of Southern California based on ambient noise adjoint tomography to investigate crustal deformation associated with Cenozoic evolution of the Pacific‐North American plate boundary. Pervasive positive radial anisotropy (4%) is observed in the crust east of the San Andreas Fault (SAF), attributed to subhorizontal alignment of mica/amphibole foliation planes resulting from significant crustal extension. Substantial negative anisotropy (6%) is revealed in the middle/lower crust west of the SAF, where high shear wave speeds are also observed. The negative anisotropy could result from steeply dipping amphibole schists in a shear zone developed during Laramide flat slab subduction. Alternatively, it could be caused by the crystal preferred orientation (CPO) of plagioclase, whose fast axis aligns orthogonally to a presumed subhorizontal foliation. The latter new mechanism highlights potentially complex CPO patterns resulting from different lithospheric mineralogy, as suggested by laboratory experiments on xenoliths from the region.K. Wang and Q. Liu are supported by the NSERC Discovery Grant 487237. Computations for this study were performed on hardware acquired through the combined funding of Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), Ontario Research Fund (ORF), and University of Toronto Startup Fund and partly hosted by the SciNet HPC Consortium. Y. Yang is supported by Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT130101220) and Discovery Project (DP190102940). Schulte‐Pelkum's contribution was supported by NSF Grants EAR‐1251193, 1735890, and 1927246, and SCEC Grant 17097. This is contribution 1509 from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Core to Crust Fluid Systems (http://www.ccfs.mq.edu.au) and 1393 in the GEMOC Key Centre (http://www.gemoc.mq.edu.au)

Large Teleseismic P Wavefront Deflections Observed with Broadband Arrays

Abstract We measure the plane wavefront incidence azimuth for teleseismic P at large-aperture (ϳ50 km) broadband arrays. The incidence azimuth is determined by crosscorrelation of the P arrivals on the vertical component seismograms filtered in successive frequency bands. The periods considered range from 10 to 35 sec. At the Anza array in southern California, the plane wave direction is deflected from the great circle azimuth of the event by up to 20Њ. In addition, we find a surprisingly strong frequency dependence of the same magnitude and a striking antisymmetric pattern of the deflection as a function of backazimuth, whereas the curvature of the wavefront is small. Similar characteristics are found at the Gräfenberg array in Germany and the NORSAR array in Norway, however, with much weaker amplitudes of ϳ5Њ. We ascribe the behavior at Anza to structure in the lower crust and uppermost mantle beneath the array, given that the observations are only a function of source backazimuth and not of source depth and source mechanism, that the wavelengths under consideration range from 50 to 270 km, and that the sign of the deviation is opposite to that predicted from shallow crustal structure and Moho topography. We are able to reproduce the magnitude and frequency dependence of the wavefront deflection using finite difference numerical modeling of plane wave propagation through simple 2D structures

Tectonic Fabric in the Banda Arc‐Australian Continent Collisional Zone Imaged by Teleseismic Receiver Functions

Abstract The convergent plate boundary in eastern Indonesia and Timor‐Leste captures an active oblique collision between the Banda Arc and the Australian plate. We analyzed ∼5 years' worth (2014–2019) of radial and tangential teleseismic Ps receiver functions (RFs) observed at 30 temporary broadband seismic stations across the area. Azimuthal variations in RF arrivals are observed throughout the region, indicative of the presence of oriented tectonic fabrics (dipping contrasts or plunging axis anisotropy) from a variety of crustal depths. The two main strikes of these fabrics are roughly parallel to the orogen and the plate convergence across the outer arc islands, likely associated with orogenic and strike‐slip structures. We observe distinct double polarity‐reversal arrivals with opposite polarity that reflect an anisotropic layer with orogen‐parallel strikes in the shallow crust beneath Timor and Savu, interpreted as metamorphic rocks. Fabrics oriented E‐W are imaged beneath the Flores and Lomblen that host active volcanoes, where we find interesting correlations with magmatic structures. NNW‐SSE striking fabric is imaged at ∼13 km depth beneath central Flores, which relates to a connected dike magmatic system that feeds the aligned cinder cones exposed on the surface. Finally, we identify convergence‐parallel fabrics on the volcano‐extinct islands of Alor and Atauro, consistent with one main fabric orientation imaged in Timor. We suggest all convergence‐parallel fabrics might accommodate strike‐slip motion generated by the overall NNE convergence of the Australian plate with respect to Eurasian plate and contribute to strain partitioning between the trough and backarc resulting from the collision

The competing effects of olivine and orthopyroxene CPO on seismic anisotropy

Orthopyroxene is the second most abundant mineral in the upper mantle and, like olivine, can form crystallographic preferred orientations (CPO) during mantle deformation that may influence mantle seismic anisotropy. Here we use a compilation of 21 peridotites in which both olivine and orthopyroxene CPOs are preserved to document the range of orthopyroxene CPO types and to explore their effects on seismic anisotropy of peridotites. In addition to four previously published orthopyroxene CPO types, this study establishes three new CPO types, two of which result in orthopyroxene fast axes aligned parallel to the lineation and the direction of mantle shear/flow. We calculate bulk elastic tensors for each sample from the measured olivine and orthopyroxene CPOs, and use those in turn to calculate Vp and Vs velocities and anisotropy percentages. In order to explore the relative influence of olivine and orthopyroxene on anisotropy, these properties were calculated for a range of possible modal percentages, from 100% olivine to 100% orthopyroxene. While the effect of orthopyroxene CPO appears to be a negligible influence on the orientation of bulk seismic fast axes, the presence of increasing orthopyroxene decreases the anisotropic signal overall. However, at very low olivine modal percentages, olivine and orthopyroxene can be mutually destructive, where the addition of olivine to a mostly orthopyroxene rock can actually decrease anisotropy.ISSN:0040-195