Probabilistic Estimation of Site Specific Fault Displacements

The College of the Redwoods (CR) located near Eureka, California would like to upgrade a series of existing buildings that are unfortunately located on secondary faults associated with the active Little Salmon Fault (LSF) zone. In the early 1990’s a deterministic value of the maximum dip-slip displacement that had occurred on one of these secondary faults located beneath the southeast building corner of the former library was measured to be 1.7 feet. This displacement was resolved into approximately 1.5 feet horizontal offset and 0.8 feet of vertical offset, based on the secondary fault plane dip. Geologically, it has not been possible to establish the actual dates of the occurrence of the displacements on the observed faults, therefore it was assumed that they all had occurred within the last 11,000 years. The structural engineer for the project has indicated that it was not possible to design for the observed ground displacement of 1.7 feet. This limited study was undertaken to assess the variation of ground displacements that were observed over the area of ground occupied by CR’s Administration, Science, and former Library buildings. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the reasonableness of using a deterministically determined maximum value of displacement in estimating, and designing mitigations for, the structural response, or whether a probabilistic approach could be utilized. The only data available within the limited time frame allowed for the study was from a series of trench logs made as part of a project for locating building sites on the campus in the early 1990’s. As a first step the frequency distributions of both horizontal and vertical displacements located in a volume of soil comprising the area occupied by the above buildings to a depth of 14 feet were examined. The 14 feet was the maximum depth of the trenches used to provide data for the study. Probability density functions (PDF) versus displacements were developed based on the frequency distributions. The area under the PDF curves between given displacement intervals represents the probability of occurrence (POC) of that displacement. A cumulative probability of occurrence for a displacement interval can be determined by adding the individual POC’s. Based on this it was estimated that a horizontal displacement of ≤ 1.0 foot has a probability of 89% of occurring in the next 11,000 years at the site. In contrast, a vertical displacement of ≤ 1.0 foot has a probability of 88% probability of occurrence

Logs and paleoseismic interpretations from trenches 14C and 14D on the Bow Ridge fault, northeastern Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada

Detailed studies of trenches 14D and 14C on the Bow Ridge fault indicate two to three displacements and long recurrence intervals during the middle to late Quaternary. The main trace of the fault is marked by a thick (20--40 centimeters wide) subvertical shear zone coated with multiple carbonate-silica laminae and several generations of fine-grained fissure-fill debris. Exposed in the trenches is a vertically stacked sequence of thin (0.3--1.5 meters thick) fine-grained colluvial, alluvial, and eolian deposits that commonly contain smaller wedge-shaped units or several weakly to strongly developed buried paleosols, or both. The two to three surface-rupture events are recognized at discrete stratigraphic intervals in the sequence based on (1) incremental up-section decreases in offset of marker horizons, (b) upward terminations of shear zones, fissure fills, and fractures, and (c) the position of small scarp-derived colluvial wedges deposited adjacent to the fault above downfaulted marker horizons. Preferred estimates of the vertical displacement per event are 12 and 40 centimeters. Left-oblique striations are observed on carbonate fault laminae, which, if tectonic in origin, increase the vertical displacement by factors of 1.1 to 1.7, yielding preferred net slip displacements per event of 13 to 70 centimeters. Thermoluminescence ages of 48 {+-} 20 and 132 {+-} 23 thousand years bracket the ages of the events, which probably occurred near the bounding ages of the time interval. These age constraints suggest long, average recurrence intervals between the three events of 75 to 210 ky; the preferred values range between 100 to 140 ky. The small net cumulative displacement of two dated reference horizons yield very low fault slip rates of 0.002 to 0.007 millimeters per year; the preferred value is 0.003 millimeters per year