Origin of active blind-thrust faults in the southern Inner California Borderlands

This dissertation describes the origins, three-dimensional geometry, slip history and present activity of a regional system of blind-thrust faults located in the Inner California Borderlands, and analyses the new earthquake scenarios they imply for the nearby coastal region of southern California.; Chapter 1 is an overview of the main observations and inferences derived from geophysical data (seismic reflection profiles, well information, and seismicity) and coastal tectonics studies that are used to document the reactivation of two regional, low-angle Miocene detachments---the Oceanside and the Thirtymile faults. These active blind-thrusts comprise the Inner California Blind-Thrust System. The paper is co-authored by Prof. John H. Shaw (Harvard University) and Prof. Karl Muller (University of Colorado), and was published in the journal Geology. In this paper we associate the 1986 (ML 5.3) Oceanside earthquake and uplift of coastal marine terraces with activity on these blind-thrust faults, demonstrating their current activity and earthquake potential. We also describe the structural interactions of the blind-thrust system with regional strike-slip fault zones, and propose new earthquake hazards scenarios for the Inner California Borderlands based on these interactions.; Chapter 2 presents a methodology used to generate regional 3D velocity models that allows converting seismic reflection data and derived geological surfaces into the depth domain. This chapter is co-authored with Dr. Peter Suss (University of Tubingen) and Prof. John H. Shaw (Harvard University), who developed aspects of the methodology used here in their velocity modeling of the Los Angeles basin. In our study, geologic constraints are employed to guide the interpolation of velocity structure in the Inner California Borderlands, yielding a comprehensive 3D velocity model that is consistent with the structural and stratigraphic architectures of the offshore basins. The need to properly scale time sections into depth to perform structural analyses makes this a very important component of our strategy to develop comprehensive, 3D models of the Oceanside and Thirtymile Bank blind thrusts, and thus is the unifying link between Chapter 1 and 3.; Chapter 3 presents a comprehensive structural analysis of faults in the Inner California Borderlands, focusing on the tectonic reactivation of the Oceanside and Thirtymile detachments as blind-thrust faults. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...