Wallace Creek: New radiocarbon results and slip rate estimates of the San Andreas Fault in the Carrizo Plain

Our team along with Sinan Akciz and Lisa Grant-Ludwig from UC Irvine just finished a SCEC-supported project to re excavate a few of the trenches from the now famous work published as Sieh and Jahns, 1984 at Wallace Creek. While the slip rate of the San Andreas Fault has been well established at about 36 mm/yr from that work, it is only constrained by a few radiocarbon dates. With our experience working in the area and the enhanced capabilities of the W. M. Keck Carbon Cycle Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory  at UC Irvine, we proposed that it was time to revisit the ages of the main offset channel at Wallace Creek.

Aerial view of open excavations (photograph by Wendy Bohon, ASU)

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The effort was highlighted in a local newspaper: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2011/08/07/1709285/quake-research-san-andreas-fault.html .


Here is our SCEC abstract that was just submitted (the title of this blog entry is the same):

Revisiting Wallace Creek: New radiocarbon results and slip rate estimates of the San Andreas Fault in the Carrizo Plain

S.O. Akciz, D.E. Haddad, W. Bohon, L. Delgadomendes, G. Marliyani, B. Salisbury, T. Sato, L. Grant Ludwig, J R. Arrowsmith

Sieh and Jahns (1984) determined the slip rate of the San Andreas fault (SAF) at Wallace Creek in the Carrizo Plain, and thereby provided an anchor for nearly all data-driven models of the southern San Andreas fault behavior. Their landmark study has been referenced hundreds of times and is a critical constraint in many related studies and in hazard estimates for the south-central SAF. Slip rate estimates at Wallace Creek (33.9±2.9 mm/yr) and at Van Matre Ranch site
(29.3-35.6 mm/yr; Noriega et al., 2006) agree well within measurement uncertainty, and with the 30–37 mm/yr velocity gradient across the SAF from decadal timescale geodetic measurements (Schmalzle, et al., 2006). Surprisingly, only a few detrital charcoal samples (9 samples at VMR, 8 samples at Wallace Creek) have been used to provide the absolute geochronological constraints. At a third site, Phelan Creeks, located ~ 2.5 km SE of Wallace Creek, 23 trenches were opened and over 400 charcoal samples were collected (Sims et al., unpublished data) to provide additional slip rate constraints, but the detailed study was never published.

New paleoseismologic investigations at the Bidart Fan site, ~5 km SE of Wallace Creek, indicate that southern SAF in the Carrizo Plain has apparently ruptured, on average, every 88 years (45-144 yr for individual intervals) between ~A.D. 1350 and 1857 (Akciz et al., 2010). B4 LiDAR (light detection and ranging) data analysis by Zielke et al. (2010) also found that only ~5.5 m of slip occurred along the SAF in the Carrizo Plain in 1857 and at least since ~A.D. 1400, and none of the earthquakes generated displacements larger than 5 meters (Grant Ludwig et al., 2010).

Slip per event and earthquake timing constraints can be tested against slip rate information to assess the steadiness of slip. Therefore, these new data and the geochronological limitations of the published slip-rate studies emphasize the need to improve, if not confirm, the existing slip-rate estimates by providing additional geochronological constraints. In August, 20111, we re-excavated T7 and T11 from Sieh and Jahns' study, photologged the trench walls (1:10) and collected a total of 30 new detrital charcoal samples from different stratigraphic layers from both of the trenches. Trench logs and radiocarbon results will be presented.


References:
Akciz, S.O., Grant Ludwig, L., and Arrowsmith, J R., 2009, Revised dates of large earthquakes along the Carrizo section of the San Andreas Fault, California, since A.D. 1310±30. Journal of Geophysical Research-Solid Earth, v. 114, B01313-6841.


Akciz, S.O., Grant Ludwig, L., Arrowsmith, J R., Zielke, O., 2011. Century-long average time intervals between earthquake ruptures of the San Andreas fault in the Carrizo Plain, California: Geology, v. 38, p. 787-790.


Grant Ludwig, L., Akciz, S.O., Noriega, G. R., Zielka, O., Arrowsmith, J R., 2010. Climate- Modulated Channel Incision and Rupture History of the San Andreas Fault in the Carrizo Plain: Science, 327, 5969, p. 1117-1119.


Sieh, K. E., 1977, Late Holocene displacement along the south-central reach of the San Andreas Fault, Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, Stanford, California, 219 pp.


Sieh, K.E., and Jahns, R.H., 1984, Holocene Activity of the San-Andreas Fault at Wallace Creek, California: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 95, p. 883-896.


Zielke, O., Arrowsmith, J R., Ludwig L G., Akciz, S.O., 2010. Slip in the 1857 and Earlier Large Earthquakes Along the Carrizo Plain, San Andreas Fault: Science, 327, 5969, p. 1119-1122.