ASU team finds smaller but more frequent quakes on San Andreas fault

ASU geologists Ramon Arrowsmith and Olaf Zielke used LiDAR to pin down more accurately the stream offsets along the San Andreas fault in the Carrizo Plain area of California to find that the rupture history of the fault is less consistent than previously thought.   The results came out in the Jan. 21 issue of Science Express.

"It could mean that earthquakes are more common along the San Andreas, but that some of those events may be smaller than previously expected," according to the report posted by NSF.


[right, shown clockwise from top: photo from balloon; Zielke and Arrowsmith in San Andreas; Akciz with samples; mapping faulting.Credit: L. Grant Ludwig]



Slip in the 1857 and Earlier Large Earthquakes Along the Carrizo Plain, San Andreas Fault, Olaf Zielke, J. Ramon Arrowsmith, Lisa Grant Ludwig, and Sinan O. Akciz
Published online January 21 2010; 10.1126/science.1182781 (Science Express Reports)