Slip Along the San Andreas Fault Associated with the Earthquake

Abstract

Some of the fault slip associated with the 1979 Imperial Valley earthquake occurred along other than the Imperial fault and the Brawley fault zone. More than 90 km to the north of the seismogenic fault, a 39-km-long section of the San Andreas fault developed a discontinuous set of surficial fractures soon after the earthquake. This set of fractures consisted of small left-stepping echelon cracks displaying extensional and dextral components of movement. Average dextral slip was about 4 mm, and slip reached 10 mm at one point along the fault. In one locality the cracks formed between Va and 4Vfe days after the main shock, although slippage at depth may have been nearly simultaneous with the earthquake. In general, this set of breaks duplicates the location, style, and slip magnitude of the set that was mapped in 1968 after the Borrego Mountain, Calif, earthquake. Such near-duplication indicates that this section of the San Andreas fault, in particular, is susceptible to small amounts of triggered slip. Although the reasons for such behavior are far from clear, similar behavior of the Imperial fault before 1979 suggests that this section of the San Andreas fault may generate a moderate earthquake within the next few decades.