Evaluating Temporal Variations in Fault Slip-Rate and Fault Interaction in the Eastern California shear zone

该奖项是根据2009年《美国复苏和再投资法案》(公法111-5)资助的。科林·阿莫斯获得了美国国家科学基金会地球科学博士后奖学金，将在加州大学伯克利分校开发一个综合研究和教育项目。该项目将量化加州东部断层在多个地质时间尺度上的活动变形。小湖断层是加州东部负责传递太平洋-北美板块运动的主要构造之一，将是本次研究的重点。古老的欧文斯湖排水系统切割出的一系列熔岩流和干涸的河道被小湖断层置换，并允许重建过去约10,000-100,000年的断层运动。晚第四纪的重建？该断裂带的全新世滑动记录将包括：1)通过地貌和新构造填图描述错动地貌；2)利用高分辨率地形测量量化断层位移；3)通过宇宙放射性核素定年建立年代学约束。这次重建将首次与沿小湖断层的高应变率大地测量进行直接比较，并将阐明应变瞬变对东加州剪切带内断层滑动和地震活动的调制程度。这项工作的结果将被纳入实验室练习，作为加州大学伯克利分校一个更大的野外地质学入门课程的一部分，旨在接触到加州大学伯克利分校的非理科专业学生。此外，位于加州毕晓普的加州大学怀特山研究站还将举办一系列公开的科学讲座。这些讲座将作为一种工具，提高人们对当地地震危害的认识，并向面临东加州剪切带地震直接风险的社区成员和政策制定者传播信息。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Dr. Colin Amos has been granted an NSF Earth Sciences postdoctoral fellowship to develop an integrated program of research and education at the University of California, Berkeley. The project will quantify active deformation at multiple geologic timescales for faults in Eastern California. The Little Lake fault, one of the primary structures in eastern California responsible for transferring Pacific-North American plate motion will be the focus of this study. A series of lava flows and dry river channels incised by the ancient Owens Lake drainage system is displaced by the Little Lake fault and permits reconstruction of past fault movements at timescales of ~10,000-100,000 years. Reconstruction of the Late Quaternary ? Holocene record of slip on this fault zone will involve: 1) characterization of offset landforms through geomorphic and neotectonic mapping, 2) quantification of fault displacements with high-resolution topographic surveying, and 3) establishing chronologic constraints through cosmogenic radionuclide dating. This reconstruction will provide the first direct comparison with high rates of geodetically measured strain along the Little Lake fault and will elucidate the degree to which strain transients may modulate fault slip and earthquake activity within the Eastern California shear zone. The results of this work will be incorporated into laboratory exercises as part of a larger introductory field geology course aimed at reaching non-science majors at UC Berkeley. Additionally, a series of public, scientific lectures will be presented at the UC White Mountain Research Station in Bishop, CA. These lectures will serve as a vehicle for raising awareness and disseminating information on the local seismic hazards to community members and policy makers at direct risk from earthquakes in the Eastern California shear zone.