Examining the mechanical behavior and evolution of the southern San Andreas fault system through determination of late Quaternary slip rates and distinct element simulations

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Dr. Kimberly Blisniuk has been awarded an NSF Earth Science Post Doctoral Fellowship to carry out a research and education plan at University of California at Berkeley. She will study how deformation within continental strike-slip fault systems is partitioned along and across individual fault strands and fault zones over 1,000s to 100,000s year timescales. More specifically, the project is aimed at understanding the kinematic and mechanical evolution of the San Andreas Fault System in southern California by: (1) mapping offset landforms through wavelet analysis of high-resolution topography data and geologic fieldwork, (2) dating displaced landforms to obtain precise estimates of fault slip rates at multiple time scales by applying terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide exposure age dating of surface clasts and U-series dating of pedogenic carbonate coatings on subsurface clasts, and (3) using those observations to formulate first-order distinct element models simulating the behavior and interactions of faults observed in the field.A particularly promising aspect of this study is that cosmogenic nuclide dating and U-series dating are relatively new dating methods that can be used to reliably date late Quaternary sediments and landforms measurably offset along active faults. Prior to the development of these methods, the dating of fault motion has only been possible at the time scales of geodetic and paleoseismological studies, typically years to thousands of years, or from total displacements of geological units over hundreds of thousands to millions of years. As these new dating techniques permit the dating of fault displacements at time scales of thousands to several hundreds of thousands of years, they provide the "missing link" that existed in geochronologic studies of fault systems. Accordingly, detailed studies of fault systems during this time interval combined with mechanical models that mimic the behavior of faults observed in the field can reveal previously unrecognized aspects of fault mechanics and fault system evolution. Such information can be used to refine and improve models for earthquake recurrence used in assessing seismic hazards. This fellowship will not only develop K. Blisniuk's skills as a researcher but it will also further her skills as an educator through her co-teaching of upper division geology courses and mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students in neotectonic and geochronologic studies at the University of California, Berkeley.