Collaborative Research: Three-dimensional Onshore-Offshore MT Investigation of Cascadia Margin--Interpretation Phase

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The principal goal of this project is to understand the distribution of water deep in the Earth along the northwest margin of North America, where the subduction of the Juan de Fuca oceanic plate beneath the continent has produced devastating mega-thrust earthquakes in the geologic past. Water trapped between the subducting plate and overlying continent is hypothesized to play an important role in controlling the occurrence and magnitude of these earthquakes, as well as other modes of crust and mantle deformation in the region. This study uses electromagnetic geophysical data that was collected recently with an onshore-offshore array of sensors covering the Oregon and Washington continental margin, to construct a three-dimensional image of crust and mantle electrical conductivity. Since this physical property is sensitive to the concentration of fluids in the Earth, our results will provide unique constraints on spatial variations of fluids and physical state. This information will be integrated into comprehensive seismic hazard models derived from the wealth of geophysical and geological studies in this region. A secondary goal of this project is to develop robust modeling software for the three-dimensional interpretation of large-scale onshore-offshore electromagnetic array data, something that has rarely, if ever, been attempted to date. The tools and methods developed through this project will have broad application to future amphibious electromagnetic studies for tectonic imaging, as well as amphibious commercial electromagnetic surveys for energy and mineral exploration.There is now considerable evidence that fluids play an important role in the relatively recently discovered phenomenon of episodic tremor and slip. At the least, fluids control rheological properties in the subducting and overriding plates and reduce effective normal stress along the plate interface; more speculatively fluids may be critical to episodic tremor and slip dynamics through mechanisms which range from permeability pumping and hydrofracturing, to rate-and-state dependent frictional slip. Dipping low seismic velocity layers along the plate interface, and regions of low Vp/Vs ratios that can only be explained by over-pressured fluids, further implicate fluids in the subduction megathrust cycle. Magnetotelluric data are highly sensitive to the presence and connectivity of fluids, and thus represent an ideal geophysical tool for imaging this critical component of the system. Approximately 150 magnetotelluric sites (half onshore and half offshore) collected in a recent NSF funded campaign across the Oregon and southern Washington margin, combined with data from the EarthScope program (transportable and flex array) and legacy data from the region, represent a unique dataset for a detailed study of fluids in a subduction zone setting. The main focus of this project is a complete analysis and three dimensional inversion of this merged amphibious magnetotelluric dataset, imaging the distribution of fluids from the incoming plate to near the magmatic arc. The availability of offshore data will allow improved understanding of poorly understood but critical details, such as fluid inputs at the trench, their impacts on the ?locked zone? between the two plates, and the distribution of fluids released from the down-going slab, including along the transitional zone where episodic tremor and slip occurs. The relatively dense three dimensional array coverage will greatly refine our understanding of margin segmentation, resolving the structure and fluid distribution along the Siletzia and Klamath provinces and the relationship of these to the spatial pattern of episodic tremor and slip. The project will also lead to development of improved methodologies and tools for three dimensional interpretation of amphibious magnetotelluric datasets, which will be of value to ongoing and planned initiatives for studies of continental margins, and will help support training of the next generation of interdisciplinary electromagnetic researchers.