Magnetotelluric data sense the electrical resistivity of the Earth, a physical parameter particularly sensitive to the presence of low resistivity phases such as aqueous fluids, partial melts or metallic compounds. Fluid phases have electrical resistivities orders of magnitude lower than the rock matrix, and thus relatively small amount of fluids, when interconnected, can decrease bulk rock resistivity by several orders of magnitude 9 .Fluids additionally have a significant weakening effect on the rheology of rocks, even more so if fluids form an interconnected network 10 . Measurements of electrical resistivity can therefore be used to constrain the volume of subsurface fluids, their interconnectivity, and the rheology of the crust and mantle.We collected magnetotelluric data along seven profiles across the SAF near Parkfield and Cholame, covering the tremor concentration zone near Cholame and the transition from locked to creeping behaviour (Fig. 1a).The most prominent structure revealed by the MT data is a deep low-resistivity zone (1-5 ohm-m) centred 30-40 km southwest of the SAF below 15-20 km depth (Fig. 1b). This anomaly occupies a broad region in the lower crust and upper mantle between the surface traces of the Rinconada fault, a former strand of the SAF, and the modern-day SAF. Along profiles 4-7, which cross the SAF at the tremor concentration zone near the northern end of the locked segment 5,7 , crustal resistivities are in excess of 500 ohm-m for the profiles 5-7 across the tremor concentration zone near Cholame, the inversion reveals a deep low resistivity region which is bounded from above and laterally by resistive formations (Figs. 1b, 2b). Here, the tremor source region appears to coincide with the high resistivity rocks, adjacent to the less resistive and potential fluid source area. Inversions of the MT data confirm the resistive cap as a very robust feature of the models.Any low resistivity connection into the upper crust (as observed northeast of Parkfield) results in a significant increase of data misfit (see supplementary information).Tremor near Cholame separates spatially into a southwestern zone with periodic tremor episodes and a northeastern zone with aperiodic episodes 7 . Our resistivity models suggest that the fluid source (i.e. low resistivity) is located to the southwest of the periodic tremor zone. Ongoing fluid generation by mantle dehydration reactions 4 could result in high fluid pressures in the low resistivity zone, and consequently, in fluids continuously driven through fracture systems towards and into the more resistive tremor regions.Observations of high seismic reflectivity 21 (cf. Fig. 2b) at tremor source depths between the low resistivity fluid source and the more resistive tremor zone are consistent with deformed and fractured material.Lateral migration of fluids could be responsible for elevated fluid pressures in the tremor source region Tremor amplitudes along the central SAF vary by a factor of seven 6 and correlate with variations of resistivity by a factor ...

The Hangai Dome, Mongolia, is an unusual high-elevation, intra-continental plateau characterized by dispersed, low-volume, intraplate volcanism. Its subsurface structure and its origin remains unexplained, due in part to a lack of highresolution geophysical data. Magnetotelluric data along a ~610 km profile crossing the Hangai Dome were used to generate electrical resistivity models of the crust and upper mantle. The crust is found to be unexpectedly heterogeneous. The upper crust is highly resistive but contains several features interpreted as ancient fluid pathways and fault zones, including the South Hangai fault system and ophiolite belt that is revealed to be a major crustal boundary. South of the Hangai Dome a clear transition in crustal properties is observed which reflects the rheological differences across accreted terranes. The lower crust contains discrete zones of low-resistivity material that indicate the presence of fluids and a weakened lower crust. The upper mantle contains a large low-resistivity zone that is consistent with the presence of partial melt within an asthenospheric upwelling, believed to be driving intraplate volcanism and supporting uplift.

S U M M A R YMagnetotelluric (MT) data from 66 sites along a 45-km-long profile across the San Andreas Fault (SAF) were inverted to obtain the 2-D electrical resistivity structure of the crust near the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD). The most intriguing feature of the resistivity model is a steeply dipping upper crustal high-conductivity zone flanking the seismically defined SAF to the NE, that widens into the lower crust and appears to be connected to a broad conductivity anomaly in the upper mantle. Hypothesis tests of the inversion model suggest that upper and lower crustal and upper-mantle anomalies may be interconnected. We speculate that the high conductivities are caused by fluids and may represent a deep-rooted channel for crustal and/or mantle fluid ascent. Based on the chemical analysis of well waters, it was previously suggested that fluids can enter the brittle regime of the SAF system from the lower crust and mantle. At high pressures, these fluids can contribute to fault-weakening at seismogenic depths. These geochemical studies predicted the existence of a deep fluid source and a permeable pathway through the crust. Our resistivity model images a conductive pathway, which penetrates the entire crust, in agreement with the geochemical interpretation. However, the resistivity model also shows that the upper crustal branch of the high-conductivity zone is located NE of the seismically defined SAF, suggesting that the SAF does not itself act as a major fluid pathway. This interpretation is supported by both, the location of the upper crustal highconductivity zone and recent studies within the SAFOD main hole, which indicate that pore pressures within the core of the SAF zone are not anomalously high, that mantle-derived fluids are minor constituents to the fault-zone fluid composition and that both the volume of mantle fluids and the fluid pressure increase to the NE of the SAF. We further infer from the MT model that the resistive Salinian block basement to the SW of the SAFOD represents an isolated body, being 5-8 km wide and reaching to depths >7 km, in agreement with aeromagnetic data. This body is separated from a massive block of Salinian crust farther to the SW. The NE terminus of resistive Salinian crust has a spatial relationship with a near-vertical zone of increased seismic reflectivity ∼15 km SW of the SAF and likely represents a deep-reaching fault zone.

SUMMARY Central Mongolia is a prominent region of intracontinental surface deformation and intraplate volcanism. To study these processes, which are poorly understood, we collected magnetotelluric (MT) data in the Hangai and Gobi-Altai region in central Mongolia and derived the first 3-D resistivity model of the crustal and upper mantle structure in this region. The geological and tectonic history of this region is complex, resulting in features over a wide range of spatial scales, which that are coupled through a variety of geodynamic processes. Many Earth properties that are critical for the understanding of these processes, such as temperature as well as fluid and melt properties, affect the electrical conductivity in the subsurface. 3-D imaging using MT can resolve the distribution of electrical conductivity within the Earth at scales ranging from tens of metres to hundreds of kilometres, thereby providing constraints on possible geodynamic scenarios. We present an approach to survey design, data acquisition, and inversion that aims to bridge various spatial scales while keeping the required field work and computational cost of the subsequent 3-D inversion feasible. MT transfer functions were estimated for a 650 × 400 km2 grid, which included measurements on an array with regular 50 × 50 km2 spacing and along several profiles with a denser 5–15 km spacing. The use of telluric-only data loggers on these profiles allowed for an efficient data acquisition with a high spatial resolution. A 3-D finite element forward modelling and inversion code was used to obtain the resistivity model. Locally refined unstructured hexahedral meshes allow for a multiscale model parametrization and accurate topography representation. The inversion process was carried out over four stages, whereby the result from each stage was used as input for the following stage that included a finer model parametrization and/or additional data (i.e. more stations, wider frequency range). The final model reveals a detailed resistivity structure and fits the observed data well, across all periods and site locations, offering new insights into the subsurface structure of central Mongolia. A prominent feature is a large low-resistivity zone detected in the upper mantle. This feature suggests a non-uniform lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary that contains localized upwellings that shallow to a depth of 70 km, consistent with previous studies. The 3-D model reveals the complex geometry of the feature, which appears rooted below the Eastern Hangai Dome with a second smaller feature slightly south of the Hangai Dome. Within the highly resistive upper crust, several conductive anomalies are observed. These may be explained by late Cenozoic volcanic zones and modern geothermal areas, which appear linked to mantle structures, as well as by major fault systems, which mark terrane boundaries and mineralized zones. Well resolved, heterogeneous low-resistivity zones that permeate the lower crust may be explained by fluid-rich domains.

S U M M A R YWe examine the magnetotelluric (MT) impedance tensor from the viewpoint of polarization states of the electric and magnetic field. In the presence of a regional 2-D conductivity anomaly, a linearly polarized homogeneous external magnetic field will generally produce secondary electromagnetic fields, which are elliptically polarized. If and only if the primary magnetic field vector oscillates parallel or perpendicular to the 2-D structure, will the horizontal components of the secondary fields at any point of the surface also be linearly polarized. When smallscale inhomogeneities galvanically distort the electric field at the surface, only field rotations and amplifications are observed, while the ellipticity remains unchanged. Thus, the regional strike direction can be identified from vanishing ellipticities of electric and magnetic fields even in presence of distortion. In practice, the MT impedance tensor is analysed rather than the fields themselves. It turns out, that a pair of linearly polarized magnetic and electric fields produces linearly polarized columns of the impedance tensor. As the linearly polarized electric field components generally do not constitute an orthogonal basis, the telluric vectors, i.e. the columns of the impedance tensor, will be non-orthogonal. Their linear polarization, however, is manifested in a common phase for the elements of each column of the tensor and is a well-known indication of galvanic distortion. In order to solve the distortion problem, the telluric vectors are fully parametrized in terms of ellipses and subsequently rotated to the coordinate system in which their ellipticities are minimized. If the minimal ellipticities are close to zero, the existence of a (locally distorted) regional 2-D conductivity anomaly may be assumed. Otherwise, the tensor suggests the presence of a strong 3-D conductivity distribution. In the latter case, a coordinate system is often found, in which three elements have a strong amplitude, while the amplitude of the forth, which is one of the main-diagonal elements, is small. In terms of our ellipse parametrization, this means, that one of the ellipticities of the two telluric vectors approximately vanishes, while the other one may not be neglected as a result of the 3-D response. The reason for this particular characteristic is found in an approximate relation between the polarization state of the telluric vector with vanishing ellipticity and the corresponding horizontal electric field vector in the presence of a shallow conductive structure, across which the perpendicular and tangential components of the electric field obey different boundary conditions.