The Most Recent Large Earthquake on the Rodgers Creek Fault, San Francisco Bay Area

Hecker, Suzanne; Pantosti, D.; Schwartz, David P.; Hamilton, J. C.; Reidy, Liam; Powers, T.J.

doi:10.1785/0120040134

Cited by 19 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 33 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The reported range in slip per event reflects the range in recurrence interval estimated for the Hayward Fault and Rodgers Creek Fault. The minimum estimates of average slip per event from both models (1.3 m and 1.0 m) are similar to estimates of slip per event derived from paleoseismic data near the southern end of the Rodgers Creek Fault from offset channels in late Holocene alluvial deposits at the Beebe Ranch site (1.8-2.3 m) (Budding et al, 1991;Schwartz et al, 1992) and an offset channel at the Triangle G Ranch site (1.6-3.4 m) (Hecker et al, 2005). The largest surface rupture estimated for the Rodgers Creek Fault at the Beebe Range site (2.8-5.4 m) (Budding et al, 1991) more closely matches the maximum estimates of slip per event from both models (3.9 m and 3.1 m).…”

Section: Seismic Hazard In San Pablo Bay Areasupporting

confidence: 76%

Work Optimization Predicts the Evolution of Extensional Step Overs Within Anisotropic Host Rock: Implications for the San Pablo Bay, CA

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent geophysical imaging indicates that the Hayward Fault hard links to the Rodgers Creek Fault at 5 m depth within the San Pablo Bay, CA, suggesting that earthquakes may be able to rupture continuously through the fault network. To investigate fault propagation, interaction, and linkage in segmented fault networks, including those within the San Pablo Bay, we simulate the development of two idealized, underlapping faults within an extensional step over at seismogenic depths using work optimization. We test the sensitivity of fault growth to strength anisotropy, material heterogeneities, and initial fault geometry. The optimal faults propagate toward each other until linking with the other fault at its tip and form a single hard‐linked transverse fault. These faults propagate with relatively high propagation power or rate of efficiency gain. Less efficient faults form wider basins and develop with reduced propagation power. Models with initial fault geometries that more closely match the shallowly imaged Hayward and Rodgers Creek faults suggest that the faults link at seismogenic depths if a mapped segment of the Rodgers Creek that extends into the San Pablo Bay is currently inactive. Predictions of average slip rate, slip per earthquake, and earthquake magnitude from these models closely match paleoseismic estimates. The hard linkage of the Hayward and Rodgers Creek faults imaged in the near‐surface, and predicted by these models, increases local seismic hazard by increasing the upper limit of throughgoing earthquakes to M 7.6.

show abstract

Section: Seismic Hazard In San Pablo Bay Areasupporting

confidence: 76%

Work Optimization Predicts the Evolution of Extensional Step Overs Within Anisotropic Host Rock: Implications for the San Pablo Bay, CA

2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Paleoseismologic studies suggest that the Rodgers Creek fault is slipping at a rate of 6.4-10.4 mm/year with a rupture recurrence interval of 131-370 year south of Santa Rosa (Budding et al, 1991;Hecker et al, 2005). Recent analyses of InSAR data suggest that the surface creeping rate of the Rodgers Creek fault is at lower rates ranging from 1.9 to 6.7 mm/year north of Santa Rosa (Funning et al, 2007;Jin & Funning, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interseismic Ground Deformation and Fault Slip Rates in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area From Two Decades of Space Geodetic Data

Materna

et al. 2018

JGR Solid Earth

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The detailed spatial variations of strain accumulation and creep on major faults in the northern San Francisco Bay Area (North Bay), which are important for seismic potential and evaluation of natural hazards, remain poorly understood. Here we combine interferometric synthetic aperture radar data from the ERS‐1/2 and Envisat satellites between 1992 and 2010 with continuous and campaign GPS data to obtain a high spatial and temporal coverage of ground deformation of the North Bay. The SAR data from both ascending and descending orbits are combined to separate horizontal and vertical components of the deformation. We jointly invert the horizontal component of the mean velocities derived from these data to infer the deep strike‐slip rates on major locked faults. We use the estimated deep rates to simulate the long‐wavelength deformation due to interseismic elastic strain accumulation along these locked faults. After removing the long‐wavelength signal from the InSAR horizontal mean velocity field, we estimate fault‐parallel surface creep rates of up to 2 mm/year along the central section of the Rodgers Creek fault and surface creep rates ranging between 2 and 4 mm/year along the Concord fault. No surface creep is geodetically resolved along the West Napa and Green Valley fault zones. We identified characteristically repeating earthquakes on the Rodgers Creek fault, the West Napa fault, the Green Valley fault, and the Concord fault. Nontectonic deformation in the Geysers geothermal field and in Late Cenozoic basins (Rohnert Park and Sonoma basins) are also observed, likely due to hydrological and sediment‐compaction processes, respectively.

show abstract

“…However, details of how these processes have affected evolution of the transform boundary and associated basins east of the San Andreas fault are poorly known and data on long-term slip history and kinematic evolution of most of the eastern transform boundary zone faults are largely lacking north of San Francisco Bay, beyond paleoseismic investigations of Holocene faulting or geomorphologic studies (e.g., Prentice and Fenton, 2005;Hecker et al, 2005;Lock et al, 2006). The Rodgers Creek-Maacama fault system is well suited for detailed study of this long-term slip history because of its suggested continuity with the creeping Hayward fault zone south of San Pablo Bay, and because the fault system displaces thick sequences of Neogene volcanic and sedimentary layers that are readily datable and correlatable and useful in working out fault slip histories.…”

Section: Geologic Setting Of the Rodgers Creek-maacama Fault Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Paleoseismology studies since the 1990s along the Rodgers Creek fault zone south of Santa Rosa provide a Holocene slip rate estimate for the southern part of the Rodgers Creek fault zone of 6.4-10.4 mm/yr, with an average rupture recurrence of 131-370 yr (Hecker et al, 2005;Budding et al, 1991). In addition, recent satellite-based permanent scatterer interferometric synthetic aperture radar (PS-InSAR) studies (Funning et al, 2007) suggest that to the northwest and southeast of the Santa Rosa pull-apart basin, the Rodgers Creek fault zone is undergoing as much as 7.5 ± 2.6 mm/yr of shallow creep above a depth of 6 km.…”

Section: Rodgers Creek Fault Zone Slip Ratesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of the Rodgers Creek-Maacama right-lateral fault system and associated basins east of the northward-migrating Mendocino Triple Junction, northern California

et al. 2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Rodgers Creek-Maacama fault system in the northern California Coast Ranges (United States) takes up substantial rightlateral motion within the wide transform boundary between the Pacifi c and NorthAmerican plates, over a slab window that has opened northward beneath the Coast Ranges. The fault system evolved in several right steps and splays preceded and accompanied by extension, volcanism, and strikeslip basin development. Fault and basin geometries have changed with time, in places with younger basins and faults overprinting older structures. Along-strike and successional changes in fault and basin geometry at the southern end of the fault system probably are adjustments to frequent fault zone re organizations in response to Mendocino Triple Junction migration and northward transit of a major releasing bend in the northern San Andreas fault.The earliest Rodgers Creek fault zone displacement is interpreted to have occurred ca. 7 Ma along extensional basin-forming faults that splayed northwest from a westnorthwest proto-Hayward fault zone, opening a transtensional basin west of Santa Rosa. After ca. 5 Ma, the early transtensional basin was compressed and extensional faults were reactivated as thrusts that uplifted the northeast side of the basin. After ca. 2.78 Ma, the Rodgers Creek fault zone again splayed from the earlier extensional and thrust faults to steeper dipping faults with more northnorthwest orientations. In conjunction with the changes in orientation and slip mode, the Rodgers Creek fault zone dextral slip rate increased from ~2-4 mm/yr 7-3 Ma, to 5-8 mm/yr after 3 Ma.The Maacama fault zone is shown from several data sets to have initiated ca. 3.2 Ma and has slipped right-laterally at ~5-8 mm/yr since its initiation. The initial Maacama fault zone splayed northeastward from the south end of the Rodgers Creek fault zone, accompanied by the opening of several strike-slip basins, some of which were later uplifted and compressed during late-stage fault zone re organi zation. The Santa Rosa pull-apart basin formed ca. 1 Ma, during the reorganization of the right stepover geometry of the Rodgers Creek-Maacama fault system, when the maturely evolved overlapping geometry of the northern Rodgers Creek and Maacama fault zones was overprinted by a less evolved, non-overlapping stepover geometry.The Rodgers Creek-Maacama fault system has contributed at least 44-53 km of right-lateral displacement to the East Bay fault system south of San Pablo Bay since 7 Ma, at a minimum rate of 6.1-7.8 mm/yr.

show abstract

The Most Recent Large Earthquake on the Rodgers Creek Fault, San Francisco Bay Area

Cited by 19 publications

References 33 publications

Work Optimization Predicts the Evolution of Extensional Step Overs Within Anisotropic Host Rock: Implications for the San Pablo Bay, CA

Work Optimization Predicts the Evolution of Extensional Step Overs Within Anisotropic Host Rock: Implications for the San Pablo Bay, CA

Interseismic Ground Deformation and Fault Slip Rates in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area From Two Decades of Space Geodetic Data

Evolution of the Rodgers Creek-Maacama right-lateral fault system and associated basins east of the northward-migrating Mendocino Triple Junction, northern California

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About