Geophysics and Tectonics Seminar fall-2021

The Salton Trough is a natural laboratory for the study of earthquake sequences and fault interaction, as well as the study of fault zones and their associated damage structure. Sediments associated with ancient Lake Cahuilla, which filled the Trough six times in the past 1100 years, can be correlated around the basin and cross elements of many of the major faults of the southern San Andreas fault (SAF) system. High precision dating of the lakes allows for placing the earthquakes into a regional sequence. Depending on their occurrence before, during or after individual lakes, which allows for a precision of dating that is far beyond the simple correlation of earthquakes based on radiocarbon dating alone. The Salton Trough is also a hyper-arid region with little to no soil cover, which allows for the natural exposure of the fault core and damage zone of most elements of the SAF system. This talk will be an update on the ages of the late Holocene lakes, the recalculation of ages of the larger regional earthquakes, and their sequence of occurrence, with discussion on fault damage structure and extent and its possible relationship to Mmax.