A High shear stress segment along the San Andreas Fault: Inferences based on near-field stress direction and stress magnitude observations in the Carrizo Plain Area

摘要

Nearly 200 new in-situ determinations of stress directions and stress magnitudes near the Carrizo plain segment of the San Andreas fault indicate a marked change in stress state occurring within 20 km of this principal transform plate boundary. A natural consequence of this stress transition is that if the observed near-field ``fault-oblique`` stress directions are representative of the fault stress state, the Mohr-Coulomb shear stresses resolved on San Andreas sub-parallel planes are substantially greater than previously inferred based on fault-normal compression. Although the directional stress data and near-hydrostatic pore pressures, which exist within 15 km of the fault, support a high shear stress environment near the fault, appealing to elevated pore pressures in the fault zone (Byerlee-Rice Model) merely enhances the likelihood of shear failure. These near-field stress observations raise important questions regarding what previous stress observations have actually been measuring. The ``fault-normal`` stress direction measured out to 70 km from the fault can be interpreted as representing a comparable depth average shear strength of the principal plate boundary. Stress measurements closer to the fault reflect a shallower depth-average representation of the fault zone shear strength. If this is true, only stress observations at fault distances comparable to the seismogenic depth will be representative of the fault zone shear strength. This is consistent with results from dislocation monitoring where there is pronounced shear stress accumulation out to 20 km of the fault as a result of aseismic slip within the lower crust loading the upper locked section. Beyond about 20 km, the shear stress resolved on San Andreas fault-parallel planes becomes negligible. 65 refs., 15 figs.