Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Precise location of San Andreas Fault tremors near Cholame, California using seismometer clusters: Slip on the deep extension of the fault?

January 1, 2009

We examine a 24-hour period of active San Andreas Fault (SAF) tremor and show that this tremor is largely composed of repeated similar events. Utilizing this similarity, we locate the subset of the tremor with waveforms similar to an identified low frequency earthquake (LFE) "master template," located using P and S wave arrivals to be ???26 km deep. To compensate for low signal-to-noise, we estimate event-pair differential times at "clusters" of nearby stations rather than at single stations. We find that the locations form a near-linear structure in map view, striking parallel to the SAF and near the surface trace. Therefore, we suggest that at least a portion of the tremor occurs on the deep extension of the fault, likely reflecting shear slip, similar to subduction zone tremor. If so, the SAF may extend to the base of the crust, ???10 km below the deepest regular earthquakes on the fault. ?? 2009 by the American Geophysical Union.

Publication Year 2009
Title Precise location of San Andreas Fault tremors near Cholame, California using seismometer clusters: Slip on the deep extension of the fault?
DOI 10.1029/2008GL036367
Authors D.R. Shelly, W.L. Ellsworth, T. Ryberg, C. Haberland, G. S. Fuis, J. Murphy, R.M. Nadeau, R. Burgmann
Publication Type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Series Title Geophysical Research Letters
Index ID 70035969
Record Source USGS Publications Warehouse