Effect of the Loma Prieta Earthquake on surface slip along the Calaveras Fault in the Hollister area

Abstract

Over the past ten years we have made over 800 measurements of slip rates at 20 sites on various faults in the San Francisco Bay region. This data set enables us to compare rates and amounts of slip on these various faults before and after the Loma Prieta earthquake (LPEQ) on the San Andreas fault. No surface slip rate changes associated with the earthquake occurred at any of our sites on the San Andreas, Hayward, northern Calaveras, Concord‐Green Valley, Seal Cove‐San Gregorio, Antioch, Rodgers Creek, or West Napa faults. The LPEQ apparently triggered up to 12–14 mm of right slip on the southern Calaveras fault at our two sites in the Hollister area less than 50 km from the epicenter. Most of this slip was probably coseismic or nearly so. About the same amount of slip was triggered at these sites in 1984 by the Morgan Hill earthquake. This slip, in contrast, occurred as afterslip within about a 2.5‐month interval. The Calaveras fault in the Hollister area moves episodically, with shorter times of more rapid slip alternating with longer times of slower slip. The alternation occurs whether or not the times of faster slip are triggered by any nearby seismic event(s).