Identifying elusive piercing points along the North American transform margin using mixture modeling of detrital zircon data from sedimentary units and their crystalline sources

Abstract

The San Gabriel and Canton faults represent early stages in the development of the San Andreas fault system. However, questions of timing of initiation and magnitude of slip on these structures remain unresolved, with published estimates ranging from 42 to 75 km and likely starting in the Miocene. This uncertainty in slip history reflects an absence of appropriate piercing points. We attempt to better constrain the slip history on these faults by quantifying the changing proportions of source terranes contributing sediment to the Ventura Basin, California, through the Cenozoic, including refining data for a key piercing point. Ventura Basin sediments show an increase in detrital zircon U-Pb dates and mineral abundances associated with crystalline sources in the northern San Gabriel Mountains through time, which we interpret to record the northwest translation of the basin by dextral strike-slip faulting. In particular, an Oligocene unit mapped as part of the extra-regional Sespe Formation instead has greater affinity to the Vasquez Formation. Specifically, the presence of a unimodal population of approximately 1180 Ma zircon, high (57%) plagioclase content, and proximal alluvial fan facies indicate that the basin was adjacent to the San Gabriel anorthosite during deposition of the Vasquez Formation, requiring 35 to 60 km of slip on the San Gabriel-Canton fault system. Mixture modeling of detrital zircon data supported by automated mineralogy highlights the importance of this piercing point along the San Gabriel-Canton fault system and suggests that fault slip began during the late Oligocene to early Miocene, which is earlier than published models. These two lines of evidence disagree with recent models that estimate greater than 60 km of offset, requiring a reappraisal of the slip history of an early strand of the San Andreas transform zone.