Tentative integration of paleoseismic data from lake sediments and from nearby trenches: the central section of the Boconó Fault (northern Venezuela)

Abstract

The right-lateral strike slip Boconó Fault (Mérida Andes, northern Venezuela) accommodates an important part of the South-American Plate northern transform boundary. Along its central portion, preserved post-LMG lake fills are intersected by two surface-reaching active traces which could be trenched just beside. Outcropping and cored lacustrine sedimentary archives are combined with trench data in order to achieve a Holocene paleoseismicity record for a 7 km-long segment. For lakes sediments, several types of sedimentary “events” were taken into account as co-seismic: mass wasting on deltaic foreset, liquefaction and slumping, reflected tsunami effects, re-suspension, abrupt change in sedimentary dynamics and sources, abrupt emptying and lake surface changes. Time coincidences between two lacustrine archives and two trenches can be proposed for the last 10 kyr BP. Among a total of 24 events, 13 events are detected in two sites, 3 events in 3 sites. 9 possible correlations concern separate traces while 4 concern the same trace; a relay between the activity of the two traces is also deduced. This combination of surveys both reinforces and completes the trenches results, leading to a better knowledge of local to regional seismic hazard. Nevertheless, the total information results probably incomplete and/or biased. The co-seismic origin of lacustrine fills disturbances evidenced but the associated archive is incomplete and/or biased due to: changing recording potential through time, possible impacts by strong distant earthquakes. Trenches data appear to fill lacustrine “gaps” but with a number of events possibly overestimated if all ruptures and associated 14C data are considered as representing separated earthquakes.