Offset of Latest Pleistocene Shoreface Reveals Slip Rate on the Hosgri Strike-Slip Fault, Offshore Central California

Abstract:

The Hosgri fault is the southern part of the regional Hosgri-San Gregorio dextral strike-slip fault system, which extends primarily in the offshore region for about 400 km in central California. Between Morro Bay and San Simeon, high-resolution multibeam bathymetry reveals that the eastern strand of the Hosgri fault is crossed by a ~265-m-wide slope interpreted as the shoreface of a relict sand spit that formed during a period of relatively slower sea-level rise (Younger Dryas stadial) in the latest Pleistocene. This sand spit crossed an embayment and connected a western fault-bounded bedrock peninsula and an eastern bedrock highland, a paleogeography similar to modern geomorphology along coastal segments of the San Andreas fault. Detailed analysis of the relict shoreface with slope profiles and slope maps indicates a lateral slip rate of 2.6 ± 0.9 mm/yr. Because the Hosgri fault locally includes an active western strand, and regionally converges with several other faults, this slip rate should be considered a minimum for the Hosgri fault in central California and should not be applied for the entire Hosgri-San Gregorio fault system. This slip rate indicates that the Hosgri system takes up the largest share of the strike-slip fault budget and is the most active strike-slip fault west of the San Andreas fault in central California. This result further demonstrates the value and potential of high-resolution bathymetry in earthquake-hazard characterization of active offshore faults.