Local Thrust Faulting Along the Southern Hayward Fault in Fremont, California

Abstract:

The southern Hayward fault is an active, northwest-striking, right lateral strike slip fault within the densely populated eastern San Francisco Bay area. Recent subsurface investigation along the southern Hayward fault has revealed unexpectedly complex deformation between subparallel fault traces. In the city of Fremont, the southern Hayward fault crosses Mission Boulevard (MB) as three parallel to subparallel traces, the eastern, central, and western traces. Recent exploratory trenches excavated near MB by another consultant and logged by the authors revealed that the western and central traces of the Hayward fault are nearly parallel with limited secondary deformation between them. However, along strike farther to the northwest, abundant secondary deformation in the form of multiple northeast-dipping thrust faults was encountered in the exploratory trenches. The thrust faults locally place Plio-Pleistocene Irvington Gravels Formation over slope wash deposits and Bk horizon soils, implying late Quaternary activity.

Field reconnaissance and review of historical aerial photographs that pre-date urbanization revealed no geomorphic evidence of landslides in the vicinity of the identified thrust faults, and subsurface investigation did not identify evidence of a landslide graben on the upper slope. Slope inclinations in this area are mostly low to moderate (6° to 12°) with few steeper inclinations (up to 20°). Thus, these compressional structures appear to be unrelated to landsliding.

Our working hypothesis for the origin of the thrust faults northwest of MB involves compression related to a small left step along the central trace. This left step corresponds closely to the location of the observed thrust faults. The resulting compression is manifest as a series of thrust faults that do not appear to continue north or south of the step over region.