Structural and Geochemical Characterization of Fault-related Deformation in the Northeastern Block of the Southern San Andreas Fault, Mecca Hills, Southern California

Abstract:

We examine the structure and composition of several subsidiary NE-trending faults of the Southern San Andreas Fault (SSAF) within the Mecca Hills, southern California. The Hidden Springs, Platform, Eagle Canyon and related smaller faults are part of a positive flower structure that forms a broad zone of fault-related damage within the northeastern block of the SSAF. Here active creep is localized along the main trace of SSAF during the interseismic period. Exhumed exposures span a wide-range of rock types and fault-related rocks and juxtapose Tertiary to Quaternary sedimentary rocks against variable aged crystalline and meta-sedimentary rocks.

Detailed characterization of the textural, compositional, and geochemical aspects of the fault-related rocks, and analyses of variations across the 2 faults and related damage zones use a combination of field, microstructural, XRD, XRF, SEM, and isotope methods. Evidence for multiple episodes of slip and fluid flow with a wide range of orientations and amounts of slip is recorded by the geometry and distribution of slip surfaces, cataclasite, reworked cataclasite, deformed and reworked veins, multiple generations of breccia, iron oxide stained gouge, and hematite coated fracture and slip surfaces. Alteration phases vary between fault surfaces and may include chlorite-serpentine, clays (±illite, ±palygorskite), quartz, calcite, ankerite, zeolites, iron oxides, and/or sulfides, or some combination thereof, suggestive of complex fluid-rock reactions. Millimeter-thin slip surfaces within the crystalline rocks consist of plastically deformed and highly sheared calcite. Major vein systems include a predominately north-northwest striking quartz set, a north-south striking calcite set, and an east-west striking calcite set, where locally these sets are complexly interwoven, finely interlayered with other minerals, and/or brecciated rocks. Slip lineations on fault surfaces 1-5 m² with calcite±clay coated surfaces exhibit multiple orientations, or are continuous around 90° fault bends, indicating heterogeneous stresses at the fault surface scale.

The scale of variations in structural complexity and rock properties of the SSAF are important input parameters for developing realistic models for the attenuation of near fault wave amplification.