LITERATURE REVIEW

Literature Review on “Seismic Expressions from Strike Slip Fault Zones”



Literature Review on “Seismic Expressions from Strike Slip Fault Zones”

Seismic reflection profiling across strike-slip faults has revealed a distinct variation in deep crustal structure. Profiles across the San Andreas, Great Glen, and Bray faults depict a near-vertical, reflection-free zone that appears to truncate and in some cases offset reflections interpreted to have originated from the base of the crust. A near-vertical, crustal-penetrating fault zone is suggested for these continental transform faults. In contrast, reflection profiles across intra-plate strike-slip fault systems such as the northern Walker Lane and Garlock faults suggest that they are coupled in the middle crust by sub horizontal detachments. These detachments are inferred from reflections that are traceable below the surface faults without disruption. Such detachments in the middle crust may act to ease the rotation of upper-crustal blocks adjacent to strike-slip fault zones, as observed in paleomagnetic studies. Furthermore, moderately dipping reflections, interpreted to be from the fault zone, project to the surface traces of the northern Walker Lane faults and the frontal faults of the Wichita Uplift, indicating that these strike-slip faults with large components of dip-slip displacement are not vertical but dip moderately into the mid-crust. Although the available data sets are still few, they suggest that there is a primary variation in fault geometry that is related to the different behavior of transform versus intra-plate strike-slip fault systems (Fisher et al. 2007).

Strike-Slip Faults

Strike-slip faults are a result of horizontal movement of Earth's crust. Tectonic forces act on the crust causing one block of crust to move in the opposite direction of the other block of crust. The result of these faults is localized earthquakes along the fault plane. The most familiar area in the world where a strike-slip fault is occurring is the San Andreas Fault in California. Where the coast of southern California is moving northward in comparison to the inland/continental portion of California, eventually the city of Los Angeles will slide northwestward and end up near the San Francisco Bay.

Figure 1: A strike-slip fault is the result of horizontal movement of Earth's crust (Reproduced from Stanford et al. 1993)

The speed of propagation of vibrations depends on elastic constants of rocks and their densities. Seismic methods are studying the time propagation of elastic waves from a point explosion, and a number of seismographs Properly placed to the surface. Times depend on the observed distances traveled that is to say both the distribution of land and their "speed" respectively.

Studies of high recognition in countries are untouched by their speed of work and low cost. This is especially methods using fields of nature: gravity, magnetic methods, and soil. They do not lend themselves to quantitative studies, let alone if one ignores the estate of the land constituting the subsoil and their physical constants. The purpose of these methods is to highlight areas anomalous that is to say areas where the gravity field, for example, is usually ...