Location and Shallow Structure of the Frijoles Strand of the San Gregorio Fault Zone, Pescadero, California

The San Gregorio fault is one of the principal faults of the San Andreas fault system in the San Francisco Bay area. Located west of the active trace of the San Andreas fault and near the coast, the San Gregorio fault zone consists of at least two northwest-southeast-trending strands, the Coastways and Frijoles faults. Little is known about the slip history on the San Gregorio, and information for the Frijoles fault is especially scarce, as it lies mostly offshore. To better understand the contribution of the San Gregorio fault zone to slip along the San Andreas fault system, we conducted a high-resolution, seismic imaging investigation of the Frijoles fault to locate near-surface, onshore, branches of the fault that may be suitable for paleoseismic trenching. Our seismic survey consisted of a 590-meter-long, east-west-trending, combined seismic reflection and refraction profile across Butano Creek Valley, in Pescadero, California. The profile included 107 shot points and 120 geophones spaced at 5-m increments. Seismic sources were generated by a Betsy Seisgun in 0.3-m-deep holes. Data were recorded on two Geometrics Strataview RX-60 seismographs at a sampling rate of 0.5 ms. Seismic p-wave velocities, determined by inverting first-arrival refractions using tomographic methods, ranged from 900 m/s in the shallow subsurface to 5000 m/s at 200 m depth, with higher velocities in the western half of the profile. Migrated seismic reflection images show clear, planar layering in the top 100-200 meters on the eastern and western ends of the seismic profile. However, to within the shallow subsurface, a 200-m-long zone near the center of the profile shows disturbed stratigraphic layers with several apparent fault strands approaching within a few meters of the surface. The near-surface locations of the imaged strands suggest that the Frijoles fault has been active in the recent past, although further paleoseismic study is needed to detail the slip history of the San Gregorio in this area.