Seismic Imaging Investigation of the Calaveras Fault in Dunne Memorial Park, Hollister, CA

The Calaveras Fault is a major right-lateral strike-slip fault of the San Andreas Fault system in northern California. The southern Calaveras Fault is an area of active creep, which can be seen in the structural deformation of man-made structures in the town of Hollister. Amplification of the soils may result in significant damage to structures in and around Hollister during large-magnitude earthquakes on either the San Andreas or Calaveras faults. In order to understand the subsurface configuration of the fault we acquired high-resolution, shallow-depth, seismic images of an active strand of the Calaveras Fault along a 156-m-long profile in Dunne Memorial Park, Hollister, California in July 2005. The seismic profile was acquired normal to the strike of the creeping section of the Calaveras Fault where there is evidence of both continuous horizontal displacement and small amounts of vertical displacement, down to the west. The surface expression of the fault includes offset curbs (~ 12 cm), bent retaining walls, swells and cracks in the asphalt pavement, leaning houses, offset fences, and a west-facing scarp. The seismic line consisted of shot points (hammer source) and receivers each spaced every 3 m with 1-m lateral offsets between shot points and receivers. For each shot, we acquired 2 s of data at a sampling rate of 0.5 ms. We developed a 2-D P-wave refraction tomography velocity model along the seismic profile by inverting first-arrival refractions using a modified version of the code by Hole (1992). P-wave velocities range from about 400 m/s near the surface to about 600 m/s at a depth of 10-15 m. We also generated stacked and migrated reflection images of the shallow subsurface, which show vertical offsets of layers and laterally discontinuous layers. Both the velocity model and reflection stack infer multiple east- and west-sloping fault splays. These data suggest a complex three-dimensional geometry for the shallow fault zone along the southern Calaveras fault and displays the fault to be more structurally complex than the single trace seen at the ground surface. This complex geometry and the low near-surface seismic velocities suggest that the damage zone from future earthquakes on the southern Calaveras may be wider than anticipated and seismic waves may be amplified by the low-velocity near-surface soils.