Neotectonics across an active oblique-divergent plate margin, SW Gulf of California

Onshore and offshore paleoseismology provides new constraints on late Quaternary to present deformation rates across the SW margin of the Gulf of California plate boundary at the latitude of La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico. The paleoseismology is being conducted in an innovative approach using traditional onshore techniques and CHIRP seismic data in the immediate offshore area on the same fault systems; the CHIRP survey was completed in August, 2008. From west to east the Carrizal, San Juan de los Planes (SJP), and La Gata faults are being studied in detail, and to date the San Jose del Cabo (SJC) fault is being studied in reconnaissance. GPS results suggest rates of motion across the whole array (including the offshore Espiritu Santo and Cerralvo faults) of 1-2 mm/year. Estimated slip rates in the late Quaternary on the Carrizal fault from uplifted marine terraces, mapping, dating units, and two trenches are 0.1 - 0.2 mm/yr. Estimated slip rates from the Los Planes fault is 0.1 to possibly as much as 1 mm/yr. Modern bathymetric data and earthquakes in 1969 (M=5.6) and 1995 (M=6.2) on the Cerralvo and Espiritu Santo faults, respectively, suggest that those faults are much more active than the Carrizal and Los Planes faults. Reconnaissance on the Cabo fault suggests that it was, and possibly remains, a more active fault, perhaps in the range of 0.5 mm/yr. We conclude from the ongoing project that the faulting pattern across the SW margin of the Gulf of California is dominated by a large step from the major Cerralvo and Cabo faults in the south to the NW to the Espiritu Santo fault on the east side of Espiritu Santo Island; these faults define the eastern edge of the narrow shallow marine shelf and the highest onshore mountain range in the southern Baja California peninsula suggesting that they were the major faults that produced the edge of the oblique rift for most or all of its history. The Los Planes - La Gata faults would be the southern splays of the Espiritu Santo fault and part of the larger step over in this interpretation. The Carrizal fault would be a lesser fault that defines the boundary of the main plate boundary zone and runs along the topographic rift escarpment; this relationship of a lesser slip boundary fault and large slip offshore fault is similar to relations on the eastern side of the Gulf of Suez and other rifts.