Paleomagnetic Data From the Rinconada Fault in Central California: Evidence for Off-fault Deformation

The Rinconada fault is one of three major sub-parallel faults of the San Andreas fault system in central California. The fault has 18 km of dextral displacement since the Pliocene and up to 60 km of total displacement for the Tertiary. A fold and thrust best is well developed in Miocene and younger sedimentary rocks on either side of the Rinconada fault. We sampled ~150 sites from the Miocene Monterey Formation within this fold and thrust belt, a unit that is often used in regional paleomagnetic studies. The sites were located within 15 km of the fault trace along a segment of the Rinconada fault that stretches from Greenfield to Paso Robles. Because this unit was deposited while the San Andreas fault system was active at this latitude, any deformation recorded by these rocks is related to plate boundary deformation. Unlike the large (>90°) rotations observed in the Transverse Ranges to the south, vertical axis rotations adjacent to the Rinconada fault are smaller (<15°) and vary with distance from the fault as well as along strike. Thus, the model for rotations from the Transverse Ranges, where large fault-bound panels rotate within a system of conjugate strike-slip faults, does not apply for this region in central California. Instead, we believe rotations occur in small fault blocks and the magnitude of rotation may be affected by local parameters such as fault geometries, specific rock types, and structural complexities. One implication of these vertical axis rotations adjacent to the Riconada fault is that off-fault regions are accommodating some of the fault-parallel plate motion. This is important for our understanding of the partitioning of plate boundary deformation in California.