Airborne and terrestrial lidar imaging and analysis of the 4 April 2010 El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake rupture

We report newly available data sets and preliminary analysis of ground- and airborne-lidar surveys of the 4 April 2010 El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake rupture. The hyperarid setting and varied surficial geology of this complex rupture zone presents an ideal setting to advance the use of lidar in post-earthquake scientific response. Terrestrial lidar surveys commenced within two weeks of the earthquake and capture ephemeral geomorphic features of the rupture zone. We recorded approximately 2 km of rupture on the Borrego fault where oblique dextral slip approaches four meters. These data highlight fine-scale features such as centimeter-scale scarps, subtle warping of the ground surface, and striations on the exposed fault free-face. Airborne lidar surveys, collected mid-August, 2010, span the rupture zone for 100 km in a NW-SE direction, from just south of the international border to the tidal flats of the Colorado River delta at the head of the Gulf of California. 3.8 billion point measurements were obtained with an average density of 11 points per square meter. GPS ground control was provided from a combination of PBO stations north of the border and coordination with the occupation of post-earthquake campaign sites in the central and southern portions of the rupture zone. The 3 km average width of the survey captures the complexity of strain-transfer between the multiple fault segments that slipped in 2010, as well as the adjacent zone of surface ruptures attributed to the 1892 Laguna Salada earthquake. This data set provides a new basis for offset measurements to be compared against field data collected immediately following the 2010 earthquake. Quantitative comparison to lower-resolution, pre-event lidar collected by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI) illuminates near-field distributed vertical deformation adjacent to the fault rupture. The southeastern half of the lidar survey spans a zone of cryptic dextral deformation, hosted within the thick sedimentary fill, where little surface evidence of tectonic deformation has been recovered to date. Here the lidar reveals a few linear zones of warping and minor surface ruptures that are likely faults. However the majority of dextral slip here appears to have been absorbed by distributed deformation of the sediments.