HOME





Brawley Seismic Zone
The Brawley Seismic Zone (BSZ), also known as the Brawley fault zone, is a predominantly extensional tectonic zone that connects the southern terminus of the San Andreas Fault with the Imperial Fault in Southern California. The BSZ is named for the nearby town of Brawley in Imperial County, California, and the seismicity there is characterized by earthquake swarms. Geology The Brawley Seismic Zone represents the northernmost extension of the spreading center axis associated with the East Pacific Rise which runs up the axis of the Gulf of California and is in the process of rifting the Baja California peninsula away from the mainland of Mexico, with significant subsidence taking place at southern California's Salton Sea and at Laguna Salada in Baja California. Other major locations along the axis include the Cerro Prieto spreading center located south of Mexicali, and Wagner Basin (a submarine depression in the Gulf of California). The Salton Buttes on the south shore of t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Transform Fault
A transform fault or transform boundary, is a fault (geology), fault along a plate boundary where the motion (physics), motion is predominantly Horizontal plane, horizontal. It ends abruptly where it connects to another plate boundary, either another transform, a spreading ridge, or a subduction, subduction zone. A transform fault is a special case of a ''strike-slip fault'' that also forms a plate boundary. Most such faults are found in oceanic crust, where they accommodate the lateral offset between segments of Divergent boundary, divergent boundaries, forming a zigzag pattern. This results from oblique seafloor spreading where the direction of motion is not perpendicular to the trend of the overall divergent boundary. A smaller number of such faults are found on land, although these are generally better-known, such as the San Andreas Fault and North Anatolian Fault. Nomenclature Transform boundaries are also known as conservative plate boundaries because they involve no addit ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal region includes Greater Los Angeles (the second-most populous urban agglomeration in the United States) and San Diego County (the second-most populous county in California). The region generally contains ten of California's 58 counties: Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles, San Diego County, California, San Diego, Orange County, California, Orange, Riverside County, California, Riverside, San Bernardino County, California, San Bernardino, Kern County, California, Kern, Ventura County, California, Ventura, Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo County, California, San Luis Obispo, and Imperial County, California, Imperial counties. Although geographically smaller than Northern California in land area, Southern ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Geothermal Activity
Geothermal activity is a group of natural heat transfer processes, occurring on Earth's surface, caused by the presence of excess heat in the subsurface of the affected area, usually caused by the presence of an igneous intrusion underground. Geothermal activity can manifest itself in a variety of different phenomena, including, among others, elevated surface temperatures, various forms of hydrothermal activity, and the presence of Fumarole, fumaroles that emit hot Volcanic gas, volcanic gases. Background physics Geothermal activity mostly appears in volcanic provinces, where it is fueled by the presence of a magma chamber. In some rare cases it can be caused by Coal-seam fire, underground fires or by large deposits of radioactive elements. Other sources of internal heating can be Planetary differentiation, gravitational differentiation of substances, tidal friction, metamorphism, or phase transitions. The release of heat to the surface occurs either in the form of a conductive h ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Volcanic
A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates are diverging or converging, and because most of Earth's plate boundaries are underwater, most volcanoes are found underwater. For example, a mid-ocean ridge, such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, has volcanoes caused by divergent tectonic plates whereas the Pacific Ring of Fire has volcanoes caused by convergent tectonic plates. Volcanoes resulting from divergent tectonic activity are usually non-explosive whereas those resulting from convergent tectonic activity cause violent eruptions."Mid-ocean ridge tectonics, volcanism and geomorphology." Geology 26, no. 455 (2001): 458. https://macdonald.faculty.geol.ucsb.edu/papers/Macdonald%20Mid-Ocean%20Ridge%20Tectonics.pdf Volcanoes can also form where there is stretching a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Salton Buttes
The Salton Buttes are a group of volcanoes in Southern California, on the Salton Sea. They consist of a row of five lava domes, named Mullet Island, North Red Hill, Obsidian Butte, Rock Hill, and South Red Hill. They are closely associated with a fumarolic field and a geothermal field, and there is evidence of buried volcanoes underground. In pre-modern times, Obsidian Butte was an important regional source of obsidian. The Salton Buttes lie within the Salton Trough, a tectonic depression formed by the San Andreas Fault and the San Jacinto Faults. The depression forms the northward extension of the Gulf of California, and is separated from it by the Colorado River Delta. A number of geothermal and volcanic features are located in the area, which is a region of active seafloor spreading. While the Salton Buttes were formerly considered to be of the late Pleistocene epoch (which ended with the end of the last glacial maximum), newer dating efforts have determined that all o ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Western Washington University
Western Washington University (WWU or Western) is a public university in Bellingham, Washington, United States. The northernmost university in the contiguous United States, WWU was founded in 1893 as the state-funded New Whatcom Normal School, succeeding a private school of teaching for women founded in 1886. The university adopted its present name in 1977. WWU offers bachelor degree, bachelor's and master degree, master's degrees and a few doctorates. , there were 14,747 students, 13,801 of whom were Undergraduate education, undergraduate students, and 664 full-time faculty. Its athletic teams are known as the Western Washington Vikings, Vikings, which compete in NCAA Division II, Division II of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The main campus is located on 215 acres in Bellingham. WWU also operates a marine center in Anacortes, Washington, Anacortes and academic locations in Everett, Washington, Everett and the Olympic Peninsula, Olympic and Kitsap Peninsula, Kits ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Wagner Basin
Wagner Basin is a submarine depression in the far northern part of the Gulf of California. The basin is currently tectonically active. It is the northernmost underwater depression associated with the East Pacific Rise The East Pacific Rise (EPR) is a mid-ocean rise (usually termed an oceanic rise and not a mid-ocean ridge due to its higher rate of spreading that results in less elevation increase and more regular terrain), at a divergent tectonic plate bound ... and is located near the southern end of the Cerro Prieto fault. The depression is a result of subsidence caused by the extensional forces imparted by a spreading center. The Wagner Basin is bounded on its eastern side by the Wagner Fault, a primarily normal (vertical motion) fault which dips approximately 60 degrees to the northwest. The western side of the basin is bounded by another normal fault, the Consag Fault which dips in a direction opposite the Wagner Fault. The seabed between these faults is sinking. The bas ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Cerro Prieto Fault
The Cerro Prieto Fault is a transform fault located in far northern Baja California. It runs between the Cerro Prieto spreading center located southwest of Mexicali, and the Wagner Basin, another spreading center which lies under the Gulf of California. These spreading centers are part of the East Pacific Rise, the northern leg of which has formed the Gulf of California by steadily rifting the Baja California peninsula away from the mainland of Mexico. Seismic studies indicate a linear trend of hypocenter A hypocenter or hypocentre (), also called ground zero or surface zero, is the point on the Earth's surface directly below a nuclear explosion, meteor air burst, or other mid-air explosion. In seismology, the hypocenter of an earthquake is its ...s to the northwest of Cerro Prieto which is interpreted as a continuation of the Cerro Prieto Fault some 45 km to the northwest across the international border about 7 km into southern California.Magistrale, Harold, '' ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Subsidence
Subsidence is a general term for downward vertical movement of the Earth's surface, which can be caused by both natural processes and human activities. Subsidence involves little or no horizontal movement, which distinguishes it from slope movement. Processes that lead to subsidence include dissolution of underlying carbonate rock by groundwater; gradual compaction of sediments; withdrawal of fluid lava from beneath a solidified crust of rock; mining; pumping of subsurface fluids, such as groundwater or petroleum; or warping of the Earth's crust by tectonic forces. Subsidence resulting from tectonic deformation of the crust is known as tectonic subsidence and can create accommodation for sediments to accumulate and eventually lithify into sedimentary rock. Ground subsidence is of global concern to geologists, geotechnical engineers, surveyors, engineers, urban planners, landowners, and the public in general.National Research Council, 1991. ''Mitigating losses from land ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Mexico
Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundary, maritime boundaries with the Pacific Ocean to the west, the Caribbean Sea to the southeast, and the Gulf of Mexico to the east. Mexico covers 1,972,550 km2 (761,610 sq mi), and is the List of countries by area, thirteenth-largest country in the world by land area. With a population exceeding 130 million, Mexico is the List of countries by population, tenth-most populous country in the world and is home to the Hispanophone#Countries, largest number of native Spanish speakers. Mexico City is the capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city, which ranks among the List of cities by population, most populous metropolitan areas in the world. Human presence in Mexico dates back to at least 8,000 BC. Mesoamerica, considered a cradle ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Rift
In geology, a rift is a linear zone where the lithosphere is being pulled apart and is an example of extensional tectonics. Typical rift features are a central linear downfaulted depression, called a graben, or more commonly a half-graben with normal faulting and rift-flank uplifts mainly on one side. Where rifts remain above sea level they form a rift valley, which may be filled by water forming a rift lake. The axis of the rift area may contain volcanic rocks, and active volcanism is a part of many, but not all, active rift systems. Major rifts occur along the central axis of most mid-ocean ridges, where new oceanic crust and lithosphere is created along a divergent boundary between two tectonic plates. ''Failed rifts'' are the result of continental rifting that failed to continue to the point of break-up. Typically the transition from rifting to spreading develops at a triple junction where three converging rifts meet over a hotspot. Two of these evolve to t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]