GPS constraints on deformation in northern Central America from 1999 to 2017, Part 2: Block rotations and fault slip rates, fault locking and distributed deformation

Ellis, A. P.; DeMets, Charles; McCaffrey, Robert J.; Briole, Pierre; Cosenza-Muralles, B; Flores, Omar; Guzmán-Speziale, Marco; Hernández, Daniela; Kostoglodov, V.; LaFemina, Peter; Lord, N. E.; Lasserre, Cécile; Lyon‐Caen, H.; Maradiaga, Manuel Rodriguez; Molina, Emilio; Rivera, Jeffrey; Rogers, Robert D.; Staller, Alejandra; Tikoff, Basil

doi:10.1093/gji/ggz173

Cited by 24 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…Or that the Polochic Fault was the major fault of the plate boundary (Scenario 2; Figure 10b) with the combination of the Motagua Fault and the Jocotán-Chamelecón Faults accommodating the remaining 6-7 mm/yr of relative North America-Caribbean plate motion. This is in clear contradiction to the modern-day slip rates of ~3 mm/yr on the Polochic Fault (Ellis et al, 2019;Franco et al, 2012), which mark the Polochic Fault as a minor fault of the plate boundary.…”

Section: Tectonic Context Of Basin Initiation and The Role Of The Pcontrasting

confidence: 71%

“…Basin development at ~12 Ma indicates that the Polochic Fault must have started its 132 km displacement at least as early as 12 Ma and possibly as old as 15 Ma, based on the displacement of the magmatic arc (Ratschbacher et al, 2009). Assuming a constant slip rate, ranging from a minimum of ~3 mm/yr (based on GPS measurements; Ellis et al, 2019) to a maximum of 7.1 mm/yr (based on Holocene marker offsets; Authemayou et al, 2012), would require 44–18.8 My to achieve the 132 km displacement. Based on these displacement calculations, a constant time‐averaged slip rate along the Polochic Fault can be ruled out.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Contemporary tectonic analysis indicates that the Polochic Fault is a minor fault of the plate boundary, based on GPS‐derived slip rates of ~3 mm/yr (e.g. Ellis et al, 2019; Franco et al, 2012) and 4.8 ± 2.3 mm/yr (Authemayou et al, 2012), compared to inferred slip rates of ~9–14 mm/yr on the Motagua Fault (Ellis et al, 2019). However, assuming these slip rates to be constant would require a maximum of 44 My and a minimum of 18.8 My to achieve the 132 km displacement along the Polochic Fault, contradicting the 15 My time frame provided by Ratschbacher et al (2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The role of the Polochic Fault as part of the North American and Caribbean Plate boundary: Insights from the infill of the Lake Izabal Basin

et al. 2020

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The Lake Izabal Basin in Guatemala is a major pull-apart basin along the sinistral Polochic Fault, which is part of the North American and Caribbean plate boundary. The basin infill contains information about the tectonic and sedimentological processes that have imparted a significant control on its sedimentary section. The inception of the basin has been linked to the relative importance of the Polochic Fault in the tectonic history of the plate boundary; yet, its sedimentological record and its inception age have been poorly documented. This study integrates diverse datasets, including industry reports, well logs and reports, well cuttings, vintage seismic data, outcrop observations and geochronological data to constrain the initial infill and age of inception of the basin. The integrated data show that during the Oligocene-Miocene, a marine carbonate platform was established in the region which was later uplifted and eroded in the early Miocene. The fluvial-lacustrine deposits above this carbonate platform are part of the initial infill of the basin and are constrained with zircon weighted-mean 206 Pb/ 238 U ages of 12.060 ± 0.008 from a volcanic tuff ~30 m above the unconformity. Sandstone, mudstone and coal dominate the interval from 12 to 4 Ma, with an increase in conglomerate correlating to the uplift of the Mico Mountains and San Gil Hill at 4 Ma. Fault switch activity between the Polochic and Motagua faults has been hypothesized to explain total offset along the Polochic Fault and the geologic and geodetic slip rates along the two faults. The 12 Ma age determined for the initial infill of the basin confirms this hypothesis. Consequently, our study confirms that at ~12 Ma the Polochic Fault served as the main fault of the plate boundary with inferred slip rates ranging from 13 to 21 mm/yr with a strong possibility that the Polochic Fault was, at some point between 15 Ma and 7 Ma, the only active fault of the plate boundary. The results of this study show that tectonic records preserved in sediments of strike-slip basins improve the understanding of the relative significance of individual faults and the implications with respect to strain partitioning throughout its tectonic history.

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Section: Tectonic Context Of Basin Initiation and The Role Of The Pcontrasting

confidence: 71%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The role of the Polochic Fault as part of the North American and Caribbean Plate boundary: Insights from the infill of the Lake Izabal Basin

et al. 2020

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“…These differences are within the measurement error and therefore the velocity field can be considered as representative of the interseismic deformation in the zone. Recently a new GPS velocity field for northern Central America has been published integrating and processing jointly data previously processed separately 57 . The GPS field presented in this work is equivalent and presents the same general picture, although with higher uncertainties.…”

Section: The Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Push-pull driving of the Central America Forearc in the context of the Cocos-Caribbean-North America triple junction

Álvarez‐Gómez

Vázquez

Martínez‐Díaz

et al. 2019

Sci Rep

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Different kinematic models have been proposed for the triple junction between the North American, Cocos and Caribbean plates. The two most commonly accepted hypotheses on its driving mechanism are (a) the North American drag of the forearc and (b) the Cocos Ridge subduction push. We present an updated GPS velocity field which is analyzed together with earthquake focal mechanisms and regional relief. The two hypotheses have been used to make kinematic predictions that are tested against the available data. An obliquity analysis is also presented to discuss the potential role of slip partitioning as driving mechanism. The North American drag model presents a better fit to the observations, although the Cocos Ridge push model explains the data in Costa Rica and Southern Nicaragua. Both mechanisms must be active, being the driving of the Central American forearc towards the NW analogous to a push-pull train. The forearc sliver moves towards the west-northwest at a rate of 12–14 mm/yr, being pinned to the North American plate in Chiapas and western Guatemala, where the strike-slip motion on the volcanic arc must be very small.

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“…Population data are from © WorldPop (Sorichetta et al, 2015). Base topography is from the Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (Farr et al, 2007) (in the public domain), and coastlines are from Wessel and Smith (1996), based on public-domain data.…”

Section: Purposementioning

confidence: 99%

CCAF-DB: the Caribbean and Central American active fault database

Styron

Garcia-Pelaez

Pagani

2020

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. A database of ∼250 active fault traces in the Caribbean and Central American regions has been assembled to characterize the seismic hazard and tectonics of the area, as part of the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) Foundation's Caribbean and Central American Risk Assessment (CCARA) project. The dataset is available in many vector GIS formats and contains fault trace locations as well as attributes describing fault geometry and kinematics, slip rates, data quality and uncertainty, and other metadata as available. The database is public and open source (available at: https://github.com/GEMScienceTools/central_am_carib_faults, last access: 23 March 2020), will be updated progressively as new data become available, and is open to community contribution. The active fault data show deformation in the region to be centered around the margins of the Caribbean plate. Northern Central America has sinistral and reverse faults north of the sinistral Motagua–Polochic fault zone, which accommodates sinistral Caribbean–North American relative motion. The Central Highlands in Central America extend east–west along a broad array of normal faults, bound by the Motagua–Polochic fault zone in the north and trench-parallel dextral faulting in the southwest between the Caribbean plate and the Central American forearc. Faulting in southern Central America is complicated, with trench-parallel reverse and sinistral faults. The northern Caribbean–North American plate boundary is sinistral off the shore of Central America, with transpressive stepovers through Jamaica, southern Cuba and Hispaniola. Farther east, deformation becomes more contractional closer to the Lesser Antilles subduction zone, with minor extension and sinistral shear throughout the upper plate, accommodating oblique convergence of the Caribbean and North American plates.

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GPS constraints on deformation in northern Central America from 1999 to 2017, Part 2: Block rotations and fault slip rates, fault locking and distributed deformation

Cited by 24 publications

References 61 publications

The role of the Polochic Fault as part of the North American and Caribbean Plate boundary: Insights from the infill of the Lake Izabal Basin

The role of the Polochic Fault as part of the North American and Caribbean Plate boundary: Insights from the infill of the Lake Izabal Basin

Push-pull driving of the Central America Forearc in the context of the Cocos-Caribbean-North America triple junction

CCAF-DB: the Caribbean and Central American active fault database

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