Ridgecrest Trip for Geo Class

Call the base, explain who you are and why you would like to visit the damage. They might be accomodating. The worst they could say is no, but you won't know unless you try.

 

Oh I was already preparing for that, haha My theory is, the answer's always "no" until you ask!

Side note...if anyone here...cough:hint:cough could help me out with that...that'd be great

 

Soooo should I tell you now or later about the Rose Canyon Fault.... It supposedly goes off every 500-550 years, which is right about...now.
If that sucker decides to go, La Jolla will break off into the ocean and become even more expensive as its own island. Good news is, if you live east of the 163 you'll have beach front property!

 

I won't miss La Jolla. Beach front does sound nice, however.

 

Escondido is looking up!

 

start here:
https://www.cnic.navy.mil/regions/cnrsw/installations/naws_china_lake/om/public_affairs_office.html

 

Rad! Thanks for the link!

 

The X were the faults intersect is inside China Lake and is near Skytop on Google Maps.

On the youtube video, the gentleman starts his ground filming south of 178 and at the same location of the picture I posted with the ground displacement on the dirt road. You can enter this dirt road at 35.6491230, -117.4748979 and go southwest towards Ridgecrest. Just past this section you can take the road south and link up with the rupture again by heading east. It's fairly easy once you're on the ground and you get your bearings. You can park here and hike southeast as you follow the surface rupture. You'll come across some scarps with 6" to 17" of uplift. You'll often lose the rupture and then find it again to left or right 5-15 feet apart. Comparing these features with the displacement or bends of 178 and it looks like mini horst and graben formations. Northern Nevada is riddled with this type of formation. Owens Valley is a graben and the White Mountains are a horst. This continues throughout Death Valley and into Nevada. What's weird is when the rupture nears the Garlock fault zone the rupture continues towards the southwest. Pretty much a sharp right turn. Weird. When you're there you think it's a right-lateral, but you take into account the fracture zone and the region in general and I see a horst and graben rupture. That's my observation, but I can be wrong.

The second photo is the fence at the China Lake NAWS looking towards Searles Valley. The Searles Valley block moved south, right-lateral. If you would have turned around towards Ridgecrest you would see a blocks that also moved on the Ridgecrest side of Trona Road(photo with traffic cones). That's why I think it's a horst-graben rupture.

Edit: I hit post before I finished my thoughts and uploading second photo.

 

Looking at the map of the North American Craton allows you to imagine the Rockies on the west forming a W like shape with the New Madrid fault zone and the Appalachians. The deformed craton is the horst and graben action you see from Death Valley to Utah on Google maps until it meets the North American Craton at the Rockies.

The Garlock fault is an enigma and a large player in the tectonic plate movement in the area. In my opinion, it's one of the reasons for the bend in the San Andreas. It separates the Central Valley from the Mojave desert. Without it the Central Valley would extend into El Centro and Mexicali, if you use your imagination. Then you have the Farallon plate subsiding underneath the North American plate on the west side of the San Andreas as the NA plate pushes towards the Pacific plate. Fascinating. For the most the part the Farallon plate is all gone, but it can still be in play.

One of my longtime theory's is there another larger fault or combination of faults at play in So Cal that runs east-west from the Channel Islands to Joshua Tree. We've had the 1994 Northridge quake 6.7, 1971 San Fernando(Sylmar) 6.5, 1991 Sierra Madre 5.6, 1992 Big Bear 6.5 and Landers 7.3, 1999 Hector Mine 7.1, 1990 Upland 5.7, 1992 Joshua Tree 6.3, and the 1948 Desert Hot Springs 6.4 all along this east-west plane. Is this the last remnants of the Farallon plate at play? Thrusting the North American plate upwards to create the Santa Monica Mountains, San Gabriels, and San Gorgonio? A coup de grace.

@Samus, I follow Dutchsinse on youtube https://www.youtube.com/user/dutchsinse. He is another seismology enthusiast, like me, who spends a lot more time looking at the realtime data then me. A lot of the hardcore USGS types like to discredit him, so be careful who you bring up his narrative with.

In September, during the Labor day weekend, there is an off-road trip in Mammoth Lakes. https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...ad-social-distancing-trip-sep-4th-6th.656110/. I plan on attending and taking the long way home on the 395 to stop off at Trona Rd and do some scouting around the Garlock Fault for future off-road trips. There is a myriad of trails in the area.

If you like beer, there is the Indian Wells Brewery on the 14 near the 395 merger. I usually stock up there everytime I pass by the area.

 

This is incredible information and you've given me so much to expand on in my presentation. Thank you for taking the time to do these write ups.

The Garlock fault has intrigued me for a while now, mainly how it functions and is an outlier of sorts. Being able to identify horst and graben, especially in this situation, has been difficult for me. Definitely something for me to work on during this class.

I wish I could make it to the Mammoth trip, but alas I'll be on my way to Colorado. Gonna try Rimrocker on my way to Denver. Love a good beer, so I'll check out Indian Wells while I'm up there!

 

Horst is the tall redhead, Graben is bald.

or did i get that backward

 

For

LOL and I learned the hard way, graben is german for digging a ditch or something to do with a hole in the ground. Thanks random German guy in study hall.

For those interested in further reading, in the 1980's Amos Nur(Stanford) proposed that a new plate boundary was forming to replace the San Andreas. This was before Landers, Big Bear, and the Hector Mine quakes. Walker Lane. Here are some links to read up on his hypothesis. As highly regarded as Nur is, the majority of geologists don't agree with his hypothesis, but there are growing number who do. Only time will tell. I fall in the outlier camp. Laguna Salada and Baja will continue to split.
Wired article
Blog
NY Times

Tanya Atwater (UCSB) talks about the rotating mass of the transverse ranges at the bend of the San Andreas and how the Channel Islands line up with the transverse ranges. I think the LA block will continue to rotate. Kinda of odd how the Murray fracture zone lines up this direction, but it's extinct. Seeing her enthusiasm in the video normalizes my excitment levels for geology.
Teach Channel Islands

What? A 4.2 in Pacoima. Oh giggity, giggity, giggity, alright.