[1] Paleomagnetic studies of the 91 Ma Ecstall pluton and other Cretaceous plutons of British Columbia imply large northward tectonic movements (>2000 km) may have occurred during the tectonic evolution of western North America. However, more recent studies have shown that the eastern edge of the Ecstall pluton experienced considerable mineralogical changes as younger Eocene plutons, such as th...

Airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data were acquired over the coastal city of Christchurch, New Zealand, prior to and throughout the 2010 to 2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence. Differencing of preand post-earthquake LiDAR data reveals land surface and waterway deformation due to seismic shaking and tectonic displacements above blind faults. Shaking caused floodplain subsidence in ex...

The solid Earth deforms elastically in response to variations of surface atmosphere, hydrology, and ice/glacier mass loads. Continuous geodetic observations by Global Positioning System (CGPS) stations and Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) record such deformations to estimate seasonal and secular mass changes. In this paper, we present the seasonal variation of the surface mass ch...

[1] Faulting and brittle deformation of mantle rocks occurs in many tectonic settings such as oceanic transform faults, oceanic detachment faults, subduction zones, and continental rifts. However, few data exist that directly explore the frictional properties of peridotite rocks. Improved constraints on the brittle deformation of peridotite is important for a more complete understanding of the ...

Conductivity models beneath the Nanga Parbat Haramosh Massif (NPHM) derived from magnetotelluric soundings reveal that there is no widespread, interconnected, conductive aqueous fluid to minimum depths of 40 km below sea level. Given the continuing tectonic denudation, young granitic and migmatitic bodies indicating partial melt at shallow crustal depths, and active seismicity, this result is s...

In Northeast Japan, it remains a puzzle to reconcile the mismatch between long-term (geological) uplift and lateinterseismic and coseismic subsidence associated with the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. To explain this mismatch between different periods, we modeled the entire megathrust earthquake cycle in the Northeast Japan arc using a simple dislocation model with a two-layered lithosphere–asthenosph...

[1] The rheology that governs deformation within a convergent orogen also controls its topographic form, or in other words, the covaration of its height (or thickness) and its width. Under conditions pertaining to small orogens and for rheologies ranging from linear viscous to Coulomb plastic, we show that this topographic form is insensitive to the distributions of fluxes into and out of the w...

The Wadi Hodein area in the south Eastern Desert of Egypt is occupied by Neoproterozoic Pan-African (Precambrian) basement rocks including metamorphic and intrusive assemblages. The metamorphic assemblage comprises dismembered ophiolitic metamorphosed ultramafic rocks and island-arc calc-alkaline metavolcanics. On the other hand, the intrusive assemblage rocks include syn-tectonic tonalite-gran...

A compilation of magnetic data acquired during the past three decades for a region in central Saudi Arabia where Precambrian basement is partly exposed on the Arabian shield and partly concealed by overlying Phanerozoic strata, shows a central sector of conspicuous N-S-trending anomalies, a heterogeneous western sector of short-wavelength, high-intensity anomalies, and an eastern sector of lowt...

[1] The key geological observations and structural interpretations associated with the current plume hypothesis for Venusian crustal plateau formation are that (1) shortwavelength, spatially periodic tectonic structures originated as mechanical instabilities in a regionally extensive surface brittle layer whose basal boundary was thermally generated and controlled; (2) characteristic wavelength...