Vancouver Island, located in southwestern coastal British Columbia, overlies the northern portion of the Cascadia Subduction Zone. This region is characterized by extensive seismicity which includes M ∼ 7 crustal earthquakes and less frequent M ∼ 9 megathrust events. Crustal deformation measurements have been carried out in this region since 1978 using various geodetic field techniques: levelling, tide gauge studies, precise gravity, laser ranging, and most recently, GPS. Earlier survey data provided key constraints to elastic slip-dislocation models for estimating the size and location of the rupture area for the next subduction-thrust earthquake. Recent estimates of crustal motions within the North Cascadia Margin based on both campaign GPS network surveys and up to 6.5 years of data from continuous GPS sites are consistent with the strain accumulation expected from a locked subduction fault. The deformation vectors are in the direction of plate convergence within the uncertainty of plate motion models. The observed strain rate across Vancouver Island is, however, smaller (by approximately a factor of 1.5) than the dislocation model prediction, suggesting the presence of visco-elastic effects. Crustal deformation measurements for central Vancouver Island fail to resolve motions that could be associated with the occurrence of large crustal earthquakes, and also suggest that the extent of the seismogenic subduction thrust zone north of the Nootka Fault Zone is extremely limited. / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/9007 |
| Date | 26 January 2018 |
| Creators | Henton, Joseph Alan |
| Contributors | Dragert, Herb, Hyndman, R. D., Spence, George D. |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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