Distributed deformation and block rotation in 3D

The authors address how block rotation and complex distributed deformation in the Earth's shallow crust may be explained within a stationary regional stress field. Distributed deformation is characterized by domains of sub-parallel fault-bounded blocks. In response to the contemporaneous activity of neighboring domains some domains rotate, as suggested by both structural and paleomagnetic evidence. Rotations within domains are achieved through the contemporaneous slip and rotation of the faults and of the blocks they bound. Thus, in regions of distributed deformation, faults must remain active in spite of their poor orientation in the stress field. The authors developed a model that tracks the orientation of blocks and their bounding faults during rotation in a 3D stress field. In the model, the effective stress magnitudes of the principal stresses (sigma sub 1, sigma sub 2, and sigma sub 3) are controlled by the orientation of fault sets in each domain. Therefore, adjacent fault sets with differing orientations may be active and may display differing faulting styles, and a given set of faults may change its style of motion as it rotates within a stationary stress regime. The style of faulting predicted by the model depends on a dimensionless parameter phi = (sigma sub 2 - sigma sub 3)/(sigma sub 1 - sigma sub 3). Thus, the authors present a model for complex distributed deformation and complex offset history requiring neither geographical nor temporal changes in the stress regime. They apply the model to the Western Transverse Range domain of southern California. There, it is mechanically feasible for blocks and faults to have experienced up to 75 degrees of clockwise rotation in a phi = 0.1 strike-slip stress regime. The results of the model suggest that this domain may first have accommodated deformation along preexisting NNE-SSW faults, reactivated as normal faults. After rotation, these same faults became strike-slip in nature.