Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Science 19 August 1994:
Vol. 265. no. 5175, pp. 1081 - 1084
DOI: 10.1126/science.265.5175.1081
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Stream Networks and Long-Term Surface Uplift in the New Madrid Seismic Zone

Dorothy Merritts 1 and Tim Hesterberg 2

1 Department of Geosciences, Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, PA 17604, USA.
2 Department of Mathematics, Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, PA 17604, USA.

Stream networks are sensitive to low rates of surface uplift and can be used to decipher the history of large earthquakes even where faults do not rupture the surface, as in intraplate seismic zones. Statistical analysis of alluvial network data from topographic maps in the New Madrid seismic zone, in the central United States, shows that stream-segment gradients deviate the most from an estimated natural stream profile where surface uplift is greatest. Evidence of cumulative deformation distilled from stream network patterns represents at least several meters of differential surface uplift during Holocene time, which suggests that more than one cycle of surface deformation occurred.

Submitted on February 25, 1994
Accepted on June 7, 1994


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
New Madrid seismic zone fault geometry.
R. Csontos and R. Van Arsdale (2008)
Geosphere 4, 802-813
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
The application of drainage system analysis in constraining spatial patterns of uplift in the Coastal Cordillera of northern Chile.
A. E. Mather and A. J. Hartley (2006)
Geological Society of America Special Papers 398, 87-99
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Three-Dimensional Geometry of the Reelfoot Blind Thrust: Implications for Moment Release and Earthquake Magnitude in the New Madrid Seismic Zone.
(2001)
Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 91, 1563-1573
Origin and age of the Manila high and associated Big Lake "sunklands" in the New Madrid seismic zone, northeastern Arkansas.
M. J. Guccione, R. B. Van Arsdale, and L. H. Hehr (2000)
Geological Society of America Bulletin 112, 579-590
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Fault Slip Rates in the Modern New Madrid Seismic Zone.
K. Mueller, J. Champion, M. Guccione, and K. Kelson (1999)
Science 286, 1135-1138
   Abstract »    Full Text »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)