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Science 12 December 2003:
Vol. 302. no. 5652, pp. 1946 - 1949
DOI: 10.1126/science.1090747
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Reports

Fault Interactions and Large Complex Earthquakes in the Los Angeles Area

Greg Anderson,*{dagger} Brad Aagaard,{ddagger} Ken Hudnut

Faults in complex tectonic environments interact in various ways, including triggered rupture of one fault by another, that may increase seismic hazard in the surrounding region. We model static and dynamic fault interactions between the strike-slip and thrust fault systems in southern California. We find that rupture of the Sierra Madre–Cucamonga thrust fault system is unlikely to trigger rupture of the San Andreas or San Jacinto strike-slip faults. However, a large northern San Jacinto fault earthquake could trigger a cascading rupture of the Sierra Madre–Cucamonga system, potentially causing a moment magnitude 7.5 to 7.8 earthquake on the edge of the Los Angeles metropolitan region.

U.S. Geological Survey, 525 South Wilson Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91106–3212, USA.



{dagger} Present address: UNAVCO, 6350 Nautilus Drive, Boulder CO 80301, USA.

{ddagger} Present address: U.S. Geological Survey, 345 Middle-field Road, M/S 977, Menlo Park CA 94025, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:anderson{at}unavco.org

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
TeraShake2: Spontaneous Rupture Simulations of Mw 7.7 Earthquakes on the Southern San Andreas Fault.
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Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 98, 1162-1185
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Modeling of the Perfectly Matched Layer Absorbing Boundaries and Intrinsic Attenuation in Explicit Finite-Element Methods.
S. Ma and P. Liu (2006)
Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 96, 1779-1794
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The Dynamics of Strike-Slip Step-Overs with Linking Dip-Slip Faults.
D. D. Oglesby (2005)
Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 95, 1604-1622
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Dynamic Rupture Modeling of the Transition from Thrust to Strike-Slip Motion in the 2002 Denali Fault Earthquake, Alaska.
B. T. Aagaard, G. Anderson, and K. W. Hudnut (2004)
Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 94, S190-S201
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Evidence for a Supershear Transient during the 2002 Denali Fault Earthquake.
E. M. Dunham and R. J. Archuleta (2004)
Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America 94, S256-S268
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