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Published Online December 9, 2004
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1107142

Brevia

Submitted on November 4, 2004
Accepted on December 2, 2004

Nonvolcanic Tremors Deep Beneath the San Andreas Fault

Robert M. Nadeau 1* and David Dolenc 1

1 Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, 211 McCone Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-4760, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Robert M. Nadeau , E-mail: nadeau{at}seismo.berkeley.edu

We have discovered nonvolcanic tremor activity (i.e., long-duration seismic signals with no clear P or S waves) within a transform plate boundary zone along the San Andreas Fault (SAF) near Cholame, California, the inferred epicentral region of the moment magnitude (M) ~7.8 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake. The tremors occur between 20 to 40 km depth, below the seismogenic zone (i.e., the upper ~15 km of Earth's crust where earthquakes occur), and their activity rates may correlate with variations in local earthquake activity.


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