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The Mw 6.4 and Mw 7.1 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence occurred on 4 and 5 July 2019 within the eastern California shear zone of southern California. Both events produced extensive surface faulting and ground deformation within Indian Wells Valley and Searles Valley. In the weeks following the earthquakes, more than six dozen scientists from government, academia, and the private sector carefully documented the surface faulting and ground-deformation features. As of December 2019, we have compiled a total of more than 6000 ground observations; approximately 1500 of these simply note the presence or absence of fault rupture or ground failure, but the remainder include detailed descriptions and other documentation, including tens of thousands of photographs. More than 1100 of these observations also include quantitative field measurements of displacement sense and magnitude. These field observations were supplemented by mapping of fault rupture and ground-deformation features directly in the field as well as by interpreting the location and extent of surface faulting and ground deformation from optical imagery and geodetic image products. We identified greater than 68 km of fault rupture produced by both earthquakes as well as numerous sites of ground deformation resulting from liquefaction or slope failure. These observations comprise a dataset that is fundamental to understanding the processes that controlled this earthquake sequence and for improving earthquake hazard estimates in the region. This article documents the types of data collected during postearthquake field investigations, the compilation effort, and the digital data products resulting from these efforts.

SUMMARY Flexure and fracturing of the seafloor on the outer trench wall of subduction zones reflect bending of the lithosphere beyond its elastic limit. To investigate these inelastic processes, we have developed a full nonlinear inversion approach for estimating the bending moment, curvature and outer trench wall fracturing using shipboard bathymetry and satellite altimetry-derived gravity data as constraints. Bending moments and downward forces are imposed along curved trench axes and an iterative method is used to calculate the nonlinear response for 26 sites in the circum-Pacific region having seafloor age ranging from 15 to 148 Ma. We use standard thermal and yield strength envelope models to develop the nonlinear moment versus curvature relationship. Two coefficients of friction of 0.6 and 0.3 are considered and we find that the lower value provides a better overall fit to the data. The main result is that the lithosphere is nearly moment saturated at the trench axis. The effective elastic thickness of the plate on the outer trench slope is at least three times smaller than the elastic thickness of the plate before bending at the outer rise in agreement with previous studies. The average seafloor depth of the unbent plate in these 26 sites matches the Parsons & Sclater depth versus age model beyond 120 Ma. We also use the model to predict the offsets of normal faults on the outer trench walls and compare this with the horst and graben structures observed by multibeam surveys. The model with the lower coefficient of friction fits the fault offset data close to the trench axis. However, the model predicts significant fracturing of the lithosphere between 75 and 150 km away from the trench axis where no fracturing is observed. To reconcile these observations, we impose a thermoelastic pre-stress in the lithosphere prior to subduction. This pre-stress delays the onset of fracturing in better agreement with the data.

The accuracy of the marine gravity field derived from satellite altimetry depends on dense track spacing as well as high range precision. Here, we investigate the range precision that can be achiev...

Accurate seafloor geodetic methods are critical to the study of marine natural hazards such as megathrust earthquakes, landslides, and volcanoes. We propose digital image correlation of repeated shipboard sidescan sonar surveys as a measurement of seafloor deformation. We test this method using multibeam surveys collected in two locales: 2500 m deep lightly sedimented seafloor on the flank of a spreading ridge and 4300 m deep heavily sedimented seafloor far from any plate boundary. Correlation of these surveys are able to recover synthetic displacements in the across-track (range) direction accurate to within 1 m and in the along-track (azimuth) direction accurate to within 1–10 m. We attribute these accuracies to the inherent resolution of sidescan data being better in the range dimension than the azimuth dimension. These measurements are primarily limited by the accuracy of the ship navigation. Dual-frequency GPS units are accurate to ∼10 cm, but single-frequency GPS units drift on the order of 1 m/h and are insufficient for geodetic application.

The aim of this study is to assess the impact of sea level changes on both the stress field and the potential of fault reactivation in west Iberia. The analysis is applied to a set of five active faults distributed across Portugal, selected for representing predominant fault directions and for being seismically active. The results show that the rise of sea level since the Last Glacial Maximum has produced flexural effects with distinct impacts on different faults. The Coulomb stress changes induced by the sea level rise along the S. Marcos-Quarteira (south Portugal) and the Horseshoe (offshore SW Iberia) faults are found to be extremely small, independently of the elastic plate thickness. These faults are thus unaffected by flexural effects related to ocean loading, and are unlikely to possess any paleoseismic record of this phenomenon. In contrast, the eustatic sea level rise during the late Pleistocene could have raised the Coulomb stress by 0.5–1 MPa along the Manteigas–Vilarica–Braganca (north Portugal) and Lower Tagus Valley (Lisbon area) fault systems. Such stress perturbations are probably sufficient to impact the seismic cycle of the Manteigas–Vilarica–Braganca fault, bringing it closer to failure and possibly triggering the earthquake clusters that have been observed in previous paleoseismologic studies.

Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) is a key tool for the analysis of displacement and stress changes caused by large crustal earthquakes, particularly in remote areas. A challenge for traditional InSAR has been its limited spatial and temporal coverage especially for very large events, whose dimensions exceed the typical swath width of 70–100 km. This problem is addressed by the ALOS-2 satellite, whose PALSAR-2 instrument operates in ScanSAR mode, enabling a repeat time of 2 weeks and a swath width of 350 km. Here we present InSAR line-of-sight displacement data from ALOS-2/PALSAR-2 observations covering the Mw 7.8 Gorkha, Nepal earthquake and its Mw 7.3 aftershock that were acquired within 1 week of each event. The data are made freely available and we encourage their use in models of the fault slip and associated stress changes. The Mw 7.3 aftershock not only extended the rupture area of the main shock toward the east but also left a 20 km gap where the fault has little or no coseismic slip. We estimate this unslipped fault patch has the potential to generate a Mw 6.9 event.

Ocean islands, seamounts and volcanic ridges are thought to form above mantle plumes. Yet, this mechanism cannot explain many volcanic features on the Pacific Ocean floor and some might instead be caused by cracks in the oceanic crust linked to the reorganization of plate motions. A distinctive bend in the Hawaiian-Emperor volcanic chain has been linked to changes in the direction of motion of the Pacific Plate, movement of the Hawaiian plume, or a combination of both. However, these links are uncertain because there is no independent record that precisely dates tectonic events that affected the Pacific Plate. Here we analyse the geochemical characteristics of lava samples collected from the Musicians Ridges, lines of volcanic seamounts formed close to the Hawaiian-Emperor bend. We find that the geochemical signature of these lavas is unlike typical ocean island basalts and instead resembles mid-ocean ridge basalts. We infer that the seamounts are unrelated to mantle plume activity and instead formed in an extensional setting, due to deformation of the Pacific Plate. 40 Ar/ 39 Ar dating reveals that the Musicians Ridges formed during two time windows that bracket the time of formation of the Hawaiian-Emperor bend, 53-52 and 48-47 million years ago. We conclude that the Hawaiian-Emperor bend was formed by plate-mantle reorganization, potentially triggered by a series of subduction events at the Pacific Plate margins.

S U M M A R Y Thin plate flexure theory provides an accurate model for the response of the lithosphere to vertical loads on horizontal length scales ranging from tens to hundreds of kilometres. Examples include flexure at seamounts, fracture zones, sedimentary basins and subduction zones. When applying this theory to real world situations, most studies assume a locally uniform plate thickness to enable simple Fourier transform solutions. However, in cases where the amplitude of the flexure is prominent, such as subduction zones, or there are rapid variations in seafloor age, such as fracture zones, these models are inadequate. Here we present a computationally efficient algorithm for solving the thin plate flexure equation for non-uniform plate thickness and arbitrary vertical load. The iterative scheme takes advantage of the 2-D fast Fourier transform to perform calculations in both the spatial and spectral domains, resulting in an accurate and computationally efficient solution. We illustrate the accuracy of the method through comparisons with known analytic solutions. Finally, we present results from three simple models demonstrating the differences in trench outer rise flexure when 2-D variations in plate rigidity and applied bending moment are taken into account. Although we focus our analysis on ocean trench flexure, the method is applicable to other 2-D flexure problems having spatial rigidity variations such as seamount loading of a thermally eroded lithosphere or flexure across the continental–oceanic crust boundary.

We investigate the spatial pattern of surface creep and off-fault deformation along the southern segment of the San Andreas Fault using a combination of multiple interferometric synthetic aperture radar viewing geometries and survey-mode GPS occupations of a dense array crossing the fault. Radar observations from Envisat during the period 2003-2010 were used to separate the pattern of horizontal and vertical motion, providing a high-resolution image of uplift and shallow creep along the fault trace. The data reveal pervasive shallow creep along the southernmost 50 km of the fault. Creep is localized on a well-defined fault trace only in the Mecca Hills and Durmid Hill areas, while elsewhere creep appears to be distributed over a 1-2 km wide zone surrounding the fault. The degree of strain localization is correlated with variations in the local fault strike. Using a two-dimensional boundary element model, we show that stresses resulting from slip on a curved fault can promote or inhibit inelastic failure within the fault zone in a pattern matching the observations. The occurrence of shallow, localized interseismic fault creep within mature fault zones may thus be partly controlled by the local fault geometry and normal stress, with implications for models of fault zone evolution, shallow coseismic slip deficit, and geologic estimates of long-term slip rates.

Suban field in southern Sumatra, Indonesia, is a fractured carbonate/crystalline wet-gas reservoir in a tectonically active island-arc setting. Reservoir-scale right-oblique reverse faults and folds that have trapped the hydrocarbons have been related previously to deformation in the back-arc setting of Sumatra associated with oblique subduction of the Indo-Australian Plate at the Sunda trench. Increased well productivity in some parts of the field was inferred to correlate with completing wells in the damage zones of critically stressed faults. Satellite interferometry acquired in 2008 through 2011 involving specially stacked and filtered interferograms, following prior applications to heavy-oil fields and Arctic sea ice, reveals active deformation in Suban field. Several areas of localized subsidence potentially exceeding ∼5 mm/yr have been identified in the field. Horizontal movements of comparable magnitude were resolved above the major right-oblique, critically stressed fault zone in the southwestern part of the field, corroborating wellbore-based inferences from the reservoir. Block-tectonic models constrained by GPS measurements across the entire Sumatra contractional orogen predict comparable magnitudes and directions for horizontal motions observed locally at Suban. The combination of InSAR and GPS-based plate-tectonic models provides a robust tool for monitoring the deformation of oil and gas fields in tectonically active areas.

Interseismic motion along complex strike-slip fault systems such as the San Andreas Fault System (SAFS) can produce vertical velocities that are ~10 times smaller than horizontal velocities, caused by along-strike variations in fault orientation and locking depth. Tide gauge stations provide a long (50–100 year) recording history of sea level change due to several oceanographic and geologic processes, including vertical earthquake cycle deformation. Here we compare relative sea level displacements with predictions from a 3-D elastic/viscoelastic earthquake cycle model of the SAFS. We find that models with lithospheric structure reflecting a thick elastic plate (>50 km) and moderate viscosities produce vertical motions in surprisingly good agreement with the relative tide gauge uplift rates. These results suggest that sea level variations along the California coastline contain a small but identifiable tectonic signal reflecting the flexure of the elastic plate caused by bending moments applied at the ends of locked faults.

We develop a slope correction model to improve the accuracy of mean sea surface topography models as well as marine gravity models. The correction is greatest above ocean trenches and large seamounts where the slope of the geoid exceeds 100 $$\upmu $$ rad. In extreme cases, the correction to the mean sea surface height is 40 mm and the correction to the along-track altimeter slope is 1–2 $$\upmu $$ rad which maps into a 1–2 mGal gravity error. Both corrections are easily applied using existing grids of sea surface slope from satellite altimetry.

Author(s): Gonzalez-Ortega, A; Fialko, Y; Sandwell, D; Nava-Pichardo, FA; Fletcher, J; Gonzalez-Garcia, J; Lipovsky, B; Floyd, M; Funning, G | Abstract: El Mayor-Cucapah earthquake occurred on 4 April 2010 in northeastern Baja California just south of the U.S.-Mexico border. The earthquake ruptured several previously mapped faults, as well as some unidentified ones, including the Pescadores, Borrego, Paso Inferior and Paso Superior faults in the Sierra Cucapah, and the Indiviso fault in the Mexicali Valley and Colorado River Delta.We conducted several Global Positioning System (GPS) campaign surveys of preexisting and newly established benchmarks within 30 km of the earthquake rupture. Most of the benchmarks were occupied within days after the earthquake, allowing us to capture the very early postseismic transient motions. The GPS data show postseismic displacements in the same direction as the coseismic displacements; time series indicate a gradual decay in postseismic velocities with characteristic time scales of 66 ± 9 days and 20 ± 3 days, assuming exponential and logarithmic decay, respectively. We also analyzed interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data from the Envisat and ALOS satellites. The main deformation features seen in the line-of-sight displacement maps indicate subsidence concentrated in the southern and northern parts of the main rupture, in particular at the Indiviso fault, at the Laguna Salada basin, and at the Paso Superior fault. We show that the near-field GPS and InSAR observations over a time period of 5 months after the earthquake can be explained by a combination of afterslip, fault zone contraction, and a possible minor contribution of poroelastic rebound. Far-field data require an additional mechanism, most likely viscoelastic relaxation in the ductile substrate. ©2014. American Geophysical Union.

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[1] The Salton Trough represents a complex transition between the spreading center in Baja California and the strike-slip San Andreas fault system and is one of the most active zones of deformation and seismicity in California. We present a high-resolution interseismic velocity field for the Salton Trough derived from 74 continuous GPS sites and 109 benchmarks surveyed in three GPS campaigns during 2008–2009 and previous surveys between 2000 and 2005. We also investigate small-scale deformation by removing the regional velocity field predicted by an elastic block model for Southern California from the observed velocities. We find a total extension rate of 11 mm/yr from the Mesquite Basin to the southern edge of the San Andreas Fault, coupled with 15 mm/yr of left-lateral shear, the majority of which is concentrated in the southern Salton Sea and Obsidian Buttes and is equivalent to 17 mm/yr oriented in the direction of the San Andreas Fault. Differential shear strain is exclusively localized in the Brawley Seismic Zone, and dilatation rate indicates widespread extension throughout the zone. In addition, we infer clockwise rotation of 10°/Ma, consistent with northwestward propagation of the Brawley Seismic Zone over geologic time.

More than 60% of the Earth's land and shallow marine areas are covered by > 2 km of sediments and sedimentary rocks, with the thickest accumulations on rifted continental margins (Figure 1). Free-air marine gravity anomalies derived from Geosat and ERS-1 satellite altimetry (Fairhead et al., 2001; Sandwell and Smith, 2009; Andersen et al., 2009) outline most of these major basins with remarkable precision. Moreover, gravity and bathymetry data derived from altimetry are used to identify current and paleo-submarine canyons, faults, and local recent uplifts. These geomorphic features provide clues to where to look for large deposits of sediments. While current altimeter data delineate large offshore basins and major structures, they do not resolve some of the smaller geomorphic features and basins (Yale et al., 1998; Fairhead et al., 2001). Improved accuracy and resolution is desirable: to facilitate comparisons between continental margins; as an exploration tool and to permit extrapolation of known structures from well-surveyed areas; to follow fracture zones out of the deep-ocean basin into antecedent continental structures, to define and compare segmentation of margins along strike and identify the position of the continent-ocean boundary; and to study mass anomalies (e.g., sediment type and distribution) and isostatic compensation at continental margins. In this article, we assess the accuracy of a new global marine gravity model based on a wealth of new radar altimetry data and demonstrate that these gravity data are superior in quality to the majority of publicly available academic and government ship gravity data.

Incorporating new altimeter data from CryoSat-2 (30 months), Envisat (18 months), and Jason-1 (7 months) satellites into an updated marine gravity field yields significant reduction in noise and improved resolution. Compared to an older gravity field that did not include the new altimeter data, incoherent power is reduced globally by approximately 2.9 dB at 15 km, 1.6 dB at 20 km, and 1.0 dB at 25 km wavelengths. Coherence analyses between the updated gravity and recent multibeam surveys distributed throughout the world’s oceans shows an average increase of ~0.023 in mean coherence in the 20–160 km waveband, with the biggest increase (>0.08) over fast spreading ridges and smallest ( 3.5 km) over fast spreading ridges and smallest (

[1] We compared four interseismic velocity models of the San Andreas Fault based on GPS observations. The standard deviations of the predicted secular velocity from the four models are larger north of the San Francisco Bay area, near the creeping segment in Central California, and along the San Jacinto Fault and the East California Shear Zone in Southern California. A coherence spectrum analysis of the secular velocity fields indicates relatively high correlation among the four models at longer wavelengths (>15–40 km), with lower correlation at shorter wavelengths. To improve the short-wavelength accuracy of the interseismic velocity model, we integrated interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) observations, initially from Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) ascending data (spanning from the middle of 2006 to the end of 2010, totaling more than 1100 interferograms), with GPS observations using a Sum/Remove/Filter/Restore approach. The final InSAR line of sight data match the point GPS observations with a mean absolute deviation of 1.5 mm/yr. We systematically evaluated the fault creep rates along major faults of the San Andreas Fault and compared them with creepmeters and alignment array data compiled in Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast, Version 2 (UCERF2). Moreover, this InSAR line of sight dataset can constrain rapid velocity gradients near the faults, which are critical for understanding the along-strike variations in stress accumulation rate and associated earthquake hazard.

[1] We present high-resolution measurements of interseismic deformation along the central section of the North Anatolian Fault (NAF) in Turkey using interferometric synthetic aperture radar data from the Advanced Land Observing Satellite and Envisat missions. We generated maps of satellite line-of-sight velocity using five ascending Advanced Land Observing Satellite tracks and one descending Envisat track covering the NAF between 31.2°E and 34.3°E. The line-of-sight velocity reveals discontinuities of up to ∼5 mm/yr across the Ismetpasa segment of the NAF, implying surface creep at a rate of ∼9 mm/yr; this is a large fraction of the inferred slip rate of the NAF (21–25 mm/yr). The lateral extent of significant surface creep is about 75 km. We model the inferred surface velocity and shallow fault creep using numerical simulations of spontaneous earthquake sequences that incorporate laboratory-derived rate and state friction. Our results indicate that frictional behavior in the Ismetpasa segment is velocity strengthening at shallow depths and transitions to velocity weakening at a depth of 3–6 km. The inferred depth extent of shallow fault creep is 5.5–7 km, suggesting that the deeper locked portion of the partially creeping segment is characterized by a higher stressing rate, smaller events, and shorter recurrence interval. We also reproduce surface velocity in a locked segment of the NAF by fault models with velocity-weakening conditions at shallow depth. Our results imply that frictional behavior in a shallow portion of major active faults with little or no shallow creep is mostly velocity weakening.

High-resolution tectonic solutions Detailed topographic maps are available for only a small fraction of the ocean floor, severely limited by the number of ship crossings. Global maps constructed using satellite-derived gravity data, in contrast, are limited in the size of features they can resolve. Sandwell et al. present a new marine gravity model that greatly improves this resolution (see the Perspective by Hwang and Chang). They identify several previously unknown tectonic features, including extinct spreading ridges in the Gulf of Mexico and numerous uncharted seamounts. Science , this issue p. 65 ; see also p. 32

Seamounts are active or extinct undersea volcanoes with heights exceeding ~ 100 m. They represent a small but significant fraction of the volcanic extrusive budget for oceanic seafloor and their distribution gives information about spatial and temporal variations in intraplate volcanic activity. In addition, they sustain important ecological communities, determine habitats for fish, and act as obstacles to currents, thus enhancing tidal energy dissipation and ocean mixing. Mapping the complete global distribution will help constrain models of seamount formation as well as aid in understanding marine habitats and deep ocean circulation. Two approaches have been used to map the global seamount distribution. Depth soundings from single- and multibeam echo sounders can provide the most detailed maps with up to 200-m horizontal resolution. However, soundings from the > 5000 publicly available cruises sample only a small fraction of the ocean floor. Satellite altimetry can detect seamounts taller than ~ 1.5 km and studies using altimetry have produced seamount catalogues holding almost 13,000 seamounts. Based on the size-frequency relationship for larger seamounts, we predict over 100,000 seamounts > 1 km in height remain uncharted, and speculatively 25 million > 100 m in height. Future altimetry missions could improve on resolution and significantly decrease noise levels, allowing for an even larger number of intermediate (1–1.5 km height) seamounts to be detected. Recent retracking of the radar altimeter waveforms to improve the accuracy of the gravity field has resulted in a twofold increase in resolution. Thus, improved analyses of existing altimetry with better calibration from multibeam bathymetry could also increase census estimates.

SUMMARY We present a semi-analytic iterative procedure for evaluating the 3-D deformation due to faults in an arbitrarily heterogeneous elastic half-space. Spatially variable elastic properties are modelled with equivalent body forces and equivalent surface traction in a ‘homogenized’ elastic medium. The displacement field is obtained in the Fourier domain using a semi-analytic Green function. We apply this model to investigate the response of 3-D compliant zones (CZ) around major crustal faults to coseismic stressing by nearby earthquakes. We constrain the two elastic moduli, as well as the geometry of the fault zones by comparing the model predictions to Synthetic Aperture Radar inferferometric (InSAR) data. Our results confirm that the CZ models for the Rodman, Calico and Pinto Mountain faults in the Eastern California Shear Zone (ECSZ) can explain the coseismic InSAR data from both the Landers and the Hector Mine earthquakes. For the Pinto Mountain fault zone, InSAR data suggest a 50 per cent reduction in effective shear modulus and no significant change in Poisson's ratio compared to the ambient crust. The large wavelength of coseismic line-of-sight displacements around the Pinto Mountain fault requires a fairly wide (∼1.9 km) CZ extending to a depth of at least 9 km. Best fit for the Calico CZ, north of Galway Dry Lake, is obtained for a 4 km deep structure, with a 60 per cent reduction in shear modulus, with no change in Poisson's ratio. We find that the required effective rigidity of the Calico fault zone south of Galway Dry Lake is not as low as that of the northern segment, suggesting along-strike variations of effective elastic moduli within the same fault zone. The ECSZ InSAR data is best explained by CZ models with reduction in both shear and bulk moduli. These observations suggest pervasive and widespread damage around active crustal faults.

We report on InSAR and GPS results showing the first crustal inflation along the southwest rift zone at Kilauea volcano in over 20 years. Two independent interferograms (May 2–August 2, 2006 and June 22–Nov 7, 2006) from the ALOS PALSAR instrument reveal domal uplift located southwest of the main caldera. The uplift is bounded on the northeast by the caldera and follows the southwest rift zone for about 12 km. It is approximately 8 km wide. We use data derived from permanent GPS stations to calibrate the InSAR displacement data and estimate uplift of 7.7 cm during the first interferogram and 8.9 cm during the second with line-of-sight volumes of 2.8 × 10 6 m 3 and 3.0 × 10 6 m 3 respectively. The earthquake record for the periods before, during, and after inflation shows that a swarm of shallow earthquakes ( z

Mapping of seafloor tectonic fabric in the Indian Ocean, using high-resolution satellite-derived vertical gravity gradient data, reveals an extinct Pacific-style oceanic microplate ('Mammerickx Microplate') west of the Ninetyeast Ridge. It is one of the first Pacific-style microplates to be mapped outside the Pacific basin, suggesting that geophysical conditions during formation probably resembled those that have dominated at eastern Pacific ridges. The microplate formed at the Indian-Antarctic ridge and is bordered by an extinct ridge in the north and pseudofault in the south, whose conjugate is located north of the Kerguelen Plateau. Independent microplate rotation is indicated by asymmetric pseudofaults and rotated abyssal hill fabric, also seen in multibeam data. Magnetic anomaly picks and age estimates calculated from published spreading rates suggest formation during chron 21o (~47.3 Ma). Plate reorganizations can trigger ridge propagation and microplate development, and we propose that Mammerickx Microplate formation is linked with the India-Eurasia collision (initial 'soft' collision). The collision altered the stress regime at the Indian-Antarctic ridge, leading to a change in segmentation and ridge propagation from an establishing transform. Fast Indian-Antarctic spreading that preceded microplate formation, and Kerguelen Plume activity, may have facilitated ridge propagation via the production of thin and weak lithosphere; however both factors had been present for tens of millions of years and are therefore unlikely to have triggered the event. Prior to the collision, the combination of fast spreading and plume activity was responsible for the production of a wide region of undulate seafloor to the north of the extinct ridge and 'W' shaped lineations that record back and forth ridge propagation. Microplate formation provides a precise means of dating the onset of the India-Eurasia collision, and is completely independent of and complementary to timing constraints derived from continental geology or convergence histories. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. K.J.M. and R.D.M. were supported by ARC Discovery Project DP130101946 . The CryoSat-2 data were provided by the European Space Agency, and NASA/CNES provided data from the Jason-1 altimeter. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation ( OCE-1128801 ), the Office of Naval Research ( N00014-12-1-0111 ), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency ( HM0177-13-1-0008 ) and ConocoPhillips . Version 23 of the global grids of gravity anomaly and VGG can be downloaded from the following ftp site ftp://topex.ucsd.edu/pub/global_grav_1min . All figures were produced using the Generic Mapping Tools ( GMT ) software ( Wessel et al., 2013 ). The open-source plate reconstruction software GPlates ( Boyden et al., 2011 ) was used to compute the distance from the Kerguelen Plume to the initiation point of ridge propagation using different absolute reference frames, and to produce the VGG raster reconstruction in Fig. 3 . Magnetic anomaly picks were accessed from the compilation of Seton et al. (2014) from The Global Seafloor Fabric and Magnetic Lineation Data Base Project website ( http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/PT/GSFML/ ). We thank the editor An Yin and two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and constructive comments that improved the manuscript. Appendix A

Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data over the area of the Hector Mine earthquake (Mw 7.1, 16 October 1999) reveal postseismic deformation of several centimeters over a spatial scale of 0.5 to 50 km. We analyzed seven SAR acquisitions to form interferograms over four time periods after the event. The main deformations seen in the line-of-sight (LOS) displacement maps are a region of subsidence (60 mm LOS increase) on the northern end of the fault, a region of uplift (45 mm LOS decrease) located to the northeast of the primary fault bend, and a linear trough running along the main rupture having a depth of up to 15 mm and a width of about 2 km. We correlate these features with a double left-bending, rightlateral, strike-slip fault that exhibits contraction on the restraining side and extension along the releasing side of the fault bends. The temporal variations in the near-fault postseismic deformation are consistent with a characteristic time scale of 135 + 42 or - 25 days, which is similar to the relaxation times following the 1992 Landers earthquake. High gradients in the LOS displacements occur on the fault trace, consistent with afterslip on the earthquake rupture. We derive an afterslip model by inverting the LOS data from both the ascending and descending orbits. Our model indicates that much of the afterslip occurs at depths of less than 3 to 4 km.

Since the early 1990s, sinkholes and wide, shallow subsidence features (WSSFs) have become major problems along the Dead Sea shores in Israel and Jordan. Sinkholes are readily observed in the field, but their locations and timing are unpredictable. WSSFs are often difficult to observe in the field. However, once identified, they delineate zones of instability and increasing hazard. In this study we identify, characterize, and measure rates of subsidence along the Dead Sea shores by the interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) technique. We analyze 16 SAR scenes acquired during the years 1992 to 1999 by the European Remote Sensing ERS-1 and ERS- 2 satellites. The interferograms span periods of between 2 and 71 months. WSSFs are observed in the Lisan Peninsula and along the Dead Sea shores, in a variety of appearances, including circular and elongate coastal depressions (a few hundred meters to a few kilometers in length), depressions in ancient alluvial fans, and depressions along salt-diapir margins. Phase differences measured in our interferograms correspond to subsidence rates generally in the range of 0–20 mm/yr within the studied period, with exceptional high rates that exceed 60 mm/yr in two specific regions. During the study period, the level of the Dead Sea and of the associated ground water has dropped by ∼6 m. This water-level drop within an aquifer overlying fine-grained, marly layers, would be expected to have caused aquifer-system consolidation, resulting in gradual subsidence. Comparison of our InSAR observations with calculations of the expected consolidation shows that in areas where marl layers are known to compose part of the upper 30 m of the profile, estimated consolidation settlements are of the order of the measured subsidence. Our observations also show that in certain locations, subsidence appears to be structurally controlled by faults, seaward landslides, and salt domes. Gradual subsidence is unlikely to be directly related to the sinkholes, excluding the use of the WSSFs features as predictable precursors to sinkhole formation.

Baer, G., Shamir, G., Sandwell, D., Bock, Y. 2001. Crustal deformation during 6 years spanning the M w = 7.2 1995 Nuweiba earthquake, analyzed by Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar. Isr. J. Earth Sci. 50: 9–22. The November 22, 1995, M w = 7.2 Nuweiba earthquake occurred along one of the left-stepping segments of the Dead Sea Transform in the Gulf of Elat (Aqaba). We examine the surface deformation patterns in the region by Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) for the period 1993 to 1999, which includes the end of one seismic cycle and the beginning of the next. Because the main rupture was under water, ERS coverage is limited to distances of approximately 5 km or more away from the rupture. Pre-earthquake interferograms do not show any detectable deformation along the Gulf. Coseismic interferograms show deformation at distances of up to 50 km from the main rupture, with the highest fringe rate (strain) NW of the rupture termination. Coseismic phase gradient maps show triggered slip along faults parallel to the main rupture (sinistral or normal with the Gulf side down) along the western shore of the Gulf, and in a belt of extensional faults along the eastern shore, striking at angles of about 30° to the major rupture. Postseismic deformation is observed only in a time window of up to 6 months following the mainshock. It was concentrated in the region of the high coseismic strain, and seems to be related to the M L > 4.5 aftershocks in the respective time window.

Wessel et al. (2010) highlight the need for a systematic mapping of seamounts in ocean basins. They estimate that 100,000 or 90% of the seamounts greater than 1-km tall are unobserved by either ship soundings or satellite gravity. There are two reasons why most of these relatively large, predicted seamounts remain uncharted. First, satellite-derived gravity is only able to reliably measure seamounts that are more than 2-km tall, although smaller seamounts can be detected (Wessel, 2001). Second, the freely available ship sounding data collected during the past 50 years only covers 10% of the seafloor at the 1-minute resolution needed to detect these 1-km and taller seamounts (Becker et al., 2009). Based on current trends in seafloor mapping, the rate of seamount discoveries is not likely to change significantly because modern research surveys are focused on particular areas of high scientific interest such as mid-ocean ridges, continental margins, and subduction zones. This exploration strategy has resulted in gaps in remote areas of up to 600 km by 300 km. As Figure 1 shows, more than 50% of the seafloor lies more than 9.5 km from the nearest ship sounding. This sparse coverage, combined with a relatively random spatial distribution of seamounts, results in the situation today where there are even 3-km and 4-km tall seamounts that have not been surveyed by ships.

The Hector Mine Earthquake (Mw 7.1, 16 Oc- tober 1999) ruptured 45 km of previously mapped and un- mapped faults in the Mojave Desert. The ERS-2 satellite imagedtheMojaveDeserton15Septemberandagain on20 October, just 4 days after the earthquake. Using a newly- developed ground station we acquired both passes and were able to form an interferogram within 20 hours of the second overflight. Estimates of slip along the main rupture are 1-2 meters greater than slip derived from geological mapping. The gradient of the interferometric phase reveals an inter- esting pattern of triggered slip on adjacent faults as well as a 30 mm deep sink hole along Interstate 40.

The Foundation hotspot-Pacific-Antarctic Ridge (PAR) system is the best documented case of a fast spreading ridge approaching a hotspot and interacting with it. The morphology, crustal structure inferred from gravity anomalies and the chemical composition of the lavas of the axial area of the PAR show evidence of the influence of the hotspot, that is presently located roughly 35 km west of the spreading ridge axis. Along-axis variation in the Mantle Bouguer anomaly is about 28 mGal, corresponding to a crustal thickening of 1.5 km where the hotspot is nearer to the PAR. Anomalous ridge elevation is 650 m and the along-axis width of the chemical anomaly is 200 km. A comparison of these axial parameters with those derived for other ridge-hotspot systems, suggests that the amount of plume material reaching the ridge axis is smaller for the Foundation-PAR system. This implies a weaker connection between the plume and the ridge. Cumulative effects of a fast spreading rate and of a fast ridge-hotspot relative motion can be responsible for this weak plume-ridge flow. The flow from the hotspot may be less efficiently channelled towards the ridge axis when a fast ridge is rapidly moving towards a hotspot.

Both seafloor bathymetry and eddy kinetic energy at the ocean surface can be estimated by making use of satellite altimeters. Comparing the two quantities shows that in regions of the ocean deeper than about 4800 m, surface eddy kinetic energy is greater over smooth abyssal plains than over rough bathymetry, while the opposite is true in shallower waters. Thus in the deep ocean, bottom roughness may dissipate eddy kinetic energy. A simple model indicates that the dissipation rate increases as root-mean-squared bottom roughness increases from 0 to 250 m and decreases to negative values (implying eddy generation) for higher roughness.

Radar altimeter measurements of the marine geoid collected during the Seasat altimeter mission gave geophysicists hope of uncovering the gravity field over all the ocean basins. However, because of insufficient track density, it has taken 16 years for the full potential of the satellite altimeter to be realized. The high‐density coverage obtained by ERS-1 during its geodetic mapping phase (April 1994–March 1995) prompted the U.S. Navy to declassify all of the Geosat altimeter data in June 1995. The combination of these two high‐density data sets provided the first global view of all the ocean basins at a wavelength resolution of 20–30 km.

SAR has several strong key features: fine spatial resolution/precision and high temporal pass frequency. Moreover, the InSAR technique allows the accurate detection of ground deformations. This high potential technology can be invaluable to study volcanoes: it provides important information on pre-eruption surface deformation, improving the understanding of volcanic processes and the ability to predict eruptions. As a downside, SAR measurements are influenced by artifacts such as atmospheric effects or bad topographic data. Correlation gives a measure of these interferences, quantifying the similarity of the phase of two SAR images. Different approaches exists to reduce these errors but the main concern remain the possibility to correlate images with different acquisition times: snow-covered or heavily-vegetated areas produce seasonal changes on the surface. Minimizing the time between passes partly limits decorrelation. Though, images with a short temporal baseline aren't always available and some artifacts affecting correlation are timeindependent. This work studies correlation of pairs of SAR images focusing on the influence of surface and climate conditions, especially snow coverage and temperature. Furthermore, the effects of the acquisition band on correlation are taken into account, comparing L-band and C-band images. All the chosen images cover most of the Yellowstone caldera (USA) over a span of 4 years, sampling all the seasons. Interferograms and correlation maps are generated. To isolate temporal decorrelation, pairs of images with the shortest baseline are chosen. Correlation maps are analyzed in relation to snow depth and temperature. Results obtained with ENVISAT and ERS satellites (C-band) are compared with the ones from ALOS (L-band). Results show a good performance during winter and a bad attitude towards wet snow (spring and fall). During summer both L-band and C-band maintain a good coherence with L-band performing better over vegetation.

A region west of the southern East Pacific Rise (SEPR), between the Marquesas and Austral Fracture Zones has previously been found to exhibit anomalous depth-age behavior, based on gridded bathymetry and single-beam soundings. Since gridded bathymetry has been shown to be unsuitable for some geophysical analysis and since the area is characterized by unusually robust volcanism, the magnitude and regional extent of depth anomalies over the young eastern flank of the so called ‘South Pacific Superswell’ are re-examined using a mode-seeking estimation procedure on data obtained from several recent multibeam surveys. The modal technique estimates a representative seafloor depth, based on the assumption that bathymetry from non-edifice and edifice-populated seafloor has a low and a high standard deviation, respectively. Flat seafloor depth values are concentrated in a few bins which correspond to the mode. This method estimates a representative seafloor value even on seafloor for which more than 90% of coverage is dominated by ridge and seamount clusters, where the mean and median estimates may be shallow by hundreds of meters. Where volcanism-related bias is moderate, the mode, mean and median estimates are close. Depth-age results indicate that there is only a small anomaly ( < 200 m) over IS-35 Ma Pacific Plate seafloor with little age-dependent shallowing, suggesting that the lithosphere east of the main hot-spot locations on the ‘superswell’ is normal. An important implication is that, in sparsely surveyed areas, depths from ETOPOJ are significantly different from true depths even at large scales (- 1000 km) and thus are unsuitable for investigations of anomalies associated with depth-age regressions. We find that seafloor slopes on conjugate profiles of the Pacific and Nazca Plates from I5 to 35 Ma are both slightly lower than normal, but are within the global range. Proximate to the SEPR, seafloor slopes are very low (218 m Myr-‘/2) on the Pacific Plate (O-22 Ma) and slightly high (- 410 m Myr- ‘I21 on the Nazca Plate (O-8 Ma); slopes for older Pacific seafloor (22-37 Ma) are near normal (399 m Myr- ‘I’) Seafloor slopes are even lower north of the Marquesas . Fracture Zone but are highly influenced by the Marquesas Swell. We find that the low subsidence rate on young Pacific seafloor cannot be explained by a local hot-spot or a small-scale convective model exclusively and a stretching/thickening model requires implausible crustal thickness variation ( - 30%).

About 10,000 km of trenches in chasmata and coronae have been identified as possible sites of retrograde subduction on Venus. All the sites have narrow deep trenches elongate along strike with arcuate planforms, ridge-trench-outer rise topographic profiles typical of terrestrial subduction zones, large outer rise curvatures >10 -7 m -1 , fractures parallel to the strike of the trench on the outer trench wall and outer rise, and no cross-strike fractures across the trench. Both the northern and southern margins of Latona Corona are possible subduction sites. Identification of a major graben between the two principal outer ridges in southern Latona Corona is evidence of back-arc extension in the corona; the amount of extension is estimated to be more than 2-11 km. The moment exerted by the ridges of southern Latona Corona is insufficient to bend the lithosphere into the observed outer rise shape; a negatively buoyant subducted or underthrust slab is needed. Depending on the unknown trench migration rate, lithospheric subduction can make a significant contribution to mantle cooling on Venus. Venusian chasmata could have a dual character. They may be propagating rifts near major volcanic rises, and subduction trenches far from the rises in the lowlands. Subduction and rifting may occur in close proximity on Venus, unlike on Earth. Rifting induced by hotspots on Venus may be necessary to break the lithosphere and allow subduction to occur. Such a process could result in gradual lithospheric subduction or global, episodic overturn of the lithosphere.

Cross-spectral analysis of repeat satellite altimeter profiles was performed to compare the along-track resolution capabilities of Geosat, ERS 1 and TOPEX data. Geophysical Data Records were edited, differentiated, low-pass-filtered, and resampled at 5 Hz. All available data were then loaded into three-dimensional files where repeat cycles were aligned along-track (62 cycles of Geosat/Exact Repeat Mission ; 16 cycles of ERS 1, 35-day orbit ; 73 cycles of TOPEX). The coherence versus wave number between pairs of repeat profiles was used to estimate along-track resolution for individual cycles, eight-cycle-average profiles, and 31-cycle-average profiles (Geosat and TOPEX only). Coherence, which depends on signal to noise ratio, reflects factors such as seafloor gravity amplitude, regional seafloor depth, instrument noise, oceanographic noise, and the number of cycles available for stacking (averaging). Detailed resolution analyses are presented for two areas : the equatorial Atlantic, a region with high tectonic signal and low oceanographic noise ; and the South Pacific, a region with low tectonic signal and high oceanographic variability. For all three altimeters, along-track resolution is better in the equatorial Atlantic than in the South Pacific. Global maps of along-track resolution show considerable geographic variation. On average globally, the along-track resolution (0.5 coherence) of eight-cycle stacks are approximately the same, 28, 29, and 30 km for TOPEX, Geosat, and ERS 1, respectively. TOPEX 31-cycle stacks (22 km) resolve slightly shorter wavelengths than Geosat 31-cycle stacks (24 km). The stacked data, which are publicly available, will be used in future global gravity grids, and for detailed studies of mid-ocean ridge axes, fracture zones, sea mounts, and seafloor roughness.

Satellite altimeter measurements of marine gravity reveal 100 to 200-km wavelength lineations over a wide area of the Pacific plate oriented roughly in the direction of absolute plate motion. At least three mechanisms have been proposed for their origin: small-scale convective rolls aligned in the direction of absolute plate motion by shear in the asthenosphere; diffuse N-S extension of the lithosphere resulting in lineated zones of extension (boudins); and minihotspots that move slowly with respect to major hotspots and produce intermittent volcanism. Recently, several chains of linear volcanic ridges have been found to be associated with the gravity lineations. Following ridgelike gravity signatures apparent in high-resolution Geosat gravity measurements, we surveyed a series of volcanic ridges that extend northwest from the East Pacific Rise flank for 2600 km onto 40 Ma seafloor. Our survey data, as well as radiometric dates on samples we collected from the ridges, provide tight constraints on their origin: (1) Individual ridge segments and sets of ridges are highly elongate in the direction of present absolute plate motion. (2) The ridges formed along a band 50 to 70-km-wide in the trough of one of the more prominent gravity lineations. (3) Radiometric dates of the largest ridges show no hotspot age progression. Moreover, the directions predicted for minihotspot traces older than 24 Ma do not match observed directions of either the gravity lineations or the ridges. Based on this last observation, we reject the minihotspot model. The occurrence of the ridges in the trough of the gravity lineation is incompatible with the small-scale convection model which would predict increased volcanism above the convective upwelling. We favor the diffuse extension model because it is consistent with the occurrence of ridges in the trough above the more highly extended lithosphere. However, the multibeam data show no evidence for widespread normal faulting of the crust as predicted by the model. Perhaps the fault scarps are buried under more than 30 m of sediments and/or covered by the elongated ridges. Finally, we note that if ridge-push force is much smaller than trench-pull force, then near the ridge axis the direction of maximum tensile stress must be perpendicular to the direction of absolute plate motion.

[1] The direction of crustal stresses acting at mid-ocean ridges is well characterized, but the magnitude of these stresses is poorly constrained. We present a method by which the absolute magnitude of these stresses may be constrained using seafloor topography and gravity. The topography is divided into a short-wavelength portion, created by rifting, magmatism, and transform faulting, and a long-wavelength portion associated with the cooling and subsidence of the oceanic lithosphere. The short-wavelength surface and Moho topography are used to calculate the spatially varying 3-D stress tensor in the crust by assuming that in creating this topography, the deviatoric stress reached the elastic-plastic limiting stress; the Moho topography is constrained by short-wavelength gravity variations. Under these assumptions, an incompressible elastic material gives the smallest plastic failure stress associated with this topography. This short-wavelength topographic stress generally predicts the wrong style of earthquake focal mechanisms at ridges and transform faults. However, the addition of an in-plane regional stress field is able to reconcile the combined crustal stress with both the ridge and transform focal mechanisms. By adjusting the magnitude of the regional stress, we determine a lower bound for in situ ridge-perpendicular extension of 25–40 MPa along the slow spreading mid-Atlantic ridge, 40–50 MPa along the ultra–slow spreading ridges in the western Indian Ocean, and 10–30 MPa along the fast spreading ridges of the southeastern Indian and Pacific Oceans. Furthermore, we constrain the magnitude of ridge-parallel extension to be between 4 and 8 MPa in the Atlantic Ocean, between −1 and 7 MPa in the western Indian Ocean, and between −1 and 3 MPa in the southeastern Indian and Pacific Oceans. These observations suggest that a deep transform valley is an essential feature of the ridge-transform spreading center.

New high-resolution Geosat altimetry data south of 30°S reveal numerous propagating ridge wakes along intermediate- and slow-spreading ridges. These new examples provide a large enough database to establish systematics of ridge propagation. Almost all active propagating ridges propagate down a regional along-axis gravity or bathymetry gradient. The sense of the propagating ridge offset (right lateral vs. left lateral) is related to recent changes in spreading direction. We find there is a significant difference between the propagation of ridges with an axial high morphology which propagate at greater than ∼ 50% of their full-spreading rate and ridges with a median valley morphology which usually propagate at ∼ 25% of their spreading rate. The axial high propagators leave behind an asymmetric wake; the outer pseudofault appears as a continuous linear trough/step while the sheared zone appears as a chain of small gravity bumps. While we clearly see the propagating ridge wakes from offsets greater than ∼ 10 km at slow- and intermediate-spreading ridges, at ridges spreading faster than ∼ 75 mm/yr the amplitude of the wake topography decreases to the point where we no longer see these wakes in Geosat altimetry data. The systematics seen in this new data set support a fracture mechanics model for the dynamics of ridge propagation.

[1] The depth of the seismogenic zone is a critical parameter for earthquake hazard models. Independent observations from seismology and geodesy can provide insight into the depths of faulting, but these depths do not always agree. Here we inspect variations in fault depths of 12 segments of the southern San Andreas Fault System derived from over 1000 GPS velocities and 66,000 relocated earthquake hypocenters. Geodetically determined locking depths range from 6 to 22 km, while seismogenic thicknesses are largely limited to depths of 11–20km.Theseseismogenicdepthsbestmatchthegeodeticlockingdepthswhenestimated at the 95% cutoff depth in seismicity, and most fault segment depths agree to within 2 km. However, the Imperial, Coyote Creek, and Borrego segments have significant discrepancies. In these cases the geodetically inferred locking depths are much shallower than the seismogenic depths. We also examine variations in seismic moment accumulation rate per unit fault length as suggested by seismicity and geodesy and find that both approaches yield high rates (1.5– 1.8 ×1 0 13 Nm/yr/km) along the Mojave and Carrizo segments and low rates (∼0.2 × 10 13 Nm/yr/km) along several San Jacinto segments. The largest difference in seismic moment between models is calculated for the Imperial segment, where the moment rate from seismic depths is a factor of ∼2.5 larger than that from geodetic depths. Such variability has important implications for the accuracy to which future major earthquake magnitudes can be estimated.

We compare new marine gravity fields derived from satellite altimetry with shipboard measurements over a region of more than 120,000 sq km in the central South Atlantic. Newly declassified satellite data were employed to construct free-air anomaly maps on 0.05 degree grids. An extensive gravity and bathymetry data set from four cruises along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge from 30.5-35.5 deg S provides a benchmark for testing the 2D resolution and accuracy of the satellite measurements where their crosstrack spacing is near their widest. The satellite gravity signal is coherent with bathymetry in this region down to wavelengths of 26 km, compared to 12.5 km for shipboard gravity. Residuals between the shipboard and satellite data sets have a roughly normal distribution. The standard deviation of satellite gravity with respect to shipboard measurements is nearly 7 mGal in a region of 140 mGal total variation, whereas the internal standard deviation at crossovers for GPS-navigated shipboard data is 1.8 mGal. The differences between shipboard and satellite data are too large to use satellite gravity to determine crustal thickness variations within a typical ridge segment.

Fast and slow spreading ridges have radically different morphologic and gravimetric characteristics. In this study, altimeter measurements from the Geosat Exact Repeat Mission are used to investigate spreading rate dependence of the ridge axis gravity field. Gravity roughness provides an estimate of the amplitude of the gravity anomaly and is robust to small errors in the location of the ridge axis. Gravity roughness as a weighted root mean square of the vertical deflection at 438 ridge crossings on the mid-ocean ridge system is computed. Ridge axis gravity anomalies show a decrease in amplitude with increasing spreading rate up to an intermediate rate of about 60-80 mm/yr and almost no change at higher rates; overall the roughness decreases by a factor of 10 between the lowest and highest rates. In addition to the amplitude decrease, the range of roughness values observed at a given spreading rate shows a similar order of magnitude decrease with transition between 60 and 80 mm/yr. The transition of ridge axis gravity is most apparent at three relatively unexplored locations on the Southeast Indian Ridge and the Pacific-Antarctic Rise; on these intermediate rate ridges the transition occurs abruptly across transform faults.

The impact of this research it twofold. First, our global bathymetric grid is used for a variety of purposes ranging from cautionary overlays of NGA navigation charts to popular applications such as Google Earth. Google Earth acknowledges the MOA efforts at the bottom of their display window: as "Data: SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO". The addition of the shallow ocean data (< 300 m) may be useful for global studies of coastal processes. Second, we are using the edited sounding data to assess the roughness of the seafloor for understanding the tectonics of the deep oceans as well as the effects of seafloor roughness on deep-ocean mixing.

The Australian-Antar ctic discordance zone (AAD) is an anomalously deep and rough segment of the Southeast Indian Ridge between 120 ° and 128°E. A large, negative (deeper than predicted) depth anomaly is centered on the discordance, and a geoid low is evident upon removal of a low-order geoid model and the geoid height-age relation. We investigate two models that may explain these anomalies: a deficiency in ridge-axis magma supply that produces thin oceanic crust (i.e. shallow Airy compensation), and a downwelling and/or cooler mantle beneath the AAD that results in deeper convective-type compensation. To distinguish between these models, we have calculated the ratio of geoid height to topography from the slope of a best line fit by functional analysis (i.e. non-biased linear regression), a method that minimizes both geoid height and topography residuals. Geoid/topography ratios of 2.1 _+ 0.9 m/km for the entire study area (380-60 ° S, 105°-140 ° E), 2.3 _+ 1.8 m/km for a subset comprising crust _< 25 Ma, and 2.7 _+ 2.0 m/km for a smaller area centered on the AAD were obtained. These ratios are significantly larger than predicted for thin oceanic crust (0.4 m/km), and 2.7 m/kin is consistent with downwelling convection beneath young lithosphere. Average compensation depths of 27, 29, and 34 km, respectively, estimated from these ratios suggest a mantle structure that deepens towards the AAD. The deepest compensation (34 km) of the AAD is below the average depth of the base of the young lithosphere (- 30 kin), and a downwelling of asthenospheric material is implied. The observed geoid height-age slope over the discordance is unusually gradual at -0.133 m/m.y. We calculate that an upper mantle 170 °C cooler and 0.02 g/cm 3 denser than normal can explain the shallow slope. Unusually fast shear velocities in the upper 200 km of mantle beneath the discordance, and major-element geochemical trends consistent with small amounts of melting at shallow depths, provide strong evidence for cooler temperatures beneath the AAD.

[1] Rough topography on the ocean floor is a source of ocean mixing which is of interest to both physical oceanography and climate science. Most mixing has been attributed to high slopes of the large-scale structures of the deep ocean floor such as seamounts, continental margins, and mid-ocean ridge axes. In this paper, we show the small-scale but ubiquitous abyssal hills and fracture zones dominate the global map of rough topography. Much of this rugged seafloor occurs in the Southern Ocean on the flanks of the Pacific-Antarctic Rise and Southwest Indian Ridge. We present our results as a global map of the mean slope of the ocean floor, and as a global map of the ocean floor above theM2 critical slope. We compare our results to multibeam and satellite bathymetry data to show that satellite bathymetry is not a valid proxy for multibeam measurements, but edited single-beam sonar data are adequate to provide a global perspective on features with horizontal wavelengths as small as 2 km.

Bathymetric survey lines cover the remote ocean basins about as sparsely as the Interstate Highway System covers the United States. Therefore the most complete global bathymetric models employ reconnaissance deep sea bottom topography ("bathymetry from space") combining conventional acoustic soundings with detailed marine gravity field information derived from densely spaced satellite altimeter profiles of sea surface slope. Gravity and bathymetry may be correlated over spatial scales (half-wavelengths) of roughly 5 to 80 km. The vertical precision and horizontal resolution of derived bathymetry depends on the signal-to-noise characteristics of the satellite altimetry over the correlated band. Comparison between gravity anomalies derived from existing satellite altimeter data and gravity anomalies measured with shipboard gravimeters shows root-mean-square differences around 5 milliGals (mGal) and spectral coherency (signal exceeding noise) for half-wavelengths longer than about 13 km. Reconnaissance bathymetry estimates derived from these data have a similar scale of resolution (roughly 15 km half wavelength) and vertical errors of approximately 125 to 250 meters, depending on conditions such as regional water depth and the spectrum of the local topographic signal. The most challenging error situation is predicting the summit depth of a narrow and steep seamount rising from deep water. In the area of the USS San Francisco collision, for example, the altimetric bathymetry map shows a ridge with a local summit at 278 meters depth near the crash site, rising from a regional background depth of more than 3000 m of water. Landsat imagery near the crash site suggests that the seamount the San Francisco hit is probably shallower than 40 m at its summit. State-of-the-art shipboard gravimetry has an error level around 1 mGal, and cross-spectral comparisons of shipboard measurements of gravity and bathymetry show coherency down to half wavelengths as short as 5 km. Thus if a new mission could reduce the error in gravity maps derived from satellite altimetry by as much as a factor of five, one could expect significant improvements in the horizontal resolution and vertical error of estimated reconnaissance bathymetry. While the error propagation from gravity to estimated bathymetry depends on the local conditions as above, we can expect a five-fold reduction in the bathymetry error from a five-fold reduction in gravity error. Recent advances in altimetry - the delay-Doppler technology - make this five-fold gain readily achievable with a low-cost mission. The limiting error in altimetry of sea surface slopes is random noise in the altimeter's range measurement, and the delay-Doppler altimeter is superior to conventional altimeters in this respect by a factor of at least two. The mission should have an orbit with a ground track pattern that does not repeat for at least 1.2 to 1.5 years or so, in order to obtain dense spatial sampling to support short-wavelength horizontal resolution. Thus a 5 to 6 year mission would yield four-fold data redundancy, reducing the error another factor of two. An additional noise reduction factor of roughly 1-1/4 or so can be gained by choosing an optimal orbital inclination.

The seafloor is characterized by numerous seamounts and oceanic islands which are mainly volcanic in origin. Relatively few of these features (

Data generated by a radar altimeter over large bodies of water are sufficient to support the generation of gravity anomaly maps and bathymetric charts. This paper outlines the conceptual design of a single-frequency high-precision radar altimeter hosted on a small dedicated Pegasusclass spacecraft whose mission would be to determine near-global bathymetry to a resolution of 6 km (half-wavelength) by measuring sea-surface slopes. The resulting data will extend the highresolution end of the spectrum beyond the best existing marine gravimetric and bathymetric data by two octaves. The key instrument characteristic is fine measurement precision, as exemplified by the delay-Doppler radar altimeter.

[1] Exploring the earthquake cycle for large, complex tectonic boundaries that deform over thousands of years requires the development of sophisticated and efficient models. In this paper we introduce a semianalytic three-dimensional (3-D) linear viscoelastic Maxwell model that is developed in the Fourier domain to exploit the computational advantages of the convolution theorem. A new aspect of this model is an analytic solution for the surface loading of an elastic plate overlying a viscoelastic half-space. When fully implemented, the model simulates (1) interseismic stress accumulation on the upper locked portion of faults, (2) repeated earthquakes on prescribed fault segments, and (3) the viscoelastic response of the asthenosphere beneath the plate following episodic ruptures. We verify both the analytic solution and computer code through a variety of 2-D and 3-D tests and examples. On the basis of the methodology presented here, it is now possible to explore thousands of years of the earthquake cycle along geometrically complex 3-D fault systems.