The Vizcaino block is an anomalously shallow region of the western U.S continental margin located southwest of the Mendocino triple junction. It originated as part of the accretionary prism of the North America plate and was transferred to the Pacific plate in the Miocene as the Pacific-North America plate boundary...
Seismic reflection profiles shot across the Cascadia forearc show that a 5–15 km thick band of reflections, previously interpreted as a lower crustal shear zone above the subducting Juan de Fuca plate, extends into the upper mantle of the North American plate, reaching depths of at least 50 km. In...
Models of magnetic and gravity anomalies along two E-W transects offshore central Oregon, one of which is coincident with a detailed velocity model, provide quantitative limits on the structure of the subducting oceanic crust and the crystalline backstop. The models indicate that the backstop-forming western edge of the Siletz terrane,...
Wide-angle and vertical incidence seismic data from Seismic Hazards Investigations in Puget Sound (SHIPS), gravity modeling, and seismicity are used to derive two-dimensional crustal models beneath the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The Eocene volcanic Crescent-Siletz terrane is significantly thicker than previously recognized and extends from near the surface to...
High‐resolution three‐dimensional (3‐D) seismic reflection data acquired on the R/V Thomas G. Thompson in 2000 reveal a pair of bottom simulating reflections (BSRs) across a broad region of southern Hydrate Ridge, offshore Oregon. The primary BSR (BSRp) is a regionally extensive reflection that lies 120–150 m below seafloor and exhibits...
This paper presents a seismic sequence and structural analysis of a high-resolution three-dimensional seismic reflection survey that was acquired in June 2000 in preparation for Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 204. The seismic data were correlated with coring and logging results from nine sites drilled in 2002 during Leg 204....
A simultaneous inversion for velocity and attenuation structure using multiple seismic attributes has been applied to refraction data from the 1986 GLIMPCE Lake Superior experiment. The seismic attributes considered include envelope amplitude, instantaneous frequency, and travel time of first arrival data. Instantaneous frequency is converted to t* using a matching...
The Queen Charlotte Fault is a transpressive transform plate boundary between the Pacific and North American plates offshore western Canada. Previous models for the accommodation of transpression include internal deformation of both plates adjacent to the plate boundary or oblique subduction of the oceanic plate; the latter has been the...
Log and core data document gas saturations as high as
90% in a coarse-grained turbidite sequence beneath the gas
hydrate stability zone (GHSZ) at south Hydrate Ridge, in the
Cascadia accretionary complex. The geometry of this gas-saturated
bed is defined by a strong, negative-polarity
reflection in 3D seismic data. Because...
In 1989, we conducted an onshore/offshore seismic experiment to image the crustal structure of the Cascadia forearc. In this paper, we discuss the processing and interpretation of a multichannel seismic reflection profile across the continental margin that was collected as part of this effort. This profile reveals several features of...