Abstract
Geologic records of past earthquakes are rare but critical for identifying long-term patterns in fault behavior and assessing modern earthquake hazards. We present a continuous 14,000-year paleoearthquake reconstruction using precisely dated lacustrine sediments and landslide deposits from a lake basin positioned directly on the Teton normal fault, which cuts across Grand Teton National Park, WY, and is among the most hazardous intraplate faults in the western United States. We show that beginning immediately after deglaciation, a series of at least seven major fault ruptures occurred at regular intervals of ~1,050 years (± ~250 years), followed by >5,000 years of inactivity. These results are consistent with trench data and model simulations and suggest that faulting was variably influenced by climate-controlled glacial fluctuations and magmatic activity of the nearby Yellowstone hotspot.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 13036-13043 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Geophysical Research Letters |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue number | 22 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 28 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:supporting information This research was funded in part by NSF GLD Award # 1755067 (D.J.L.), NSF GLD‐EAGER award# 1546677 (D. J. L., M. B. A.), and research grants from The National Geographic Society (D. J. L.), The Explorers Club (D. J. L.), Grand Teton Association (D. J. L.), University of Wyoming–National Park Service (D. J. L.), and the University of Colorado Boulder Graduate School (S. E. C.). Contributions of S. E. C. were supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship under grant DGE1144083. We thank NPS personnel Kathy Mellander, Simeon Caskey, and Sue Consolo‐Murphy for facilitating this research and the UW‐NPS AMK Research Station and staff for logistical support. We thank M. Brandi, C. Condit, A. Dennison, C. Fasulo, M. Finkenbinder, A. Forget, D. Hougardy, J. Licciardi, A. Lingwall, Z. Montes, D. Obermeyer, S. Pendleton, C. Roberts, J. Smith, B. Valencia, and N. Weidhaas for lab and field assistance. Initial core processing and analyses were performed at the NSF‐shared LacCore facility, University of Minnesota. Radiocarbon samples were processed at the Keck Carbon Cycle AMS Lab, UC Irvine with support from John Southon. Grain size measurements were performed at CSUF with support from Matthew Kirby. The authors declare no conflict of interest. All data related to this paper are archived at the NOAA NCEI data repository in accordance with AGU FAIR data policy. Supplementary figures, tables, and text can be found in the . This manuscript was improved by external reviews from Kenneth L. Pierce and an anonymous reviewer.
