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H. Yepes
Escu½la
Pollt½cnica
National
deQuito,Departamcnto
deG½ofisiea,
Quito,Ecuador
Abstract. Extrusiondrivencollisionis controlledby strike- MacDonald et al., 1993]. South of 4øN, the motion on the
slip faults of opposite senseswhereas subductionrelated NNE-SSWstrikingCPRFShasbeeninterpreted
in twooppo-
obliqueconvergence is accommodated by marginparallelfaults site manners:right-lateral[Pariset al., 1989; Sanretet al.,
of identical senses.Northern Andes geodynamicshas been 1993; MacDonaldet al., 1993] or left-lateral[Page,1986;
interpreted either as resulting from the obliquity of Soulaset al., 1991;Tibaldi andFerrari,1992].
convergencebetweenNazca and SouthAmericanplatesor from Thefirstinterpretation
implies
thatthemotion
onfaultspa-
the collision of the CarnegieRidge with Ecuadorianmargin. rallelto theAndesis directlycontrolled
by theinteraction
bet-
The sense of the Cauca-Patia and Romeral Fault System weenNAZ andSAM plates.In thiscase,N-S strikingstructures
(CPRFS) has beeninterpretedin two oppositemanners:right couldbeinterpretedasa restrainingbends withE-W compres-
or left-lateral agreeing with oblique or collisional patterns, sion,suchastheN-Sstriking
Ecuadorian
InterAndean Valley
respectively.We analyzearguments whichfavor,Southto 4øN, (IAV) asproposed
by Winter,[1990]andEgoet al., [1993].
a right-lateralmotionalongthe CPRFS that is consistentwith Conversely,the secondinterpretation
impliesthat the AB is
obliquity driven geodynamics.However,North of 5øN, the composedof two blocksmovingnortheastward, the eastern
CPRFS is actually left-lateral. These opposite motions onemoving
fasterwouldbeextruded
asin a collisional
setting,
betweenthe northernand southernpart of the CPRFS have to so that the AB wouldbe inhomogeneously pushedout nor-
be accommodated around 5øN by N-S stretching and/or theastward.In thiscase,theN-S strikingEcuadorian
IAV could
shortening.Existingdata supportN-S shorteningaround5øN, beinterpreted
asa releasing
bendwithE-Wextension,
aspro-
this buttressingcould be due to the collision between the posedby Tibaldi andFerrari,[1992].
Panama and Andean Blocks.
In order to solvethis problem,all the availableshallowfo-
cal mechanisms
have been analyzed.Then, inversionshave
Introduction beenperformed
on thefocalmechanism population.
Thesein-
version
results
havebeencompared
withlocalmicroseismicity
Indenterrelatedcollisionis responsible for blockextrusion and structuraldata that we collectedin the field. The obtained
[Tapponnier,1977] that are boundedby strike-slipfaultsof mean state of stressfits well with structuraldata inversionand
opposite senses.In striking contrast, subductionrelated localmicroseismicity.
It showsthat,Southto 4øN,fight-late-
obliqueconvergence can lead to slip partitionningparallelto ral motionand/orE-W shortening
are observedwithinthe AB
the margin that is accommodated by strike-slipfaults with on structuresparallel to the Andes.
identical senseof shear [Jarrard,1986; McCaffrey, 1992;
Stbrier and Bellier, 1993; Bellier and Stbrier, 1994].
Consequently,the obliqueconvergencebetweenNazca (NAZ) Shallowfocal mechanisms analysis
and SouthAmerican(SAM) platesshouldproduceonly margin Ten focal mechanisms with 5.26 < Mw < 7 are located South
parallelright-lateralfaults.This obliqueconvergencewouldbe to 4øN within northern Ecuadorian and southern Colombian
responsible for the shortening andpinchingout of the Andean high Andes(seeFig. 1, 2 andtable1, 2). Between4øN and IøN,
Block(AB) towardstheN-NE, i.e., theCaribbean
plate(CAR). two strike-slipsolutionfocalmechanisms
(nø2and 10 on Fig.
The EastAndeanFront Fault Zone (EAFFZ) is consideredas the 2) are located on the CPRFS. For thesetwo solutions,the nodal
major right-lateralfault systembetweenAB and SAM plate planesparallelto the Andesshowslip vectorswhichindicate
[Pennington, 1981; KellogandBonini, 1982;Aggarwalet al., right-lateralmotion,whereasnodalplanesnormalto the Andes
1983; Soulas,1986; Toussaintand Restrepo,1987; Mann and have slip vectorsshowingleft-lateralmotions.Two prelimi-
Corrigan,1990] (Fig. 1). AB internalstrike-slipdeformation nary solutionshave been calculatedfor event Nø10 (Fig. 2),
is accommodated alongfaultsparallelto the Andes.However, each one showingroughly the samemotion. Event nø3 is also
the major one, the Cauca-Patiaand RomeralFault System locatedon the Cauca-Patiafault (Fig. 1 and table 1, 2) and its
(CPRFS) (Fig. 1), hasa motionthat is still underdebate. focal solution correspondsto normal faulting. Such normal
Northof 4øN, left-lateraldisplacement havebeenreported faulting solutionshouldbe the geometricalconsequence of a
on theNNW-SSEto N-S strikingCPRFS[Page,1986;Restrepo right-lateralreleasingbend or right overstepon the CPRFS.
and Toussaint, 1987; Toussaint and Restrepo, 1987; BetweenIøN and IøS, all thefocalmechanisms exceptnø6,cor-
respondto reversefaulting (nøl, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9) (Fig. 2). Those
events are located, respectively,on the westernIAV border
Copyright 1995by theAmerican Geophysical Union. (nøl, 9) , the easternIAV border (nø7, 8) and the Cordillera
Oriental(nø4,5). Thosereversefaultingsolutionshavealways
Paper number 94GL02837 a small right-lateralcomponenton nodalplanesparallelto the
0094-8534/95/94 GL-0283 7503.00 Andes.Focal mechanismnø6 is the biggestaftershockof event
33
34
EGOETAL.:ISCAUCA-PATIA
ANDROMERAL
FAULT
SYSTEM
LEFTORRIGHTLATERAL?
CAR
NAZ
SAM
06/03/87 5 06/03/87 6 O6/O3/87
I 2 3 4
IAV o IOO
I I I ! 4oo1•
!
lutionscan thusbe consideredas reliableevenfor eventswith 01 09h 12m 39s -0.8 -78.8 33.0 5.81 a
intermediate
magnitude
(Mw = 5.26). 02 13h 12m 59s 2.46 -76.68 56.8 5.69 b
03 20h 15m 45s 1.56 -77.00 46.7 5.26 b
Focal mechanism inversion 04 01h 54m 50s 0.04 -77.65 10.0 6.3 c
05 04h 10m 41s 0.15 -77.82 10.0 7.0 c
The inversionis a statisticalmethodwhich calculatesthe 06 08h 14m 48s 0.02 -77.92 10.0 5.8 c
meanstateof stress
froma population
of focalmechanism,
se- 07 13h 43m 45s -0.97 -78.05 15.0 6.4 b
lecting
oneof thetwonodalplanes
asfaultplane.Formorede- 08 16h 21m 41s -1.08 -78.12 19.4 6.02 b
09 3h 00m 06s 0.05 -78.44 15.0 5.3 b
tailsaboutthe inversionprocess,
seeCarey-Gailhardis
and 10a 20h 47m 43s 2.94 -76.13 14.0 6.84 d
Mercier,
[1987].To takeintoaccount
theearthquake
size,each 10b 20h 47m 46s " " 28.8 6.82 e
solution
wasweighting, according
to themoment
magnitude opt -0.15 -78.50 :i: 5.0 f
Mw. Weightedwas definedsuchas 1 for 5<Mw<6,2 for -- - iii i i i i ii i i ii i i i i i i ii ii i
6<Mw<7 and 3 for 7<Mw<8.
Mw, moment magnitude. Ref:(a) Pennington [1981];(b)
Nine shallowfocalmechanismsoutof thetenavailablehave Dziewonskyet al. [1983,86, 87, 91];(c) Kawakatsu and
been includedin the determinationof the mean deviatoric Proafio
[1991];(d) USGSpreliminary determination;(e)
stress
tensor.
Focalmechanism
nø3waseliminated
duringthe Harvardpreliminary determination;
(f) Bonillaet a1.,[1992].
inversion
process
duetoitsincompatible
normal
faulting
solu- Epicenter
locations fromUSGSexceptfor nøl.
EGO ET AL.: IS CAUCA-PATIA AND ROMERAL FAULT SYSTEM LEFT OR RIGHT LATERAL? 35
Az Pl Az Pl
ol 257 2 R:0.86 ol 255 6 R:0.88
latter using solution nø10b, both describedabove. The mean A if216451 ET:
Cf3 349 39
EM:4.2
5.8
B cr215851 ET:
03 350 38
EM:2.7
3.6
state of stressobtainedclearly indicatesE-W compression in
the AB South to 4øN. In addition, accordingto the quality
conditions [Bellier and Zoback, 1993], inversionsare numeri-
cally good(EM<20ø, ET<EM andET/EM<I.5) andsupportdata
homogeneityin the region we study.
Quito microseismicity
An earthquakeoccurredon March 6, 1989 (ML--4.3) under-
neathQuito city. In orderto preciselylocateits seismicsource,
a microseismicactivity was recordedbetween Januaryand
i
x0 (", ')
September1992 by a local seismicnetworkof the EPN. A com-
positefocal mechanismhas beencalculatedfrom microseismi- Az Pl
city recordedbetweenJanuaryand September1992 [Bonilla et ol 086 10 R: 0.46
al., 1992] (Fig. 2). This one agreeswith reversefaultingacti- 0'2355 5 EM: 12.6
c 0'3 237 78 ET: 15.4
vity underneathQuito relatedto E-W compression. This com-
posit focal mechanismwas obtainedusing ten seismicevents
localized aroundthe Quito fault, each event providingfive to
six arrivals.Accordingto our field observations,this fault is a 1
westward dipping blind thrust, associated with the N-S
QuaternaryQuito "en 6chelon"folds [Ego et al., 1993].
Numerousstructuralmeasurements havebeencollectedalong
lqI g•8]lõ
•o 80 30 (-r. s)
the N-S Quito "en echelon"folds locatedbeyondthe western
border of the IAV. All the structural data thus obtained come Fig.3. (A) and (B) stereonetsrepresentthe nodal planes
from Quaternaryformationsinvolvedin the Quito folds. All selected by inversions using solutions 10a and 10b,
the fault planeshavebeencomputedin orderto performan in- respectively.(C) representsnodal planesof mechanismnø9
version [Carey-Gailhardisand Mercier, 1987] (see Fig. 3D). with first arrival from the Escuela Politecnica Nacional de
This inversionclearly showsan E-W compression in the Quito Quito (Black circle: rarefactionof P). (D) representsthe
area. Fault planesparallel to the Andes,i e., strikingN-S to structuraldata inversionof the Quito area.For eachinversion
N40øE have a slip vector indicatinga reverseto right-lateral (A,B and D) are shown('c, s) anglesbetweenthe theoricaland
motion, whereasfault planesoblique to the Andes trending calculatedslip vectorfor eachselectednodalplanes,EM= Y•
N100 to N160øE have a slip vectorshowingleft-lateral(N 100 ('c,s)/N,(N beingthe numberof datausedby inversion),ET
to N120øE) to reverse-left-lateral(N120 to N160øE) motion. whichis the standard deviationversusmean0, calculated by
Indeed, numerousnormal faults are observed,affectingthe theformula:
ET= [Y•(q;,s)2/N]
•nandR=(cr2-ol)/(o3-ol).
36 EGO ET AL.: IS CAUCA-PATIA AND ROMERAL FAULT SYSTEM LEl:rr OR RIGHT LATERAL?