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Science 20 October 1995:
Vol. 270. no. 5235, pp. 447 - 450
DOI: 10.1126/science.270.5235.447
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Reports

Cosmogenic Ages for Earthquake Recurrence Intervals and Debris Flow Fan Deposition, Owens Valley, California

Paul R. Bierman (1),  Alan R. Gillespie,  Marc W. Caffee

Model exposure ages (beryllium-10, aluminum-26) of boulders on an offset debris flow fan yield an earthquake recurrence interval between 5800 and 8000 Be:Al years for a strand of the Owens Valley fault in California, which last ruptured in an earthquake of moment magnitude >7.5 in 1872. Cosmogenic age estimates for this and several nearby fan surfaces flanking the eastern Sierra Nevada are consistent with stratigraphic relations and suggest that these surfaces were abandoned after 1000, 8000, and 21,000 Be:Al years ago. The wide scatter and nonconcordance of Be:Al ages on an older fan surface suggest that boulder erosion and lowering of the fan surface there have influenced apparent exposure ages.


P. R. Bierman, Department of Geology, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405, USA.
A. R. Gillespie, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
M. W. Caffee, Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94550, USA.
(1) To whom correspondence should be addressed.


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