Coexisting seismic behavior of transform faults revealed by high-resolution bathymetry

Transform faults have anomalously low rates of seismicity, but it’s not clear whether this reflects persistent earthquake-generating fault patches surrounded by creep, or the presence of creep and earthquakes at different times along the same patch. We use new, autonomous underwater vehicle high-resolution seafloor mapping to image the morphology of and offsets along transform fault segments in the Gulf of California, offshore Mexico. Fault zone...