Constraints on Present-Day Shortening Rate Across the Central Eastern Andes from GPS Data

Authors

Lisa Leffler, Northwestern University
Seth Stein, Northwestern University
Ailin Mao, University of Miami
Timothy H. Dixon, University of MiamiFollow
Michael A. Ellis, University of Memphis
Leonidas Ocola, Instituto Geophysico Del Peru
I. Selwyn Sacks, Carnegie Institute of Washington

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-1997

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1029/97GL00770

Abstract

Two years of continuous GPS data from several sites in South America indicate that Arequipa in the southern Peruvian Andes has a velocity of 13±3 mm/yr (two standard errors) to the northeast with respect to stable South America. We interpret these data as reflecting a combination of elastic strain accumulation associated with a locked Nazca-South America subduction zone and a small amount of crustal shortening across the fold and thrust belt on the eastern margin of the Andes. Models of elastic strain accumulation for fully locked and partly locked subduction zones constrain shortening in the eastern Andes to 0–3 mm/yr (fully locked) and 0–12 mm/yr (partly locked), slower than some geologic estimates averaged over millions of years.

Rights Information

Terms of use for work posted in Scholar Commons.

Was this content written or created while at USF?

No

Citation / Publisher Attribution

Geophysical Research Letters, v. 24, issue 9, p. 1031-1034

Copyright 1997 by the American Geophysical Union.

Scholar Commons Citation

Leffler, Lisa; Stein, Seth; Mao, Ailin; Dixon, Timothy H.; Ellis, Michael A.; Ocola, Leonidas; and Sacks, I. Selwyn, "Constraints on Present-Day Shortening Rate Across the Central Eastern Andes from GPS Data" (1997). School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications. 492.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/geo_facpub/492