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Geophysical insights into the Transition fault debate: Propagating strike slip in response to stalling Yakutat block subduction in the Gulf of Alaska

¹ Institute for Geophysics, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, J.J. Pickle Research Campus, Austin, Texas 78758, USA
² Department of Geological Sciences, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, Texas 79968-0555, USA
³ Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping, University of New Hampshire, 24 Colovos Road, Durham, New Hampshire 03824, USA

On the basis of faulting mapped on seismic reflection and bathymetric data, seismicity, current plate motions, and evidence that the Yakutat block may be anomalously thick, we propose a tectonic model for Yakutat-Pacific interactions, including the often-debated Transition fault. To the east, deformation associated with the Queen Charlotte–Fairweather fault system is extending offshore, facilitating westward propagation of strike-slip motion along the eastern segment of the Transition fault. To the west, the oblique-slip Pamplona zone and Transition faults merge at an embayment in the continental margin, where a north-south dextral strike-slip fault within the Pacific plate, illuminated by the 1987–1992 earthquake swarm, intersects the Pacific-Yakutat tectonic boundary. These fault patterns are consistent with modern plate motions and reflect a plate boundary reorganization that may be caused by resistance to subduction by the Yakutat block, a possible moderate-sized oceanic plateau.

Key Words: collision • Alaska • Yakutat • oceanic plateau • Transition fault • subduction

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