Since the San Andreas earthquake fault in California first wreaked havoc in modern times in 1857, more than 3,000 publications have documented studies of the famous fault.

One might think there is nothing left to say, but two faculty members from Utah Valley University’s Earth Science Department changed that thought. Associate professor Nathan Toké and professor Michael Bunds did research and had it published in “JGR: Solid Earth,” the No. 17 ranked earth sciences journal out of 322 in the world.

“It is quite prestigious,” said Daniel Horns, dean of UVU’s College of Science. “Every article is peer reviewed, so the science has to be completely solid to be accepted. It is not an easy journal to get published in, for sure.”

“This represents a great coming together with Dr. Bunds being an expert in the technology and Dr. Toké having expertise on the San Andreas fault,” Horns added.

They also collaborated with Chelsea Scott and Manoochehr Shirzaei from Arizona State University.

“I have been studying the San Andreas fault starting with my master’s thesis at Arizona State University in 2003,” Toké said. “I also had connections with the landowner where we did the research.”

That was in Dry Lake Valley, along the central portion of the famous fault. It is close to Pinnacles National Park, near Hollister, California, and about an hour and a half south of the Bay area.

Much of the attention to the San Andreas fault has come from the northern and southern sections that have been responsible for dramatic earthquakes, including the 1989 Loma Prieta and 1906 San Francisco earthquakes. Those portions of the fault tend to have more dramatic earthquakes.

Much of the central portion, however, goes through what is known as aseismic creep, in which the fault slips relatively continuously and does not cause as many earthquakes.

“Creeping faults behave differently, slipping slowly and relatively continuously,” Toké said. “While it may be easy to overlook the hazard they pose, moderate-magnitude earthquakes occur along creeping faults. Slip rates of several centimeters per year accumulate over time and can cause serious infrastructure damage to communities built along faults.”

“The more I have studied the fault, the more interesting questions I can ask,” he asserted. “We are starting to see really detailed processes of how the fault moves. We are refining the knowledge. We are always concerned about ‘the big one.’ There is also this creeping section, moving semi-continuously.”

Both Toké and Bunds were quick to credit personnel from Arizona State University and students from UVU for their help in doing the research.

“We had about 20 students total who assisted,” Toké said.

They were at the site at various times, and used several methods of measurement.

“If the fault moves, the shape of the ground’s surface changes,” Horns said. “By comparing the shape of the ground’s surface, it is possible to determine how fast the fault is creeping. Most of them are completely locked, but certain ones creep all the time.”

Toké said the paper submitted to the journal combined three different scales of analysis.

“We were able to measure with new technology, topographic distancing, and also a satellite scale in imagery,” he said. “On a closer scale, we could see where during a drought the clay soils started to display cracks.”

There is more research to come.

“I have been studying this particular site for a long time,” Toké said. “I have another paper I am working on now. I look forward to publishing more on it, too.”

“It is very satisfying to have this work published,” he added.