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Brief Report for Lo'ihi Seamount, north rift zone (Class A) No. 2611b
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citation for this record: Bürgmann, R.Roland, compiler, 2006, Fault number 2611b, Lo'ihi Seamount, north rift zone, in Quaternary fault and fold database of the United States: U.S. Geological Survey website, http://earthquakes.usgs.gov/regional/qfaults, accessed 11/24/2009 06:25 AM.
| Synopsis | General: Lo'ihi is the youngest seamount of the Hawaiian-Emperor island-seamount chain. The base of the volcano is approximately 5 km below sea level, and the summit platform is approximately 1.2 km below sea level (Caplan-Auerbach and Duennebier, 2001 #6936). Volcanic rocks from the seamount have preshield-stage alkalic, transitional, and shield-stage tholeiitic signatures (Clague and Dalrymple, 1987 #6937; Langenheim and Clague, 1987 #6949). Growing up through the Mauna Loa Punalu'u slump and building concurrently with Hilina slump activity, Lo'ihi may rise above the sea surface within the next few tens of thousands of years (Moore and Chadwick, 1995 #6959). The seamount has a summit caldera and two major rift zones: the north and the south rift zones. Lo'ihi is seismically active, and a seismic swarm in 1996 produced summit deformation (Caplan-Auerbach and Duennebier, 2001 #6936). Similar to the subaerial volcanoes of Hawai'i, magmatic activity and gravitational failure of the Lo'ihi volcanic edifice can generate underwater faulting and catastrophic mass movement. Sections: This fault has 3 sections. The sections designated for Lo'ihi Seamount are Lo'ihi's caldera [2611a], the north rift zone [2611b], and the south rift zone [2611c]. |
| County(s) and State(s) | HAWAII COUNTY, HAWAII ((Off Shore)) |
| AMS sheet(s) | |
| Physiographic province(s) | HAWAIIAN - EMPEROR ISLAND - SEAMOUNT CHAIN |
| Length (km) | This section is 7 km of a total fault length of 27 km. |
| Average strike | N. 8° E. (for section) versus N. 43° W. (for whole fault) |
| Sense of movement | |
| Dip Direction | E; SE |
| Historic earthquake | |
| Most recent prehistoric deformation | Latest Quaternary (<15 ka) |
| Slip-rate category | Greater than 5.0 mm/yr |
| Date and Compiler(s) | 2006 Roland Bürgmann, University of California at Berkeley |
