I hesitate to go up against a professional, but in all my reading I have never come across the concept that the originating forces are what define a fault's classification. It seems quite reasonable to classify one by its current behavior. And who cares if the SAF, for instance, represents a terrane boundary? That hardly disqualifies it,or the others mentioned, from being strike-slip faults!

Maybe Crane's statement makes better sense in the full context of his paper . . .

Or - it's just possible that by "Central California," he means central in the East-West sense, meaning that the greater bulk of California that lies to the east of the SAF is free of strike-slip faults (which might be approximately correct). And the second sentence, then, stands separate from the opening one, making a separate statement. In this, somewhat dubious, case, he would be saying "in the regions east of the SAF there are no strike-slip faults, and even the SAF and associated faults in the western part of California are not strike-slip in origin." So that he is maybe making the case that over a long period of geologic time, all of California has been in a non-shear stress regime.

Mike Williams

Mike Williams