I've been up for over 5 hours-when are you low-lifes going to post some interesting information? Chop-Chop.....

I'm cranky this morning because I had to skip hockey because I have to burn CDs of Antarctic data and Fedex them today-and the doctors again will not let me go back there!

I better qualify my comments on the San Simeon fault. A fault can be pure strike-slip near the surface and be oblique-reverse thrust at depth. Also, the exact same fault surface can have different slips-for example, I documented, and we published (obscurely) that the last 2 earthquakes on a northern outcrop of the Santa Cruz Island fault varied by 40 deg in slip angle (term is rake=pitch). The San Simeon fault is nearly pure right-lateral strike-slip at the surface (Hall and others, 1994). But, if the fault was to flatten at depth, and there was a fold above the fault that trended parallel to the fault, and the fold was active, then the fold would be absorbing a thrust component on the deep fault-this would be a blind thrust component. Depending on the model that you apply, I might still expect a quake beneath the fold in this situation to be oblique-slip, not thrust. And, the focal mechanism (actually, all 3 focal mechanisms) and the aftershocks show that the fault plane is not at all parallel to the shallow San Simeon fault.

Anyone know anything useful about the Oceano fault? The USGS page has no information-just the fault name as a place-holder. There is still a lot of work to do, and this area of California is probably not well-enough studied....(more is known the closer you get to Diablo Canyon because they spent $30 million or more to study the region....)
Chris