Hi Michael. I’m kind of surprised they referred to the Walker Lane Belt (WLB), but not the Eastern California Shear Zone (ECSZ) of which the WLB is a part of.

Depending on who you talk to the ECSZ extends from the Mojave Desert north to Southern Oregon and may one day extends all the way to British Colombia. There are also those who say it extends no further north then the Owens Valley. Of course the time period involved with this is in the millions of years so it’s not likely that any of us will be around to see that.

Last year at the AGU I talked with a couple of seismologists. One of them speculated that the uplifting near Three Sisters Volcanoes could be the results of the ECSZ in that the extension is allowing magma to rise. It was also suggested that the quakes near Lakeview, Oregon might be the results of the ECSZ. My feeling is that the ECSZ may extend northward to the Medicine Lake Volcano. This could account for past earthquake swarms in the area as well as the descending of the caldera. A lot of speculation, but not many answers that can be taken to the bank. Don in creepy town

http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2002CD/finalprogram/abstract_34553.htm

http://neotectonics.seismo.unr.edu/CNS_pdfs/Evolution.pdf

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:rxIbztopUVgJ:www.data.scec.org/Module/sec1pg28.html+northern+ECSZ&hl=en