The Guaymas Fault, named for the city of

Guaymas Guaymas () is a city in Guaymas Municipality, in the southwest part of the state of Sonora, in northwestern Mexico. The city is south of the state capital of Hermosillo, and from the U.S. border. The municipality is located on the Gulf of Cali ...

, Sonora,

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, is a major right lateral-moving

transform fault A transform fault or transform boundary, is a fault along a plate boundary where the motion is predominantly horizontal. It ends abruptly where it connects to another plate boundary, either another transform, a spreading ridge, or a subduct ...

which runs along the seabed of the

Gulf of California The Gulf of California ( es, Golfo de California), also known as the Sea of Cortés (''Mar de Cortés'') or Sea of Cortez, or less commonly as the Vermilion Sea (''Mar Bermejo''), is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean that separates the Baja C ...

. It is an integral part of the

Gulf of California Rift Zone The Gulf of California Rift Zone (GCRZ) is the northernmost extension of the East Pacific Rise which extends some from the mouth of the Gulf of California to the southern terminus of the San Andreas Fault at the Salton Sink. The GCRZ is an incipi ...

, the northern extremity of the

East Pacific Rise The East Pacific Rise is a mid-ocean rise (termed an oceanic rise and not a mid-ocean ridge due to its higher rate of spreading that results in less elevation increase and more regular terrain), a divergent tectonic plate boundary located alon ...

. The Guaymas Fault runs from the San Pedro Martir Basin located at the southern end of the San Lorenzo Fault (the next transform to the north), and extends southward to the

Guaymas Basin The Guaymas Basin is a marginal rift basin, the largest such basin in the Gulf of California. It consists of two axial troughs (northern and southern). The basin results from the activity of one of the several spreading centers in the Gulf. The ...

, a heavily sedimented

rift In geology, a rift is a linear zone where the lithosphere is being pulled apart and is an example of extensional tectonics. Typical rift features are a central linear downfaulted depression, called a graben, or more commonly a half-grabe ...

which includes both

continental Continental may refer to: Places * Continent, the major landmasses of Earth * Continental, Arizona, a small community in Pima County, Arizona, US * Continental, Ohio, a small town in Putnam County, US Arts and entertainment * ''Continental'' ( ...

and

oceanic crust Oceanic crust is the uppermost layer of the oceanic portion of the tectonic plates. It is composed of the upper oceanic crust, with pillow lavas and a dike complex, and the lower oceanic crust, composed of troctolite, gabbro and ultramafic ...

and contains numerous hydrothermal vents. The Guaymas Fault is often grouped together with the three transform faults to its north as the Guaymas Transform Fault System. These faults are, from north to south, the Ballenas, Partida, San Lorenzo, and Guaymas. This system of fault extends some 325 km, linking the

Delfin Basin The Delfin Basin (''delfín'' is Spanish for "dolphin") is a pair of interconnected submarine depressions located on the seabed of the northern Gulf of California. The northernmost of these is called the Upper Delfin Basin while the southernmost is ...

in the north with the Guaymas Basin in the south.

References

''The NARS-Baja Seismic Array in the Gulf of California Rift Zone'', Clayton, R. W., et al. (2004), Margins Newsletter

* ttp://aem.asm.org/cgi/reprint/55/11/2832.pdf ''Microbial Utilization of Naturally Occurring Hydrocarbons at the Guaymas Basin Hydrothermal Vent Site'', Bazylinski et al (1989)* [https://books.google.com/books?id=S6H6KVKdlzsC&pg=PA149 ''Relationship of the Puertecitos Volcanic Province Baja California Mexico to the Development of the Plate Boundary in the Gulf of California'', Joann M. Stock (2000), in SPE, Geological Society of America, p.143]
''Late Miocene volcanism and marine incursions in the San Lorenzo Archipelago, Gulf of California, Mexico'', Escalona-Alcázar et al (2001), map p.113
Geology of Mexico Strike-slip faults Geography of Mexico Gulf of California {{tectonics-stub