Bridging earthquakes and mountain building in the Santa Cruz Mountains, CA.

Relative crustal motions along active faults generate earthquakes, and repeated earthquake cycles build mountain ranges over millions of years. However, the long-term summation of elastic, earthquake-related deformation cannot produce the deformation recorded within the rock record. Here, we provide an explanation for this discrepancy by showing that increases in strain facilitated by plastic deformation of Earth's crust during the earthquake cycle, in conjunction with isostatic deflection and erosion, transform relative fault motions that produce individual earthquakes to geologic deformations.