26th December 2004 great Sumatra–Andaman earthquake: Co-seismic and post-seismic motions in northern Sumatra

Abstract

Trench-parallel thrust faults verging both landward and seaward were mapped in the portion of wedge located between northern Sumatra and the Indian–Indonesian boundary. The spatial aftershocks distribution of the 26th December 2004 earthquake shows that the post-seismic motion is partitioned along two thrust faults, the Lower and Median Thrust Faults, the latter being right-laterally offset by a N–S lower plate fracture zone located along the 93.6° N meridian. Between February 2005 and August 2005, the upper plate aftershock activity shifted from southeast of this fracture zone to northwest of it, suggesting that the lower plate left-lateral motion along the fracture zone may have induced a shift of the upper plate post-seismic activity along the Median Thrust Fault. Based on swath bathymetric and 3.5 kHz data, co-seismic deformations were weak close to the trench. Joint seismic–geodetic determination of slip distribution and time arrivals and heights of tsunami waves suggest that the co-seismic slip was maximum along a portion of the Upper Thrust Fault located north of the Tuba Ridge, suggesting that the Upper Thrust Fault might be a splay fault originated at the interplate fault plane. As the Upper Thrust Fault is steeper than the slab, the vertical motion of the adjacent Outer Arc and overlying water is much larger compared to the one resulting from slip on the megathrust alone, increasing tsunamogenic effects.