3D Coseismic Surface Displacements From Historical Aerial Photographs of the 1987 Edgecumbe Earthquake, New Zealand

Abstract

AbstractEarthquake surface deformation provides key constraints on the geometry, kinematics, and displacements of fault rupture. However, deriving these characteristics from past earthquakes is complicated by insufficient knowledge of the pre‐event landscape and its post‐event modification. The 1987 Mw 6.5 Edgecumbe earthquake in the northern Taupō volcanic zone (TVZ) in New Zealand represents a moderate‐magnitude earthquake with distributed surface rupture that occurred before widespread high‐resolution topographic data were available. We use historical aerial photos to build pre‐ and post‐earthquake digital surface models (DSMs) using structure‐from‐motion techniques. We measured discrete and distributed deformation from differenced DSMs and compared the effectiveness of the technique to traditional field‐ and lidar‐based studies. We identified most fault traces recognized by 1987 field mapping, mapped newly identified traces, and made dense remote slip measurements with a vertical separation resolution of ∼0.3 m. Our maximum and average vertical separation measurements on the Edgecumbe fault trace (2.5 ± 0.3 and 1.2 m, respectively), are similar to field‐based values of 2.4 and 1.1 m, respectively. Importantly, this technique can discern between new and pre‐existing fault scarps better than field techniques or post‐earthquake lidar‐based measurements alone. Our surface displacement results are used to refine subsurface fault geometries and slip distributions at depth, which are further used to investigate potential magmatic‐tectonic stress interactions in the northern TVZ. Our results suggest the Edgecumbe fault dips more gently at depth than at the surface, hosted shallow slip in 1987, and may be advanced toward failure by interactions with nearby magma bodies.