Early Postseismic Deformation from the 16 October 1999 Mw 7.1 Hector Mine, California, Earthquake as Measured by Survey-Mode GPS

Abstract

The 16 October 1999 ( M w 7.1) Hector Mine earthquake was the largest earthquake in California since the 1992 ( M w 7.3) Landers event. The Hector Mine earthquake occurred in the eastern Mojave Desert, where the density of permanent Global Positioning System (GPS) stations is relatively low. Since the earthquake, groups from the United States Geological Survey, University of Southern California, University of California, Los Angeles, University of California, San Diego, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have made postseismic survey-mode observations to increase the spatial coverage of deformation measurements. A total of 55 sites were surveyed, with markers from a few meters to 100 km from the surface rupture. We present velocity estimates for the 32 sites that had enough repeated observations between 17 October 1999 and 26 March 2000 to provide reliable results; these survey-mode data complement the temporal and spatial coverage provided by newly installed Southern California Integrated Geodetic Network permanent GPS stations and future Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar postseismic results. We then use the postseismic velocity estimates to compute a simple afterslip model. Results of inversions show that the observed velocities are consistent with deep afterslip occuring underneath the coseismic rupture area.