Low frequency earthquakes below southern Vancouver Island

Abstract

The nature and distribution of low frequency earthquakes (LFEs) in subduction zones provide insight into plate boundary deformation downdip of the locked seismogenic zone. We employ network autocorrelation detection to identify LFE families beneath southern Vancouver Island and environs. An initial suite of 5775 LFEs detected in 2004 and 2005 at a select set of 7 stations is grouped into 140 families using waveform cluster analysis. These families are used as templates within an iterative network cross correlation scheme to detect LFEs across different tremor episodes, incorporate new stations, and improve LFE template signal‐to‐noise ratio. As in southwest Japan, representative LFE locations define a relatively tight, dipping surface several km above the locus of intraslab seismicity, within a prominent, dipping low‐velocity zone (LVZ). LFE polarizations for near‐vertical source‐receiver geometries possess a remarkably uniform dipolar signature indicative of point‐source, double‐couple excitation. Focal mechanisms determined fromP‐wave first motions are characterized by a combination of strike‐slip and thrust faulting. We suggest that LFEs and regular intraslab seismicity occur in distinct structural and stress regimes. The LVZ, inferred to represent weak, overpressured, porous and mylonitized metabasalts of oceanic crustal Layer 2, separates LFEs manifesting deformation within a plate boundary shear zone from intraslab earthquakes generated by tensional stresses and dehydration embrittlement within a more competent lower oceanic crustal Layer 3 and underlying mantle.