The June 2000 Mw 7.9 earthquakes south of Sumatra: Deformation in the India–Australia Plate

Abstract

Two large (Mw 7.9) earthquakes occurred on 4 and 18 June 2000, south of Sumatra, beneath the Indian Ocean. Both earthquakes were predominantly left‐lateral strike‐slip on vertical N‐S trending faults that we interpret to be reactivated fracture zones. The 4 June Enggano earthquake occurred at the edge of the rupture area of the 1833 subduction earthquake. The first strike‐slip subevent within the subducting plate triggered a thrust subevent on the plate interface, which comprised at least 35% of the total moment and ruptured SE away from the 1833 earthquake. The 18 June earthquake in the Wharton Basin is one of the largest shallow strike‐slip faulting earthquakes ever recorded. A small second subevent with reverse slip is required to fit the body waves. The orientation of both subevents in our preferred model is consistent with the current stress field in the region. Both the June 2000 earthquakes are consistent with recent models of distributed deformation in the India–Australia composite plate. The occurrence of the Enggano earthquake implies that the stress field within the Indian plate continues to a depth of 50 km in the subducting slab. The purely strike‐slip source model of the Wharton Basin earthquake obtained by Robinson et al. [2001] matches the P waves very poorly and fits the S waves no better than our preferred model. The strike‐slip subevents of both earthquakes had few aftershocks and higher stress drops than the subduction thrust subevent of the Enggano earthquake. This difference is consistent with previous observations of oceanic and subduction earthquakes.