Chilean Subduction Research Articles

Tsunami detection by GPS-derived ionospheric total electron content

To unravel the relationship between earthquake and tsunami using ionospheric total electron content (TEC) changes, we analyzed two Chilean tsunamigenic subduction earthquakes: the 2014 Pisagua Mw 8.1 and the 2015 Illapel Mw 8.3. During the Pisagua earthquake, the TEC changes were detected at the GPS sites located to the north and south of the earthquake epicenter, whereas during the Illapel earthquake, we registered the changes only in the northward direction. Tide-gauge sites mimicked the propagation direction of tsunami waves similar to the TEC change pattern during both earthquakes. The TEC changes were represented by three signals. The initial weaker signal correlated well with Acoustic Rayleigh wave (AWRayleigh), while the following stronger perturbation was interpreted to be caused by Acoustic Gravity wave (AGWepi) and Internal Gravity wave (IGWtsuna) induced by earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis respectively. Inevitably, TEC changes can be utilized to evaluate earthquake occurrence and tsunami propagation within a framework of multi-parameter early warning systems.

Magnetotelluric image of the Chilean subduction zone in the Salar de Atacama region (23°-24°S): Insights into factors controlling the distribution of volcanic arc magmatism.

The Salar de Atacama region (23°-24°S) in the Central Andes of northern Chile represents an anomalous segment of the Andes, where a very large forearc basin is present (Salar de Atacama) and the axis of the active volcanic chain is deflected to the east from its regional trend. Here we used magnetotelluric (MT) data to infer the distribution of partial melts and hydrothermal fluids in order to better understand the mechanism controlling the magmatism in this subduction zone.Our 3-D inversion model shows a complex electrical resistivity structure, with several mid crustal conductors (<5 Ωm) imaged around the Salar de Atacama basin (SdAb). Although the forearc is dominated by high resistivities (>1000 Ωm), conductors were imaged below the Precordillera and in the northern SdAb, where major trench-parallel and transverse fault systems are present. We interpret these forearc conductors as evidence of active and fossil hydrothermal systems hosted by the Precordillera Fault System and the Calama-Olacapato-El Toro transverse fault. Conductors found along the arc are spatially coincident with active volcanoes likely representing partial melting in the continental crust. A large conductor was imaged in the backarc, indicating the presence of a significant volume of partial melts below the Altiplano-Puna plateau, as many previous geophysical studies have suggested. The model shows that the mid-lower crust and subcontinental mantle (i.e., >15 km depth) below the SdAb is dominated by resistivity values >100 Ωm., suggesting the presence of a relatively poorly hydrated continental crust and mantle wedge in this segment of the northern Chile subduction zone. These results, together with petrophysical interpretations derived from previous seismic and gravimetric studies, suggest that the lithosphere below the SdAb represents an impermeable block, which inhibits the upward flow of fluids and melts derived from deeper parts of the subduction system.

Tsunami Resonance Characterization in Japan Due to Trans‐Pacific Sources: Response on the Bay and Continental Shelf

AbstractThe tsunami resonance leads to the amplification of wave heights and extends the duration of wave activity. For tsunami warning and coastal planning, it is important to understand resonance behavior. We characterized the tsunami resonance of trans‐Pacific events in the bays and continental shelves of Japan, focusing on the Hokkaido and Sanriku regions. We considered five tsunami events with sources in the Peru–Chile subduction zone and the Alaska–Aleutian subduction zone. Spectral analysis was applied to observed and synthetic waveforms at coastal tide gauges and offshore GPS gauges to study the frequency content of tsunami energy, and modal analysis was conducted to investigate the eigen‐modes of the natural oscillation affected by regional and local bathymetry. It was found that the signatures of trans‐Pacific tsunami sources are lost in the spectra at most coastal gauges, but they partly remain in the spectra at offshore gauges, which are affected less significantly by topography or bathymetry. The predominant periods in the spectra at most coastal gauges match the eigen‐periods of natural oscillation calculated by modal analysis. Hence, we confirmed that regional or local bathymetry is the dominant factor in the resonance behaviors of trans‐Pacific tsunami events, rather than the source location or geometry. These findings are based on the systematic assessment of trans‐Pacific sources and have implications for tsunami warning and coastal planning along the Pacific coast of Japan.

Stress Drop Variations in the Region of the 2014 MW8.1 Iquique Earthquake, Northern Chile

AbstractWe compute stress drops from P and S phase spectra for 534 earthquakes in the source region of the 2014 MW8.1 Iquique megathrust earthquake in the northern Chilean subduction zone. An empirical Green's function based method is applied to suitable event pairs selected by template matching of eight years of continuous waveform data. We evaluate the parameters involved in the stress drop estimation, consider the effect of the local velocity structure and apply an empirical linear relation between P and S phase related geometry factors (k values). Data redundancy produced by multiple empirical Green's function and the combination of P and S phase spectra leads to a substantial reduction of uncertainty and robust stress drop estimates. The resulting stress drop values show a well‐defined log‐normal distribution with a median value of 4.36 MPa; most values range between 0.1 and 100 MPa. There is no evidence for systematic large scale lateral variations of stress drop. A detailed analysis reveals several regions of increased median stress drop, an increase with distance to the interface, but no consistent increase with depth. This suggests that fault regime and fault strength have a stronger impact on the stress drop behavior than absolute stresses. Interestingly, we find a weak time‐dependence of the median stress drop, with an increase immediately before the April 1, 2014 MW8.1 Iquique mainshock, a continuous reduction thereafter and a subsequent recovery to average values. Additionally, the data set indicates a relatively strong dependence of stress drop on magnitude which extends over the entire analyzed magnitude range.

Seismic images of the Northern Chilean subduction zone at 19°40′S, prior to the 2014 Iquique earthquake

SUMMARY The Northern Chilean subduction zone is characterized by long-term subduction erosion with very little sediment input at the trench and the lack of an accretionary prism. Here, multichannel seismic reflection (MCS) data were acquired as part of the CINCA (Crustal Investigations off- and onshore Nazca Plate/Central Andes) project in 1995. These lines cover among others the central part of the MW 8.1 Iquique earthquake rupture zone before the earthquake occurred on 1 April 2014. We have re-processed one of the lines crossing the updip parts of this earthquake at 19°40′S, close to its hypocentre. After careful data processing and data enhancement, we applied a coherency-based pre-stack depth migration algorithm, yielding a detailed depth image. The resulting depth image shows the subduction interface prior to the Iquique megathrust earthquake down to a depth of approximately 16 km and gives detailed insight into the characteristics of the seismogenic coupling zone. We found significantly varying interplate reflectivity along the plate interface which we interpret to be caused by the comparably strong reflectivity of subducted fluid-rich sediments within the grabens and half-grabens that are predominant in this area due to the subduction-related bending of the oceanic plate. No evidence was found for a subducted seamount associated to the Iquique Ridge along the slab interface at this latitude as interpreted earlier from the same data set. By comparing relocated fore- and aftershock seismicity of the Iquique earthquake with the resulting depth image, we can divide the continental wedge into two domains. First, a frontal unit beneath the lower slope with several eastward dipping back-rotated splay faults but no seismicity in the upper plate as well as along the plate interface. Secondly, a landward unit beneath the middle slope with differing reflectivity that shows significant seismicity in the upper plate as well as along the plate interface. Both units are separated by a large eastward dipping mega splay fault, the root zone of which shows diffuse seismicity, both in the upper plate and at the interface. The identification of a well-defined nearly aseismic frontal unit sheds new light on the interplate locking beneath the lower continental slope and its controls.

Locking-derived tsunami scenarios for the most recent megathrust earthquakes in Chile: implications for tsunami hazard assessment

The ever-increasing data from continues geodetic networks has allowed to reveal first-order spatial relations between pre-seismic highly locked zones on the interface and regions of large coseismic slip. Here we use a distribution of locking degree and recurrence of historical earthquakes along the Chilean subduction zone to estimate the slip deficit accumulated since previous tsunamigenic earthquakes and use these constrains to simulate tsumani signals. We generate tsunami models for the recent five major tsunamigenic earthquakes in Chile during the last decade: Maule (2010), Pisagua (2014), Illapel (2015), Melinka (2016) and Valparaiso (2017). Results were compared with tsunami records to evaluate the use of locking degree as an estimate of displacement of future earthquakes and as a tool for tsunami hazard assessment. Our tsunami simulations for the Maule (2010) and Illapel (2015), earthquakes that filled a seismic gap, reproduce well the tsunami observations, for the case of Pisagua (2014), Valparaiso (2016) and Melinka (2017) although it exists a correspondence in the areas of greater degree of locking with the coseismic slip, there is also an imbalance between the energy accumulated and released in the interseismic period considered according to the historical seismicity. This indicate that the rupture of small asperities (areas that release high slip during earthquakes) may have a complex pattern of recurrence and do not fully affect a locked patch. Locking-derived tsunami scenarios represent well tsunami observations of earthquakes that ruptured a locked seismic gap, and they can be used in addition to the actual methodologies to improve the estimation of tsunami hazard.

Using Earthquake Forensics to Study Subduction from Space

Researchers combined satellite geodetic measurements of surface motion with a new geophysical data inversion method to probe the Chilean subduction zone in the wake of the 2010 Maule earthquake.

Seismic imaging of the double seismic zone in the subducting slab in Northern Chile

Double seismic zones are commonly observed in the subducting slabs in a global scale, serving as ideal examples for studying the seismogenetic mechanism of the intermediate-depth earthquakes. In this study, we relocate earthquakes and determine seismic velocity models using the double-difference seismic tomography method in the northern Chile subduction zone where a double seismic zone exists. The results suggest that the double seismic zone in northern Chile is located at about 50–140 ​km depth, with an interval of approximately 20 ​km between the two zones. The upper seismic zone is characterized by relatively low Vp (~7.8–8.0 ​km/s), low Vs (~4.4–4.5 ​km/s) and high Vp/Vs (~1.85) above the depth of ~90 ​km, while the region below ~90 ​km is distinguished by relatively high Vp (~8.2 ​km/s), high Vs (~4.8 ​km/s) and slightly high Vp/Vs (~1.75), which may be related to a series of dehydration reactions of hydrous minerals in the subducted oceanic crust. In comparison, the lower seismic zone is featured by the anomaly of low Vp/Vs (~1.7), although some local areas may consist of relatively high Vp/Vs values (~1.8), possibly due to the dehydration reaction of serpentine. Based on the Vp, Vs, Vp/Vs anomalies combined with previous petrological experiments and thermodynamic models, it can be derived that intermediate-depth earthquakes are mainly related to the dehydration of various hydrous minerals in the subducting slab. The dehydration process of hydrous minerals releases water into the subducting slab and subsequently leads to the increase of pore fluid pressure and the decrease of effective normal stress, thus causing the occurrence of brittle failure and intermediate-depth earthquakes in subduction zones. The imaging results of the northern Chile subduction zone further indicate that the existence of the double seismic zone is related to the dehydration process of different hydrous minerals.

Seismicity clusters in Central Chile: investigating the role of repeating earthquakes and swarms in a subduction region

SUMMARYSeismicity along subduction interfaces is usually dominated by large main-shock–aftershock sequences indicative of a continuum distribution of highly coupled large asperities. In the past decades, however, the increased resolution of seismic catalogues at some subduction zone seems to indicate instead a more complex rheological segmentation of the interface. Large and megathrust earthquake ruptures seem interspersed among regions of low seismic coupling and less stress buildup. In this weaker zone, the strain is primarily released via a combination of moderate-size swarm-like seismicity and aseismic slip. Along the Chilean subduction zone, the densification of the seismic network allowed for the identification of localized seismic clusters, some of them appearing in the form of swarms before megathrust earthquakes. The origin and driving processes of this seismic activity have not yet been identified. In this study, we follow a systematic approach to characterize the seismicity at two persistent clusters in Central Chile, one located offshore Navidad and one inland, at ∼40 km depth beneath Vichuquén, which occurred throughout ∼20 yr. We investigated these clusters, by deriving high-resolution hypocentral locations and moment tensors and performing a detailed analysis of spatio-temporal patterns, magnitude and interevent time distributions of the clustered earthquakes. Both clusters are characterized by weak to moderate seismicity (below Mw 6) and stand out as clear seismicity rate and Benioff strain anomalies. At the Navidad cluster, seismicity occurs in the form of swarms, with a characteristic duration of 2–7 d and location and thrust mechanisms compatible with activity on the slab interface. Conversely, we find at Vichuquén activity dominated by thrust earthquakes occurring as repeaters on the slab interface, with a slip rate of approximately ∼5.0 cm yr−1. We attribute these clusters to local features of the subducting plate: the Navidad swarms are likely driven by repeated high pore pressure transients along a pre-fractured patch of the slab, while the seismicity at the Vichuquén cluster is interpreted as the result of a subducting seamount. Both clusters have been active before and after the Mw 8.8 Maule earthquake and persisted afterwards with the seismicity decay following the Omori law. These interactions are especially evident for the Vichuquén cluster, where the seismicity rate increased considerably after the Maule earthquake and continues to be an area of clearly elevated seismicity rate compared to its surroundings.

Synthetic stochastic ground motions compatible with the Chilean seismic hazard

This paper develops a record-based stochastic ground motion model for the Chilean Subduction zone that generates ground motions compatible with the seismic hazard (represented by a local Ground Motion Predictive Equation GMPE) for both interplate and intraslab mechanism and considering rock soil conditions. The stochastic ground motion is obtained by the modulation of white-noise sequence in both time and spectral domain applying non-stationary filters. Compatibility is obtained by a proper tuning of predictive relationships, which offers a relation between seismological parameters and the driven parameters in the non-stationary filters. This process demands an intensive computational optimization problem where the parameters in the predictive relationships are found such that the stochastic ground motions generated match with the GMPE. The computational burden is decreased by the use of a Kriging metamodel which provides a high-fidelity approximation of the mean response spectra for different natural structural periods and the predictive relationship parameters. Once the predictive relationships are adjusted, the results are validated by comparing the prediction of mean spectral acceleration response from the GMPE with the prediction using the stochastic ground motion model. The Kriging model is built once and could be used to repeat the optimization for new GMPEs and predictive relationships (as a result of an updating process to incorporate new important seismic events) within a relatively low computational cost. In addition, a post-adjustment methodology is proposed to improve the results, using a scaling and spectral matching technique.

Ground-Motion Evaluation of Moderate and Large Interface Earthquakes along the Chilean Subduction Zone

ABSTRACTStrong-motion observations of recent interface earthquakes along the Chilean subduction zone are evaluated with two ground-motion models (GMM). One GMM was developed with Chilean data and the other with global data. The GMM developed with local Chilean data is found to have an overall better prediction performance than the GMM developed using a global data set. Using residual analysis with the Chilean GMM as reference model due to its better performance, clear indications of an increase of short-period radiation for deeper earthquakes in north and central Chile were found, which may be related to frictional features on the interface such as interseismic coupling, as found previously for other regions, such as Japan. Also, the Iquique earthquake, which featured a clear precursory slow-slip event, exhibits mostly negative between-event residuals at short periods for earthquakes before and after the mainshock, indicating predominantly weaker short-period radiation. However, this trend is not observed in the aftershock sequence of the Illapel earthquake, which did not feature a significant slow-slip event nor precursory seismicity in its rupture area. Finally, a poor predictive performance was found for the Chilean GMM in southern Chile, overpredicting most of the observations. Based on these results, it is proposed that future local GMMs should include corrections for depth, regional effects and include earthquakes from southern Chile, as new data are becoming available in this region.

A Link between Machine Learning and Optimization in Ground-Motion Model Development: Weighted Mixed-Effects Regression with Data-Driven Probabilistic Earthquake Classification

ABSTRACTThe steady increase of ground-motion data not only allows new possibilities but also comes with new challenges in the development of ground-motion models (GMMs). Data classification techniques (e.g., cluster analysis) do not only produce deterministic classifications but also probabilistic classifications (e.g., probabilities for each datum to belong to a given class or cluster). One challenge is the integration of such continuous classification in regressions for GMM development such as the widely used mixed-effects model. We address this issue by introducing an extension of the mixed-effects model to incorporate data weighting. The parameter estimation of the mixed-effects model, that is, fixed-effects coefficients of the GMMs and the random-effects variances, are based on the weighted likelihood function, which also provides analytic uncertainty estimates. The data weighting permits for earthquake classification beyond the classical, expert-driven, binary classification based, for example, on event depth, distance to trench, style of faulting, and fault dip angle. We apply Angular Classification with Expectation–maximization, an algorithm to identify clusters of nodal planes from focal mechanisms to differentiate between, for example, interface- and intraslab-type events. Classification is continuous, that is, no event belongs completely to one class, which is taken into account in the ground-motion modeling. The theoretical framework described in this article allows for a fully automatic calibration of ground-motion models using large databases with automated classification and processing of earthquake and ground-motion data. As an example, we developed a GMM on the basis of the GMM by Montalva et al. (2017) with data from the strong-motion flat file of Bastías and Montalva (2016) with ∼2400 records from 319 events in the Chilean subduction zone. Our GMM with the data-driven classification is comparable to the expert-classification-based model. Furthermore, the model shows temporal variations of the between-event residuals before and after large earthquakes in the region.

Statistical Analysis of the Preparatory Phase of the Mw 8.1 Iquique Earthquake, Chile

AbstractThe 2014 Iquique seismic crisis in Chile, culminating with a Mw 8.1 earthquake on 1 April, highlights a complex unlocking of the Northern Chilean subduction that has been considered a seismic gap since 1877. During the year preceding this event, at least three clusters of seismic activity have been reported: in July 2013 and January and March 2014. Recent studies have proposed large‐scale slab deformation as a potential trigger for the megathrust earthquake, and these clusters possibly indicate aseismic slip transients accompanying the progressive destabilization of the plate contact. However, no evidence of gradual unlocking of the interface or transient deformation has yet been found in the seismicity rate. To address this question, we develop a dense earthquake catalog covering 15 months preceding the mainshock and derived from the continuous waveform data set recorded by the Integrated Plate Boundary Observatory Chile (IPOC) and Iquique Local Network (ILN) networks. After declustering the seismicity, a space‐time analysis highlights a large‐scale acceleration of the seismicity along the interface accompanied by a deceleration of intermediate‐depth earthquakes. We demonstrate the existence of a seismic quiescence downdip of the mainshock rupture before the July 2013 cluster. We propose that this seismic quiescence potentially highlights fluid circulation and/or aseismic motion along upper‐plate crustal fault(s).

The 21 May 1960 Mw 8.1 Concepción Earthquake: A Deep Megathrust Foreshock That Started the 1960 Central-South Chilean Seismic Sequence

AbstractOne of the most notable seismic sequences in modern times was recorded in May 1960 along the southern Chilean subduction zone. The sequence started on 21 May with the Mw 8.1 Concepción earthquake; 33 hr later the Mw 9.5 Valdivia megathrust earthquake occurred, the largest ever recorded in the instrumental period. These events changed the geomorphology of the coast along more than 1000 km, generated extensive structural damage in the main cities of central-south Chile, and triggered a Trans-Pacific tsunami. Observed land-level changes due to both earthquakes were reported in 1970. These observations were ascribed to both events but have been used to study only the general source properties of the 22 May Valdivia mainshock. Here, we separate these data to constrain for the first time the slip distribution of the 21 May Concepción earthquake, applying a Bayesian approach that considers uncertainties in the data. Our results show that the Mw 8.1 Concepción earthquake ruptured a deep segment of the megathrust, concentrated in a compact zone below the Arauco peninsula between depths of 20 and 50 km. Tsunami generation from this deep source agrees well with the tsunami arrival times and small amplitudes recorded by tide gauges along the Chilean coast. Our study highlights the importance of the 21 May 1960 Concepción earthquake in the context of large historical Chilean earthquakes.

Microseismic Noise before and after Strong Earthquakes: Case Study of Chilean Subduction Zone

Abstract—In this work, we study the parameters of microseismic noise in the vicinity of the Chilean subduction zone in order to detect oscillations of a block–fault system, similar to those identified by processing the results of the previous laboratory experiment. The analysis is based on the data recorded by the broadband seismic stations of the international seismic network IRIS. We calculated the spectral parameters of microseismic noise before and after several earthquakes. It is established that before the earthquakes with Мw ≥ 8, the calculated value of spectral centroid decreases by 0.12–0.26 Hz. The decrease in the value of spectral centroid in the range from 0.008 to 0.45 Hz can be as long as up to two days. The proposed approach can be a new instrument useful for real-time monitoring of active faults of various scales.

Correlations of spectral accelerations in the Chilean subduction zone

The correlation between spectral accelerations is key in the construction of conditional mean spectra, the computation of vector-valued seismic hazard, and the assessment of seismic risk of spatially distributed systems, among other applications. Spectral correlations are highly dependent on the earthquake database used, and thus, region-specific correlation models have been developed mainly for earthquakes in western United States, Europe, Middle East, and Japan. Correlation models based on global data sets for crustal and subduction zones have also become available, but there is no consensus about their applicability on a specific region. This study proposes a new correlation model for 5% damped spectral accelerations and peak ground velocity in the Chilean subduction zone. The correlations obtained were generally higher than those observed from shallow crustal earthquakes and subduction zones such as Japan and Taiwan. The study provides two illustrative applications of the correlation model: (1) computation of conditional spectra for a firm soil site located in Santiago, Chile and (2) computation of bivariate hazard for spectral accelerations at two structural periods.

Low uncertainty multifeature magnitude estimation with 3-D corrections and boosting tree regression: application to North Chile

SUMMARYMagnitude estimation is a central task in seismology needed for a wide spectrum of applications ranging from seismicity analysis to rapid assessment of earthquakes. However, magnitude estimates at individual stations show significant variability, mostly due to propagation effects, radiation pattern and ambient noise. To obtain reliable and precise magnitude estimates, measurements from multiple stations are therefore usually averaged. This strategy requires good data availability, which is not always given, for example for near real time applications or for small events. We developed a method to achieve precise magnitude estimations even in the presence of only few stations. We achieve this by reducing the variability between single station estimates through a combination of optimization and machine learning techniques on a large catalogue. We evaluate our method on the large scale IPOC catalogue with &gt;100 000 events, covering seismicity in the northern Chile subduction zone between 2007 and 2014. Our aim is to create a method that provides low uncertainty magnitude estimates based on physically meaningful features. Therefore we combine physics based correction functions with boosting tree regression. In a first step, we extract 110 features from each waveform, including displacement, velocity, acceleration and cumulative energy features. We correct those features for source, station and path effects by imposing a linear relation between magnitude and the logarithm of the features. For the correction terms, we define a non-parametric correction function dependent on epicentral distance and event depth and a station specific, adaptive 3-D source and path correction function. In a final step, we use boosting tree regression to further reduce interstation variance by combining multiple features. Compared to a standard, non-parametric, 1-D correction function, our method reduces the standard deviation of single station estimates by up to $57\, {\rm per\, cent}$, of which $17\, {\rm per\, cent}$ can be attributed to the improved correction functions, while boosting tree regression gives a further reduction of $40\, {\rm per\, cent}$. We analyse the resulting magnitude estimates regarding their residuals and relation to each other. The definition of a physics-based correction function enables us to inspect the path corrections and compare them to structural features. By analysing feature importance, we show that envelope and P wave derived features are key parameters for reducing uncertainties. Nonetheless the variety of features is essential for the effectiveness of the boosting tree regression. To further elucidate the information extractable from a single station trace, we train another boosting tree on the uncorrected features. This regression yields magnitude estimates with uncertainties similar to the single features after correction, but without using the earthquake location as required for applying the correction terms. Finally, we use our results to provide high precision magnitudes and their uncertainties for the IPOC catalogue.

Nonseismic Signals in the Ocean: Indicators of Deep Sea and Seafloor Processes on Ocean‐Bottom Seismometer Data

AbstractOcean‐bottom seismometers (OBSs) commonly record short‐duration events (SDEs) that could be described by all of these characteristics: (i) duration &lt;1 s, (ii) one single‐wave train with no identified P nor S wave arrivals, and (iii) a dominant frequency usually between 4 and 30 Hz. In many areas, SDEs have been associated with gas‐ or fluid‐related processes near cold seeps or hydrothermal vents, although fish bumps, instrumental, or current‐generated noise have been proposed as possible sources. In order to address some remaining issues, this study presents results from in situ and laboratory experiments combined with observations from two contrasting areas, the Sea of Marmara (Turkey) and the Chilean subduction zone. The in situ experiment was conducted at the European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water column Observatory‐Molène submarine observatory (near Brest, France) and consisted in continuously monitoring two OBSs with a camera. The images revealed that no fish regularly bumped into the instruments. Laboratory experiments aimed at reproducing SDEs' waveforms by injecting air or water in a tank filled by sand and seawater and monitored with an OBS. Injecting air in the sediments produced waveforms very similar to the observed SDEs, while injecting air in the water column did not, constraining the source of SDEs in the seafloor sediments. Finally, the systematic analysis of two real data sets revealed that it is possible to discriminate gas‐related SDEs from biological or sea state‐related noise from simple source parameters, such as the temporal mode of occurrence, the back azimuth, and the dominant frequency.

Linear Relationship Between Aftershock Productivity and Seismic Coupling in the Northern Chile Subduction Zone

AbstractThe aftershock productivity is known to strongly vary for different mainshocks of the same magnitude, which cannot be simply explained by random fluctuations. In addition to variable source mechanisms, different rheological properties might be responsible for the observed variations. Here we show, for the subduction zone of northern Chile, that the aftershock productivity is linearly related to the degree of mechanical coupling along the subduction interface. Using the earthquake catalog of Sippl et al. (2018, https://doi.org/10.1002/2017JB015384), which consists of more than 100,000 events between 2007 and 2014, and three different coupling maps inferred from interseismic geodetic deformation data, we show that the observed aftershock numbers are significantly lower than expected from the Båth's law. Furthermore, the productivity decays systematically with depth in the uppermost 80 km, while the b value increases. We show that this lack of aftershocks and the observed depth dependence can be simply explained by a linear relationship between the productivity and the coupling coefficient, leading to Båth law only in the case of full coupling. Our results indicate that coupling maps might be useful to forecast aftershock productivity and vice versa.

Filling the gap in a double seismic zone: Intraslab seismicity in Northern Chile

Double seismic zones (DSZs) of intermediate-depth intraslab seismicity are observed in many subduction zones around the globe, and have been related to dehydration reactions in the downgoing crust and mantle lithosphere. These reactions occur at, to first order, constant temperatures, which explains the observed linear arrangements of seismicity that appear to follow isotherms of thermal models.Intermediate-depth seismicity in Northern Chile, however, exhibits a pattern of intraslab seismicity that substantially deviates from a classical DSZ. Whereas two parallel seismicity planes are present in the updip part of the slab, these abruptly change into a 25–30 km thick, homogeneously seismogenic volume at a depth of ∼80–100 km. Seismicity rate and moment release significantly increase in this depth interval. In order to understand which processes evoke this configuration and what distinguishes the Northern Chile subduction zone from more conventional subduction zone settings (e.g. Japan), we performed a detailed seismological investigation of slab seismicity in Northern Chile using data from the IPOC permanent network. We determined >600 moment tensors of intraslab earthquakes, processed and evaluated location uncertainties for 8 years of high-resolution earthquake hypocenter data, and performed statistical analysis of the different seismicity populations.We observe that earthquakes both in the highly active cluster and the DSZ above exhibit consistently downdip extensive source mechanisms that align with the dip angle and direction of the slab. This implies strong slab pull, which is also evident from slab steepening outlined by hypocenters towards the downdip termination of the highly active cluster. Moreover, events in the cluster show a very weak aftershock productivity and a high background event rate, which leads to a temporal distribution of seismicity that is close to a purely random process. We find that the position of the highly seismogenic volume spatially coincides with: 1) the disappearance of the velocity contrast between oceanic crust and the underlying mantle in receiver function images, 2) the transition from the “cold nose” (i.e. the stagnant part) to the hot part of the mantle wedge, as evidenced by seismic attenuation images, and 3) with an increase of the slab dip angle. Based on these different pieces of evidence, we speculate that high tensile stresses and heat input from above could lead to a sudden burst of kinetically delayed metamorphic reactions there that then enables the observed increased seismicity rates. Since these reactions have overall a negative volume change that leads to slab densification and hence further increases slab pull, the spatial pattern of seismicity we observe could result from a runaway-type process, which would explain its abrupt start and high moment release rates.