ABSTRACT The Mendocino Triple Junction (MTJ), one of the most tectonically active and complex regions of California, has damaging earthquakes on the San Andreas and Mendocino faults, within the oceanic and subducting regions of the Gorda section of the Juan de Fuca plate, and within the overriding North American plate (NAP). Two recent earthquake sequences in the MTJ region, starting on 20 December 2021 and 20 December 2022, highlight the complex interactions of regional faults. We explore these sequences to better define the deep faults in the MTJ region, and their rupture modes. Our finite-source analysis shows the 2021 sequence began with two M ∼6.0 earthquakes separated by ∼11 s in time and 30 km in distance. The first earthquake occurred offshore on the Mendocino fault at a depth of 16.5 km. Its S waves triggered an “onshore” intraplate Gorda event at a depth of 27 km, which ruptured a vertical fault toward the northeast. Finite-source analysis of the mainshock of the 2022 sequence, M 6.4, indicates the rupture started offshore north of Cape Mendocino within the Gorda plate and propagated east-northeast, toward populated areas. Damage to towns and infrastructure was exacerbated by directivity and the sediment-filled valleys, as well as by a large aftershock (M 5.4) centered 20 km south-southeast of the mainshock rupture plane. The depths and mechanisms of the onshore 2021 and the 2022 earthquakes and their aftershock sequences indicate that they occurred on different strike-slip faults within the subducted portion of the Gorda plate. The faults active in these earthquakes are unrelated to mapped surface faults in the overriding NAP and are oblique to the tectonic trends seen at the surface. The 2021 and 2022 earthquakes are close to the boundary between two distinct regions of the Gorda plate, where offshore north–south horizontal compression transitions to east–west downslab tension.
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