Large Slip Patch Research Articles

Ground-motions site and event specificity: Insights from assessing a suite of simulated ground motions in the San Francisco Bay Area

This article presents the results of a research that is part of a larger collaborative effort between the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center, funded by the US Department of Energy Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response. The main objective of this study is to assess a suite of near and far-field simulated ground motions obtained from 20 realizations of an M7 Hayward Fault earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area, California USA, and inform the selection of rupture simulation parameters leading to strong motions. To this aim, comparisons are conducted with NGA-W2 and directivity ground-motion models and a selected population of records. An archetypal steel moment-resisting frame is utilized to assess infrastructure response distributions. The analyses carried out for each simulated event and subdomain with consistent properties in terms of shallow shear-wave velocity proved to be instrumental for better interpreting the differences between simulated motions and empirical models. The main reasons identified for variances between simulations and empirical relationships included (1) directivity effects fully captured by the simulations across the full breadth of rupture models; (2) site vicinity to ruptures that incorporate large-slip patches, particularly if these are in the forward-directivity direction; and (3) presence of geologic structures that can “trap” seismic waves and produce ground motions with large amplitude and long signal duration. The analyses carried out in this work provide a path for interpreting ground-motion site and event specificity obtained from a suite of physics-based simulations, differing only in the rupture model characterization, to inform the selection of simulation scenarios for site-specific engineering analyses under strong excitations. Evidence from this work points to the possibility that current hazard models may underestimate ground-motion intensities in areas where the combined effect of directivity and site conditions results in large ground-motion amplitudes.

Long‐Term Offshore Borehole Fluid‐Pressure Monitoring at the Northern Cascadia Subduction Zone and Inferences Regarding the State of Megathrust Locking

AbstractThe Cascadia subduction megathrust off the Pacific Northwest follows an “end member” seismogenic behavior, producing large (up to moment magnitude 9) but infrequent (every several hundred years) earthquakes and tsunamis. Crustal deformation associated with the ongoing plate convergence has been characterized by land‐based geodetic observations, but the state of locking across the full breadth of the seismogenic fault is poorly constrained. We report results of offshore monitoring of borehole fluid pressure, as a proxy for formation volumetric strain, at a site ∼20 km landward of the Cascadia subduction deformation front since 2010. The multi‐depth pressure records were plagued by hydrologic noise, but noise at the deepest monitoring level (303 m sub‐seafloor) abated in 2015. Subsequently, including at the times of regional large earthquakes that caused significant dynamic stressing, no persistent pressure transients are present above a threshold of 0.08 kPa imposed by unremovable oceanographic signals, corresponding to a strain detection limit of ∼16 nanostrain. Simple dislocation models using local megathrust geometry suggest a resolvable slip of <1 cm along a trench‐normal corridor beneath the borehole for a range of slip‐patch dimensions. A large slip patch can be well resolved even at considerable along‐strike distances from the borehole; for instance, ∼10 cm slip is detectable over a 200‐km strike range for a slip‐patch radius of ∼50 km. This high sensitivity for detecting slip, along with the lack of observed events, stands in stark contrast to observations at other subduction zones, and suggests that the Northern Cascadia megathrust is most likely fully locked.

Coseismic Slip Model of the 19 September 2022 Mw 7.6 Michoacán, Mexico, Earthquake: A Quasi-Repeat of the 1973 Mw 7.6 Rupture

AbstractOn 19 September 2022, a major earthquake struck the northwestern Michoacán segment along the Mexican subduction zone. A slip model is obtained that satisfactorily explains geodetic, teleseismic, and tsunami observations of the 2022 event. The preferred model has a compact large-slip patch that extends up-dip and northwestward from the hypocenter and directly overlaps a 1973 Mw 7.6 rupture. Slip is concentrated offshore and below the coast at depths from 10 to 30 km with a peak value of ∼2.9 m, and there is no detected coseismic slip near the trench. The total seismic moment is 3.1×1020 N·m (Mw 7.6), 72% of which is concentrated in the first 30 s. Most aftershocks are distributed in an up-dip area of the mainshock that has small coseismic slip, suggesting near-complete strain release in the large-slip patch. Teleseismic P waveforms of the 2022 and 1973 earthquakes are similar in duration and complexity with high cross-correlation coefficients of 0.68–0.98 for long P to PP signal time windows, indicating that the 2022 earthquake is a quasi-repeat of the 1973 earthquake, possibly indicating persistent frictional properties. Both the events produced more complex P waveforms than comparable size events along Guerrero and Oaxaca, reflecting differences in patchy locking of the Mexican megathrust.

A Source Study of the Mw 7.0 Acapulco, Mexico, Earthquake of 8 September 2021

AbstractThe Acapulco earthquake of 2021 broke a segment of the southeast Guerrero seismic gap along the Mexican subduction thrust. The rupture initiated offshore Acapulco (16.770° N, 99.942° W) and propagated down-dip toward northeast. This source directivity is confirmed from both (1) an analysis of local and regional recordings as a function of azimuth and (2) kinematic inversion of near-source, band-pass filtered (0.025–0.5 Hz) displacement seismograms and Global Positioning System static coseismic displacement vectors. The inversion reveals little slip near the hypocenter (<0.5 m) and significant slip distributed over an area of ∼184 km2, with the large slip patches in the northeast part of the fault. The estimated average slip and static stress drop are 260 cm and 18.6 MPa, respectively. Moment rate function reported by National Earthquake Information Center–U.S. Geological Survey from finite-fault modeling is simple, and it resembles other Mexican subduction earthquakes in the 7.0 ≤ M ≤ 7.5 range. Moment rate spectrum is well fit by the Brune ω−2 source model. Radiated seismic energy from teleseismic P waves is 7.5×1014 J, and ER/M0 is 2.1×10−5. Radiated energy enhancement factor—a measure of source complexity—is small, 5.8, similar to other Mexican subduction thrust earthquakes. Seismograms at DeBilt of the 2021 and the 11 May 1962 Acapulco earthquakes show an extraordinary similarity, seldom seen at M 7.0 level. The 2021 earthquake seems a repeat of the 1962 earthquake. The slip deficit since 1962 corresponding to a plate convergence rate of 6.2 cm/yr and perfect coupling is 366 cm. Thus, the seismic slip of 260 cm during that 2021 earthquake suggests a coupling ratio of 0.7, greater than 0.3 and 0.5 reported from geodetic measurements. Large moment release in the southeast seismic gap appears to have a periodicity of ~60 yr. Because 60 yr have elapsed since the last sequence earthquakes (1957 MS 7.5; 1962 MS 7.0 and 6.8), a renewal of large earthquakes in the region may be expected.

The 22 July 2020 MW 7.8 Shumagin seismic gap earthquake: Partial rupture of a weakly coupled megathrust

The earthquake potential of the Shumagin seismic gap along the Alaska Peninsula (∼162°W to ∼158.5°W) has been debated for more than 40 years. On 22 July 2020, the eastern half of the gap hosted an MW 7.8 earthquake involving a patchy rupture of the megathrust in the depth range of 20 to 45 km. The space-time slip distribution is determined by joint inversion of teleseismic P and SH waves and static displacements from regional GPS stations. The event initiated near the epicenter of the 10 November 1938 (MW 8.2) event, and ruptured westward, with little/no overlap with the 1938 rupture zone. The main slip patch has peak slip of ∼3.8 m below the Shumagin Islands, and produced ∼30 cm uplift and ∼25 cm SSE horizontal displacement on Chernabura Island. The slip model predicts well the small (<1 cm) tsunami signals persisting for more than ten hours observed at deep-water DART seafloor pressure recordings along the Alaska-Aleutian arc. Aftershocks with depths from 20 to 40 km fringe the large-slip patches, and show westward concentration during the first month after the mainshock. Aftershocks up-dip of the 1948 MW 7.1 event contribute to the high level of modest-size background seismicity extending to the trench in the region of very low seismic coupling (0.0–0.1) in the western Shumagin gap east of the 1 April 1946 (MW 8.6) rupture zone. The 31 May 1917 event is the last major earthquake to rupture the eastern half of the Shumagin gap, and has a lower surface wave magnitude (MSG-R 7.4, horizontal components) compared to the 2020 event (MSG-R 7.7, vertical components). Comparison of instrument-equalized waveforms for the 1917 and 2020 events indicates similar size contrast and differences in overall rupture duration and slip complexity. The 2020 rupture has average slip of ∼1.9 m over the 3600 km2 region with co-seismic slip ≥1 m. This is much less than the ∼6.7 m of potentially accumulated slip deficit since 1917, consistent with geodetic estimates of low average seismic coupling coefficient of 0.1–0.4. The megathrust seaward of the 2020 event has low seismicity and may either be aseismic or capable of comparable size ruptures. Comparisons are made with other subduction zones that have experienced relatively deep megathrust slip in regions with moderate seismic coupling.

Benchmarking the Optimal Time Alignment of Tsunami Waveforms in Nonlinear Joint Inversions for the Mw 8.8 2010 Maule (Chile) Earthquake

Finite-fault models for the 2010Mw8.8 Maule, Chile earthquake indicate bilateral rupture with large-slip patches located north and south of the epicenter. Previous studies also show that this event features significant slip in the shallow part of the megathrust, which is revealed through correction of the forward tsunami modeling scheme used in tsunami inversions. The presence of shallow slip is consistent with the coseismic seafloor deformation measured off the Maule region adjacent to the trench and confirms that tsunami observations are particularly important for constraining far-offshore slip. Here, we benchmark the method of Optimal Time Alignment (OTA) of the tsunami waveforms in the joint inversion of tsunami (DART and tide-gauges) and geodetic (GPS, InSAR, land-leveling) observations for this event. We test the application of OTA to the tsunami Green’s functions used in a previous inversion. Through a suite of synthetic tests we show that if the bias in the forward model is comprised only of delays in the tsunami signals, the OTA can correct them precisely, independently of the sensors (DART or coastal tide-gauges) and, to the first-order, of the bathymetric model used. The same suite of experiments is repeated for the real case of the 2010 Maule earthquake where, despite the results of the synthetic tests, DARTs are shown to outperform tide-gauges. This gives an indication of the relative weights to be assigned when jointly inverting the two types of data. Moreover, we show that using OTA is preferable to subjectively correcting possible time mismatch of the tsunami waveforms. The results for the source model of the Maule earthquake show that using just the first-order modeling correction introduced by OTA confirms the bilateral rupture pattern around the epicenter, and, most importantly, shifts the inferred northern patch of slip to a shallower position consistent with the slip models obtained by applying more complex physics-based corrections to the tsunami waveforms. This is confirmed by a slip model refined by inverting geodetic and tsunami data complemented with a denser distribution of GPS data nearby the source area. The models obtained with the OTA method are finally benchmarked against the observed seafloor deformation off the Maule region. We find that all of the models using the OTA well predict this offshore coseismic deformation, thus overall, this benchmarking of the OTA method can be considered successful.

Coseismic Slip Distribution of the 24 January 2020 Mw 6.7 Doganyol Earthquake and in Relation to the Foreshock and Aftershock Activities

AbstractOn 24 January 2020 (UTC), a destructive Mw 6.7 earthquake struck the east Anatolian fault of eastern Turkey after a series of foreshocks, causing many casualties and significant property damage. In this study, the rupture process of this earthquake is investigated with teleseismic broadband body-wave and surface-wave records. Results indicate that this earthquake is a left-lateral strike-slip event, and the rupture extends mainly to south. The main slip patch spreads ∼30 km along strike in the shallow above 14 km with a peak slip of ∼1.2 m, and the total seismic moment is 1.69×1019 N·m. The east–west component of horizontal surface displacement predicted with our slip model ranges from ∼0.4 to −0.3 m. The predicted displacements are consistent with the observed ones obtained from satellite images. We relocate 459 foreshocks and early aftershocks to explore the relationship between foreshock and aftershock sequences and coseismic slip. It is noted that there is an anticorrelation relationship between the distributions of early aftershocks and the coseismic slip. The strain energy in the large slip patch may have been sufficiently released by the mainshock; therefore, fewer early aftershocks occurred in that patch. Although we note a similar pattern between the relocated foreshock and coseismic slip, and a migration of foreshock, our dataset may not well resolve the correlation and migration due to the incomplete relocation foreshock catalog. Based on the slip model, we calculate the coulomb stress changes on the surrounding faults caused by the mainshock. The results reveal that the mainshock promoted stress accumulation on the northern and southern ends of the Elazig–Matalya segment and may reactivate the locked fault segment, leading to a high seismic risk in these regions. Although this earthquake does not significantly increase the coulomb stress change, the seismic risk of the Matalya–Kahraman Maras–Antakya segment should draw attention.

Detailed Spatial Slip Distribution for Short‐Term Slow Slip Events Along the Nankai Subduction Zone, Southwest Japan

AbstractMany short‐term slow slip events (S‐SSEs) occur at the transition zone along the Nankai subduction zone, southwest Japan. Because crustal deformation due to a single S‐SSE is small, the source fault is often represented using a planar uniform single‐fault slip model, resulting in little constraint on the spatial heterogeneity in amounts of slip. To comprehensively investigate the detailed cumulative spatial distribution of S‐SSEs in the entire Nankai subduction zone, we adopted a stacking approach of Global Navigation Satellite System data by referencing low‐frequency earthquakes. We extracted the cumulative displacements due to 12, 11, and 14 S‐SSEs that occurred between 2004 and 2009 in eastern Shikoku, Kii, and Tokai; coherent displacements nearly opposite to the direction of plate subduction were obtained. The inverted slip indicated significant slip laterally elongated along the transition zone at ~30–35 km depth. Small slip patches were inferred in the shallow portions at ~15–20 km depth in eastern Shikoku and at ~10–15 km depth in Tokai, respectively. The shallow patch in eastern Shikoku was located on the downdip edge of the coseismic slip area of the 1946 Nankai earthquake, while the Tokai small slip was located on the shallower side of the anticipated source area of a large earthquake. Large slip patches of S‐SSEs tend to avoid the spatially dense low‐frequency earthquake areas; in major S‐SSE areas, the number of low‐frequency earthquakes is small. This spatial dependence of fault slip style within the transition zone provides new insights on the generation mechanism of slow earthquakes.

Wave Interaction of Reverse‐Fault Rupture With Free Surface: Numerical Analysis of the Dynamic Effects and Fault Opening Induced by Symmetry Breaking

AbstractSeveral great earthquakes occur on thrust faults along both subduction and continental collision zones. These events often feature a large shallow slip patch, an asymmetric pattern for the ground motion, and the static deformation between the hanging wall and footwall of the fault. From a mechanical point of view, this asymmetry can be partially explained taking into account the interaction between the fault and the seismic radiation emitted during rupture propagation and stored in the hanging wall in the vicinity of the free surface. We numerically investigate the rupture dynamics along a thrust dipping fault impacting onto the free surface at a dip angle of δ = 20°, in a 2‐D elastic model. We show how the wave interaction of the rupture with the free surface leads to a breaking of the reflection symmetry. Compared to a rupture propagating in an infinite medium, this interaction enhances the slip rate in the updip direction as an effect of the coupling between slip and normal traction around the crack front. The breaking of symmetry leads to sizeable acceleration of the rupture toward asymptotic speed with inertia acquisition, and dependence of the rupture dynamics on the level of friction along the interface might produce an interface opening over a finite length in the vicinity of the surface. We finally explore how the wave interaction drives amplification and asymmetry of the shallow slip and the vertical displacement at the surface. The described effects should be considered in various numerical approaches and in interpretation of geophysical observations.

Joint inversion of GPS, InSAR and teleseismic data sets for the rupture process of the 2015 Gorkha, Nepal, earthquake using a generalized ABIC method

Various observations are made to invert for the source model of the 2015 Gorkha earthquake. Previously published slip models involve different slip distributions and slip amplitudes. To obtain a robust model, we jointly invert for the rupture process of the Gorkha earthquake using three types of observations: Global Positioning System (GPS), Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR), and teleseismic P wave data. Three constraints (i.e., spatial and temporal smoothness and minimum moment constraints) are applied to regulate the rupture process. The weight ratios between data sets and prior constraints are determined from a new developed generalized Akaike’s Bayesian Information Criterion (gABIC) weight determination method. This gABIC method can simultaneously and objectively weigh various kinds of observations and prior constraints, rather than being limited to the two types in the traditional ABIC method. The inverted slip model reveals the seismic moment of the earthquake is 9.40×1020Nm released primarily in the first 60s, equivalent to Mw 7.92. The rupture front propagates unilaterally along the strike direction and spreads in both the strike and dip directions. The slip distribution shows one large slip patch with two peaks along the strike direction with a maximum slip amplitude of approximately 7.6m and identifies large slips (> 2m) that occur in the updip section of the Main Himalayan Thrust (MHT) fault plane. Our results indicate that the released slip amplitude is larger than the accumulated slip amplitude since 1833, so the 2015 earthquake likely does not overlap with the 1833 earthquake.

Early aftershocks and afterslip surrounding the 2015 Mw 8.4 Illapel rupture

On 16 September 2015, the Mw 8.4 Illapel earthquake ruptured a section of the subduction thrust on the west coast of central Chile. The mainshock was followed by numerous aftershocks including some normal-faulting events near the trench. We apply a template matching approach to improve the completeness of early aftershocks within one month of the mainshock. To constrain the distribution of afterslip, we utilize repeating earthquakes among the aftershocks and perform a joint slip inversion of postseismic GPS and InSAR data. The results show that the aftershock zone abruptly expands to the south ∼14 h after the mainshock while growing relatively continuously to the north within the first day. The repeating earthquakes accompanying the early expansion suggest that aseismic afterslip on the subduction thrust surrounding the coseismic rupture is an important triggering mechanism of aftershocks in addition to stress transfer or poroelastic effects. An energetic earthquake sequence near the trench initiated with a M 4.6 event ∼3.5 h after the mainshock, suggesting delayed triggering by the static or dynamic stress changes induced by the mainshock. The spatial distribution of repeating earthquakes and the geodetic-inverted afterslip are consistent and appear to wrap around the large coseismic slip patch. Both data sets suggest that the largest cumulative afterslip is located at ∼30.5°S to the north of the mainshock rupture zone. The estimated postseismic moment released in the first ∼24 days of afterslip is equivalent to an earthquake of Mw 7.5. The afterslip illuminates the velocity strengthening sections of the plate interface that surround the mainshock rupture, consistent with plate coupling models inferred from interseismic GPS velocities.

Papanoa, Mexico earthquake of 18 April 2014 (Mw7.3)

Papanoa earthquake broke the plate interface NW of the Guerrero seismic gap. In this region, previous large earthquakes occurred in 1943 (MS 7.4), 1979 (Mw7.4) and 1985 (Mw7.5). The earthquake was recorded in the near-source region by several accelerographs. Severe damage was reported in Papanoa (where PGA of ~ 0.9 g was recorded on one of the horizontal components at a soft site) and other nearby coastal towns. It was also felt strongly in Mexico City where the ground motions were comparable to those recorded during the 1979 and 1985 events. A careful analysis of the near-source data, including P-wave polarization, yields an epicenter at 17.375 ºN, 101.055 ºW, close to the coast, near the town of Papanoa. Effective duration of ground motion at near-source coastal stations to the NW of the epicenter is 10-15 s, while it is 20-35 s to the SE, demonstrating rupture directivity towards Zihuatanejo. Three (in some cases only two) bursts of high-frequency radiation are visible in the accelerograms. Near-field records show that the slip was small during the initial 2-3 s of rupture which, subsequently, cascaded in two or three larger subevents. Slip inversion using teleseismic waves, along with GPS data from a couple of near-source sites, reveals that the rupture mainly consisted of two subevents. The first one was centered close to the hypocenter and had a radius of ~ 15 km. The second subevent, roughly of the same dimension as the first, was centered ~ 25 km SSE of Zihuatanejo. Previous analysis of three slow slip events (SSEs) in the region (2001-2002; 2006; 2009-2010) had revealed that this region had a high inter-SSE coupling ratio (&gt; 0.5) with a slip deficit about four times greater than in the adjacent NW Guerrero seismic gap (Radiguet et al., 2012). It seems that the large slip patch corresponding to the first subevent of the 2014 earthquake experienced a cumulative slip of ~ 20 cm during the SSEs, suggesting that seismic and SSE slip may share the same area of the interface. Alternatively, the SSE slip may have occurred over an area surrounding the large slip patch, a physically more plausible model. Epicenters of aftershocks (M ≥ 3.5), which occurred in the next 36 hours, define a rectangular area of ~ 40 km • 70 km, oriented ~ N75ºE; about half of this area lies onshore. This area encloses the inverted slip region. More than half of the aftershock area overlaps with that of the 1979 earthquake and a small fraction with that of the 21 September 1985 earthquake. As we only know the slip distribution of the 2014 earthquake, it is not known if the two large-slip patches had also slipped similarly during the previous earthquakes. The earthquake was followed by two moderately large events that occurred on 8 May (Mw6.5) and 10 May (Mw6.1). The epicenters of these events fall near Tecpan, within the NW Guerrero seismic gap (which extends from 100 ºW to 101 ºW), outside the aftershock area of the Papanoa earthquake. No large earthquake has occurred in this part of the gap, between Papanoa and Acapulco, since the events of 1899 (MS7.5) and 1911 (MS7.6). However, seismicity in the region (at Mw ≥ 5 level) appears normal. A few moderate earthquakes of unusually large duration and deficient high-frequency radiation have been identified near the trench. In contrast to the Papanoa - Zihuatanejo region, in this segment the inter-SSE coupling ratio from ~ 10 km inland towards sea is very low (&lt; 0.2) and the slip deficit is about one-fourth that of the Papanoa- Zihuatanejo region (Radiguet et al., 2012). As a consequence, the expected recurrence period of large/great earthquakes may be relatively long, in agreement with the seismicity of the Papanoa-Acapulco region.

The Mw7.9 2014 intraplate intermediate-depth Rat Islands earthquake and its relation to regional tectonics

The 2014 Mw7.9 Rat Islands intermediate-depth (∼107 km) earthquake is studied using seismic observations at teleseismic distances. The nodal plane with a steep-dip angle (87°) and a strike of 308° inferred from the Global CMT solution is selected as the causative fault plane because of the consistency with the distribution of the aftershocks relocated using the Joint Hypocenter Determination method. Its slip history is constrained using broadband P and SH waveforms and long-period (3–6 mHz) seismic waves in vertical and transverse components. The rupture process associated with this plane shows a rupture propagating at ∼2 km/s. The rupture essentially breaks one large slip patch (peak slip amplitude of 3.5 m) located 30 km west of the hypocenter. The size of this slip patch extends from 80 to 140 km depth, which would be the largest depth extent of earthquake slip ever documented. We show that this earthquake breaks the entire cold core of the subducting slab defined by the depth of the 600–650 °C isotherm. In addition, the lateral extent of the rupture appears to be bounded by the heterogeneities of subducting slab. Our results further indicate that, along this segment of Aleutian Arc, the intermediate-depth earthquakes might contribute to the westward transporting motion of Rat block. Lastly, the slip distribution of this earthquake as well as that of two other well studied Mw>7.5 intermediate-depth earthquakes suggests that the coldest portion of the subducting slab, outlined by the double Wadati–Benioff zone, is seismic during large intermediate-depth earthquakes. Such a result is important for estimating the seismic hazard of future large intermediate-depth earthquakes.

Preceding seismic activity and slow slip events in the source area of the 2011 Mw 9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake: a review

The 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake ruptured a large area of the megathrust east of NE Japan. The earthquake’s magnitude was 9.0, substantially larger than predicted. It is important to know what occurred in the source area prior to this great megathrust earthquake to improve understanding of the nucleation processes of large earthquakes and risk assessments in subduction zones. Seafloor observation data revealed the existence of two extremely large slip patches: one just updip of the mainshock hypocenter and the other 80–100 km to the north near the trench axis. For 70–90 years before 2003, M > 6 events and slips of M > c. 7 events on the megathrust occurred in the areas surrounding these two large slip patches. Seismic activity had increased since at least 2003 in the downdip portion of the source area of the Tohoku-Oki earthquake. In addition, long-term accelerated slow slip occurred in this downdip portion of the source area in the decades before the Tohoku-Oki earthquake. About 1 month before the earthquake, a slow slip event (SSE) took place at relatively shallow depths between the two large slip patches, accompanied by foreshock activity. Both the slow slip and foreshocks propagated from north to south toward the southern large slip patch. Two days before the earthquake, an M 7.3 foreshock and an associated postseismic slip began at relatively deep depths in the megathrust between the two large slip patches. In addition, a slow slip type event seems to have occurred approximately half a day after the M 7.3 foreshock near the mainshock hypocenter. This slow slip event and the foreshock activity again propagated from north to south toward the mainshock hypocenter. These long- and short-term preceding seismic and aseismic slip gradually reduced the interplate coupling, increased shear stresses at the two large slip patches (i.e., two strong asperity patches), and finally led to the rupture of the great Tohoku-Oki earthquake.

Finite‐fault slip model of the 2011 Mw5.6 Prague, Oklahoma earthquake from regional waveforms

AbstractThe slip model for the 2011 Mw5.6 Prague, Oklahoma, earthquake is inferred using a linear least squares methodology. Waveforms of six aftershocks recorded at 21 regional stations are used as empirical Green's functions (EGFs). The solution indicates two large slip patches: one located around the hypocenter with a depth range of 3–5.5 km; the other located to the southwest of the epicenter with a depth range from 7.5 to 9.5 km. The total moment of the solution is estimated at 3.37 × 1024 dyne cm (Mw5.65). The peak slip and average stress drop for the source at the hypocenter are 70 cm and 90 bars, respectively, approximately one half the values for the Mw5.8 2011 Mineral, Virginia, earthquake. The stress drop averaged over all areas of slip is 16 bars. The relatively low peak slip and stress drop may indicate an induced component in the origin of the Prague earthquake from deep fluid injection.

The February 6, 2013 Mw 8.0 Santa Cruz Islands earthquake and tsunami

The Santa Cruz Islands region has high seismicity near a 90° bend in the boundary between the Pacific and Australian plates. Southward, along the Vanuatu island arc, the Australian plate under-thrusts the Pacific plate in a well-defined subduction zone. Westward, a transpressional, predominantly transform boundary extends to the southern Solomon Islands subduction zone. The Santa Cruz Islands region has upper plate strike-slip and normal faulting, plate boundary under-thrusting, outer rise extensional faulting, and intraplate compressional faulting. On February 6, 2013 the largest under-thrusting earthquake (Mw 8.0) that has been instrumentally recorded in the region ruptured the megathrust. The epicenter (10.738°S, 165.138°E) is about 1° north of epicenters of prior large shallow under-thrusting events in Vanuatu in 1934 (M ~ 7.8) and 1966 (MS 7.9), and there is overlap of all three events' aftershock zones, but not their large-slip regions. At least 10 lives were lost, with 6 more missing, due to tsunami ~ 1.5 m high striking the town of Lata and several villages on the main Santa Cruz Island of Nendö (Ndeni) and a nearby small island Nibanga. Inundation of 500 m flooded the Lata airport. The tsunami was well-recorded by DART buoys spanning an unusually wide three-quadrant azimuthal aperture. Iterative modeling of teleseismic broadband P waves and the deep-water tsunami recordings resolves the slip distribution. There are two large-slip patches with a southeastward rupture expansion at about 1.5 km/s, with the second patch appearing to have ruptured with large slip at the trench. The event has relatively low short-period seismic wave energy release, but a typical overall moment-scaled total energy. The shallow rupture depth may be associated with the low level of short-period energy, and a near-total stress drop may account for a lack of underthrusting aftershocks among a highly productive aftershock sequence that included three events with Mw ≥ 7.0.

Kinematic Inversion of Strong-Motion Data Using a Gaussian Parameterization for the Slip: Application to the 2008 Iwate-Miyagi, Japan, Earthquake

Abstract We present a nonlinear technique for the purpose of estimating the distribution of the final slip and the rupture velocity on the fault plane from the inversion of strong‐motion records. In this work, the ground‐motion simulation is obtained by evaluating the representation integral in the frequency domain, through a finite‐element approach, based on a Delaunay’s triangulation of the fault plane. The slip distribution is parameterized by a linear combination of 2D overlapping Gaussian functions. This choice allows us to relate the maximum frequency in the data to the smallest resolvable wavelength on the fault plane, insuring a smooth representation for the slip function. We investigate the capability of such a representation to describe complex slip maps, and we relate the width of the Gaussian function and the overlapping to the minimum wavelength of the slip function. The inverse problem is solved by a two‐step procedure aimed at separating the computation of the rupture velocity from the evaluation of the slip distribution. While a global exploration is maintained for the rupture velocity, for each explored value of this quantity, the slip solution is computed as the best solution approaching the observations in the sense of the L2 norm. The nonlinear step is performed through the neighborhood algorithm (NA), while the linear one uses the nonnegative least‐squares (NNLS) method. The technique has been applied to retrieve the rupture history of the 2008 Iwate–Miyagi, Japan, earthquake. The slip distribution is characterized by a large slip patch extending from the hypocenter to the southern shallow part of the fault plane, with a maximum amplitude of 6 m. In addition, a relatively smaller asperity is located in the north shallow part of the fault. We found that the rupture lasted about 12 s with an average rupture velocity of about 2.0 km/s. Online Material: Figures showing synthetic inversion test results.

Faulting within the Mount St. Helens conduit and implications for volcanic earthquakes

The 2004–2008 eruption of Mount St. Helens produced seven dacite spines mantled by cataclastic fault rocks, comprising an outer fault core and an inner damage zone. These fault rocks provide remarkable insights into the mechanical processes that accompany extrusion of degassed magma, insights that are useful in forecasting dome-forming eruptions. The outermost part of the fault core consists of finely comminuted fault gouge that is host to 1- to 3-mm-thick layers of extremely fine-grained slickenside-bearing ultracataclasite. Interior to the fault core, there is an ∼2-m-thick damage zone composed of cataclastic breccia and sheared dacite, and interior to the damage zone, there is massive to flow-banded dacite lava of the spine interior. Structures and microtextures indicate entirely brittle deformation, including rock breakage, tensional dilation, shearing, grain flow, and microfaulting, as well as gas and fluid migration through intergranular pores and fractures in the damage zone. Slickenside lineations and consistent orientations of Riedel shears indicate upward shear of the extruding spines against adjacent conduit wall rocks. Paleomagnetic directions, demagnetization paths, oxide mineralogy, and petrology indicate that cataclasis took place within dacite in a solidified steeply dipping volcanic conduit at temperatures above 500 °C. Low water content of matrix glass is consistent with brittle behavior at these relatively high temperatures, and the presence of tridymite indicates solidification depths of More than a million small and low-frequency "drumbeat" earthquakes with coda magnitudes (M d ) 2 ) slip patches, possibly along observed extensive principal shear zones within the fault core but probably not along the smaller Riedel shears. Although our field and structural data are compatible with stick-slip models, they do not rule out seismic and infrasound models that call on resonance of steam-filled fractures to generate the drumbeat earthquakes. We suggest that stick-slip and gas release processes may be coupled, and that regardless of the source mechanism, the distinctive drumbeat earthquakes are proving to be an effective precursor for dome-forming eruptions. Our data document a continuous cycle of deformation along the conduit margins beginning with episodes of fracture in the damage zone and followed by transfer of motion to the fault core. We illustrate the cycle of deformation using a hypothetical cross section of the Mount St. Helens conduit, extending from the surface to the depth of magmatic solidification.

Probabilistic Estimates of Surface Coseismic Slip and Afterslip for Hayward Fault Earthquakes

We examine the partition of long‐term geologic slip on the Hayward fault into interseismic creep, coseismic slip, and afterslip. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we compute expected coseismic slip and afterslip at three alinement array sites for Hayward fault earthquakes with nominal moment magnitudes ranging from about 6.5 to 7.1. We consider how interseismic creep might affect the coseismic slip distribution as well as the variability in locations of large and small slip patches and the magnitude of an earthquake for a given rupture area. We calibrate the estimates to be consistent with the ratio of interseismic creep rate at the alinement array sites to the geologic slip rate for the Hayward fault. We find that the coseismic slip at the surface is expected to comprise only a small fraction of the long‐term geologic slip. The median values of coseismic slip are less than 0.2 m in nearly all cases as a result of the influence of interseismic creep and afterslip. However, afterslip makes a substantial contribution to the long‐term geologic slip and may be responsible for up to 0.5–1.5 m (median plus one standard deviation [S.D.]) of additional slip following an earthquake rupture. Thus, utility and transportation infrastructure could be severely impacted by afterslip in the hours and days following a large earthquake on the Hayward fault that generated little coseismic slip. Inherent spatial variability in earthquake slip combined with the uncertainty in how interseismic creep affects coseismic slip results in large uncertainties in these slip estimates.

Kīholo Bay, Hawai‘i, earthquake sequence of 2006: Relationship of the main shock slip with locations and source parameters of aftershocks

We study the source process of the Kīholo Bay earthquake (MW 6.7), which occurred beneath the northwest part of the Island of Hawai‘i on 15 October 2006, and static stress drops of small earthquakes that occurred in 2006 and 2007 around the main shock including aftershocks. We relocate the aftershocks to determine the fault plane from the two nodal planes. The relocated aftershocks define an E‐W trending plane that dips to the south, in good agreement with one of the nodal planes given by the Global Centroid Moment Tensor solution. Waveform inversion is performed with multiple time windows to investigate the rupture speed and the slip distribution of the main shock. Waveforms of an aftershock with MW 5.2 are used to calculate empirical Green's functions. Our results indicate that the rupture propagated unilaterally to the west with a rupture speed greater than 3.0 km/s (63% of the shear wave velocity). This westward rupture is consistent with the fact that aftershocks are distributed predominantly to the west of the main shock epicenter. Most aftershocks are located on the edge of patches with a large slip, or asperities and some also occur inside the patches. We also estimate static stress drops of 39 earthquakes (2.5 &lt; ML &lt; 3.5) that occurred in 2006 and 2007 near the source region of the Kīholo Bay earthquake. Static stress drops range from 0.12 to 8.6 MPa and aftershocks around large slip patches of the main shock likely to have larger stress drops.