Global variations of large megathrust earthquake rupture characteristics

Intraslab rupture triggering megathrust rupture coseismically in the 17 December 2016 Solomon Islands Mw 7.9 earthquake

The 17 December 2016 Solomon Islands earthquake (Mw 7.9) initiated ~103 km deep in the subducting Solomon Sea slab near the junction of the Solomon Islands and New Britain trenches. Most aftershocks are located near the Solomon Islands plate boundary megathrust west of Bougainville, where previous large interplate thrust faulting earthquakes occurred in 1995 (Mw 7.7) and 1971 (Mw 8.0). Teleseis...

Effects of subducted seamounts on megathrust earthquake nucleation and rupture propagation

[1] Subducted seamounts have been linked to interplate earthquakes, but their specific effects on earthquake mechanism remain controversial. A key question is under what conditions a subducted seamount will generate or stop megathrust earthquakes. Here we show results from numerical experiments in the framework of rateand state-dependent friction law in which a seamount is characterized as a pa...

Depth-varying rupture properties of subduction zone megathrust faults

[1] Subduction zone plate boundary megathrust faults accommodate relative plate motions with spatially varying sliding behavior. The 2004 Sumatra-Andaman (Mw 9.2), 2010 Chile (Mw 8.8), and 2011 Tohoku (Mw 9.0) great earthquakes had similar depth variations in seismic wave radiation across their wide rupture zones – coherent teleseismic short-period radiation preferentially emanated from the dee...

The Mechanics of Earthquake Rupture

Future Cascadia megathrust rupture delineated by episodic tremor and slip

[1] A suite of 15 episodic tremor and slip events imaged between 1997 and 2008 along the northern Cascadia subduction zone suggests future coseismic rupture will extend to 25 km depth, or 60 km inland of the Pacific coast, rather than stopping offshore at 15 km depth. An ETS-derived coupling profile accurately predicts GPSmeasured interseismic deformation of the overlying North American plate, ...