The Entire Crust can be Seismogenic: Evidence from Southern Malawi

The Bilila-Mtakataka Fault (BMF), at the southern end of western branch East African Rift System (EARS), has been used in various scaling relation studies and arguments about strength lithosphere. We present evidence for a similar, though more degraded, frontal scarp on graben-bounding synthetic Chirobwe-Ntcheu (CNF), showing that this fault is active simultaneously with BMF. deployed 17 geophones ?60 days around Lake Malawi, across footwall hangingwall Continuous microseismicity can be seen from surface to ?35 km depth highlighting plane dipping ?42°E. Lower-crustal earthquakes have previously found EARS, based location focal mechanism hypothesized occur planes line up traces large faults. However, no previous study EARS revealed throughout crust shows seismicity along its full length base crust. Rather, lack mid-lower crustal depths, led some people “jelly sandwich” hypothesis. Our results show entire seismogenic, so support “crème brûlée” model. In our two month deployment we recorded 22 aftershocks ML ? 2 March 8th, 2018 earthquake 200 south array, 7 months after mainshock, confirming aftershock sequences regions low strain long duration, could main component slowly straining regions.