stress evolution in southern california and triggering of moderate small and micro size earthquakes we calculate the evolution of stresses in southern california extending the study of deng and sykes 1997 by increasing from 6 to 36 the number of earthquakes for which coseismic changes in stress are computed and by expanding from m 6 to m 1 8 the range of magnitudes m of events whose focal mechanism solutions are examined in the context of the evolving stress field the cumulative stress on a given date is calculated with respect to an arbitrary zero baseline just before the 1812 wrightwood earthquake by taking into account the long term stress loading associated with 98 fault segments and coseismic stress changes for 36 significant earthquakes our calculations indicate that more than 85 of m 5 earthquakes from 1932 1995 occurred in regions of positive change in coulomb failure function cff most of the remaining about 15 earthquakes that occurred in areas of negative cff fall very close to boundaries between positive and negative cff some of which are sensitive to the less well controlled slip distributions of the earliest historic events calculations also show that from 1981 until just before the 1992 landers earthquake more than 85 of small m 3 and micro size m 1 8 shocks in the seeber and armbruster 1995 catalog with mechanisms involving either nw trending right lateral or ne trending left lateral strike slip faulting occurred in regions of positive cff the ratio of encouraged to all small and micro size events reaches a high value of about 88 if an apparent coefficient of friction between 0 0 and 0 6 is used the highest percentage of earthquakes occurred in areas where stress is about 1 mpa above the 1812 baseline most 66 events occurred in regions of cff between 0 0 and 2 0 mpa the upper limit indicates that the approximate range of stress variation in the earthquake cycle is of the order of 2 0 mpa the fact that the locations of most moderate small and micro size earthquakes are still related to stress changes remaining from large historical events might be used to constrain slip distribution of some of those earthquakes and to constrain the locations of future significant events

accelerated stress buildup on the southern san andreas fault and surrounding regions caused by mojave desert earthquakes a sequence of four mw 6 earthquakes including the 1992 mw 5 7 3 landers and mw 5 7 1 hector mine earthquakes occurred in the mojave desert in the 1990s in close proximity to the southern san andreas fault inducing stress changes on several of its segments we calculate that coseismic slip combined with postseismic relaxation of viscous lower crust and or upper mantle has led to a coulomb stress increase of 2 3 3 5 bar on the san bernardino mountain segment of the southern san andreas fault between 1992 and 2001 with a projected increase of 3 6 4 9 bar by the year 2020 in comparison the calculated coseismic stress increase is 1 8 bar for this segment this accelerated buildup of stresses is predicted to bring the san bernardino mountain segment which last ruptured more than 190 yr ago closer to a potentially major rupture meanwhile we project a net stress decrease of as much as 23 5 bar between 1992 and 2020 for the western coachella valley segment if the fault is governed by low effective friction or an increase of 1 5 bar if the fault is governed by high effective friction coulomb stresses are calculated to decrease on the mojave segment by as much as 21 bar between 1992 and 2020 accelerated stress buildup is also predicted to occur on parts of the san jacinto elsinore and calico faults the pattern of the observed post landers aftershock clustering and the calculated coulomb stress buildup on the calico fault is similar to that noted in the hector mine region prior to the 1999 mw 5 7 1 earthquake these results imply that the stress changes caused by an earthquake may still play a role in triggering future quakes in neighboring crust many years later through viscoelastic processes

earthquake cycle deformation in the tibetan plateau with a weak mid crustal layer 1 geodetic observations of interseismic deformation across the tibetan plateau contain information about both tectonic and earthquake cycle processes time variations in surface velocities between large earthquakes are sensitive to the rheological structure of the subseismogenic crust and in particular the viscosity of the middle and lower crust here we develop a semianalytic solution for time dependent interseismic velocities resulting from viscoelastic stress relaxation in a localized midcrustal layer in response to forcing by a sequence of periodic earthquakes earthquake cycle models with a weak midcrustal layer exhibit substantially more near fault preseismic strain localization than do classic two layer models at short 50 mm yr postseismic velocities in the years following the coseismic ruptures we suggest that earthquake cycle models with a localized midcrustal layer can simultaneously explain both preseismic and postseismic geodetic observations with a single maxwell viscosity while the classic two layer model requires a rheology with multiple relaxation time scales

stress sensitivity of fault seismicity a comparison between limited offset oblique and major strike slip faults we present a new three dimensional inventory of the southern san francisco bay area faults and use it to calculate stress applied principally by the 1989 m 7 1 loma prieta earthquake and to compare fault seismicity rates before and after 1989 the major high angle right lateral faults exhibit a different response to the stress change than do minor oblique right lateral thrust faults seismicity on oblique slip faults in the southern santa clara valley thrust belt increased where the faults were unclamped the strong dependence of seismicity change on normal stress change implies a high coefficient of static friction in contrast we observe that faults with significant offset 50 100 km behave differently microseismicity on the hayward fault diminished where right lateral shear stress was reduced and where it was unclamped by the loma prieta earthquake we observe a similar response on the san andreas fault zone in southern california after the landers earthquake sequence additionally the offshore san gregorio fault shows a seismicity rate increase where right lateral oblique shear stress was increased by the loma prieta earthquake despite also being clamped by it these responses are consistent with either a low coefficient of static friction or high pore fluid pressures within the fault zones we can explain the different behavior of the two styles of faults if those with large cumulative offset become impermeable through gouge buildup coseismically pressurized pore fluids could be trapped and negate imposed normal stress changes whereas in more limited offset faults fluids could rapidly escape the difference in behavior between minor and major faults may explain why frictional failure criteria that apply intermediate coefficients of static friction can be effective in describing the broad distributions of aftershocks that follow large earthquakes since many of these events occur both inside and outside major fault zones

geodetically constrained models of viscoelastic stress transfer and earthquake triggering along the north anatolian fault over the past 80 years 8 mw 6 7 strike slip earthquakes west of 40 longitude have ruptured the north anatolian fault naf from east to west the series began with the 1939 erzincan earthquake in eastern turkey and the most recent 1999 mw 7 4 izmit earthquake extended the pattern of ruptures into the sea of marmara in western turkey the mean time between seismic events in this westward progression is 8 5 11 years 67 confidence interval much greater than the timescale of seismic wave propagation seconds to minutes the delayed triggering of these earthquakes may be explained by the propagation of earthquake generated diffusive viscoelastic fronts within the upper mantle that slowly increase the coulomb failure stress change cfs at adjacent hypocenters here we develop three dimensional stress transfer models with an elastic upper crust coupled to a viscoelastic burgers rheology mantle both the maxwell m 4 1018 1 1019 pa s and kelvin k 1 1018 1 1019 pa s viscosities are constrained by studies of geodetic observations before and after the 1999 izmit earthquake we combine this geodetically constrained rheological model with the observed sequence of large earthquakes since 1939 to calculate the time evolution of cfs changes along the north anatolian fault due to viscoelastic stress transfer apparent threshold values of mean cfs at which the earthquakes in the eight decade sequence occur are between 0 02 to 3 15 mpa and may exceed the magnitude of static cfs values by as much as 177 by 2023 we infer that the mean time dependent stress change along the northern naf strand in the marmara sea near istanbul which may have previously ruptured in 1766 may reach the mean apparent time dependent stress thresholds of the previous naf earthquakes

seven years of postseismic deformation following the 1999 m 7 4 and m 7 2 izmit duzce turkey earthquake sequence 1 we report the results of nearly 7 years of postseismic deformation measurements using continuously recorded and survey mode gps observations for the 1999 izmit duzce earthquake sequence resolvable time dependent postseismic changes to the preearthquake interseismic velocity field extend at least as far as the continuous gps station in ankara 200 km southeast of the izmit rupture seven years after the earthquake sequence the relative postseismic velocity across the north anatolian fault naf reaches 10 12 mm a roughly 50 of the steady state interseismic rate with the highest postseismic velocities within 40 km of the coseismic ruptures we use a sequence of logarithmic time functions to fit gps site motions up to three logarithmic terms with decay constants of 1 150 and 3500 days are necessary to fit all the transient motion observed at the continuous gps stations the first term is required for the component of site motion parallel to the naf at near field sites strongly implicating rapid shallow afterslip the intermediate and longer term postseismic velocity components reflect more broadly distributed strain with a symmetric double couple pattern suggestive of either localized deep afterslip or viscoelastic relaxation of the upper mantle and or lower crust in two areas including the marmara sea this pattern is superimposed on north south extension centered on the naf we speculate that this extension may result from aseismic dip slip along coseismically weakened faults driven by the background tectonic stress

dynamics of izmit earthquake postseismic deformation and loading of the duzce earthquake hypocenter we have developed dynamic finite element models of izmit earthquake postseismic deformation to evaluate whether this deformation is better explained by afterslip via either velocity strengthening frictional slip or linear viscous creep or by distributed linear viscoelastic relaxation of the lower crust we find that velocity strengthening frictional afterslip driven by coseismic shear stress loading can reproduce time dependent global positioning system data better than either linear viscous creep on a vertical shear zone below the rupture or lower crustal viscoelastic relaxation our best frictional afterslip model fits the main features of postseismic slip inversions in particular high slip patches at and below the hypocenter and on the western karadere segment and limited afterslip west of the hersek delta burgmann et al 2002 the model requires a weakly velocity strengthening fault that is either low effective normal stress in the slipping regions or a smaller value for the parameter describing rate dependence of friction a b than is indicated by laboratory experiments our best afterslip model suggests that the coulomb stress at the duzce hypocenter increased by 0 14 mpa 1 4 bars during the izmit earthquake assuming right lateral slip on a surface dipping 50 to the north and by another 0 1 mpa during the 87 days between the izmit and duzce earthquakes in the marmara sea region within about 160 km of the izmit earthquake rupture this model indicates that the coulomb stresses increased by 15 25 of the coseismic amount during the first 300 days after the earthquake three hundred days after the earthquake postseismic contributions to coulomb stressing rate on the maramara region faults had fallen to values equal to or less than the inferred secular stress accumulation rate our estimates of postseismic coulomb stress are highly model dependent in the marmara region the linear viscous shear zone and viscoelastic lower crust models predict greater postseismic coulomb stresses than the frictional afterslip model near field stress and fault zone rheology estimates are sensitive to the earth9s elastic structure when a layered elastic structure is incorporated in our model it yields a coulomb stress of 0 24 mpa at the duzce hypocenter significantly more than the 0 14 mpa estimated from the uniform elastic model because of the higher near field coseismic stresses the layered elastic model requires a higher value of velocity strengthening parameter a b a b times effective normal stress r to produce comparable postseismic slip a b is estimated at 0 4 and 0 2 mpa respectively for the layered and uniform elastic models these results highlight the importance of understanding the earth9s elastic structure and the mechanism for postseismic deformation if we wish to accurately model coseismic and postseismic crustal stresses

the 2002 denali fault earthquake alaska a large magnitude slip partitioned event the mw moment magnitude 7 9 denali fault earthquake on 3 november 2002 was associated with 340 kilometers of surface rupture and was the largest strike slip earthquake in north america in almost 150 years it illuminates earthquake mechanics and hazards of large strike slip faults it began with thrusting on the previously unrecognized susitna glacier fault continued with right slip on the denali fault then took a right step and continued with right slip on the totschunda fault there is good correlation between geologically observed and geophysically inferred moment release the earthquake produced unusually strong distal effects in the rupture propagation direction including triggered seismicity

changes in static stress on southern california faults after the 1992 landers earthquake the magnitude 7 5 landers earthquake of 28 june 1992 was the largest earthquake to strike california in 40 years the slip that occurs in such an earthquake would be expected to induce large changes in the static stress on neighbouring faults these changes in stress should in turn affect the likelihood of future earthquakes stress changes that load faults towards failure have been cited as the cause of small1 5 moderate6 and large7 earthquakes conversely those that relax neighbouring faults have been related to a decrease in seismicity5 here we use an elastic half space model8 to estimate the stress changes produced by the landers earthquake on selected southern california faults including the san andreas we find that the estimated stress changes are consistent with the triggering of four out of the five aftershocks with magnitude greater than 4 5 and that the largest changes 1 10 bar occurring on part of the san bernardino segment of the san andreas fault may have decreased the time to the next magnitude 8 earthquake by about 14 years

fault interaction and stress triggering of twentieth century earthquakes in mongolia 1 a cluster of exceptionally large earthquakes in the interior of asia occurred from 1905 to 1967 the 1905 m7 9 tsetserleg and m8 4 bolnai earthquakes the 1931 m8 0 fu yun earthquake the 1957 m8 1 gobi altai earthquake and the 1967 m7 1 mogod earthquake sequence each of the larger m 8 earthquakes involved strike slip faulting averaging more than 5 m and rupture lengths of several hundred kilometers available geologic data indicate that recurrence intervals on the major source faults are several thousands of years and distances of about 400 km separate the respective rupture areas we propose that the occurrences of these and many smaller earthquakes are related and controlled to a large extent by stress changes generated by the compounded static deformation of the preceding earthquakes and subsequent viscoelastic relaxation of the lower crust and upper mantle beneath mongolia we employ a spherically layered viscoelastic model constrained by the 1994 2002 gps velocity field in western mongolia vergnolle et al 2003 using the succession of twentieth century earthquakes as sources of deformation we then analyze the time dependent change in coulomb failure stress f at remote interaction distances static f values are small however modeled postseismic stress changes typically accumulate to several tenths of a bar over time intervals of decades almost all significant twentieth century regional earthquakes m 6 with well constrained fault geometry lie in positive f lobes of magnitude about 0 5 bar our results suggest that significant stress transfer is possible among continental faults separated by hundreds of kilometers and on timescales of decades

modelling of stress patterns along the western part of the north anatolian fault zone abstract the stress field before and after strong m 6 earthquakes in the western part of the north anatolian fault zone is modelled assuming an initially homogeneous state of stress the elastic co seismic stress drops the inelastic post seismic stress variations and the increase of stress due to plate motion are taken into account using the theory of dislocations the model consists of an elastic layer upper crust above a half space which is described by elastic properties and alternatively by a standard linear solid the results of the latter inelastic model differ only slightly from that of the purely elastic one one of the main results is that most of the earthquakes fall into regions for which the model calculations predict high stress levels prior to the events at present the highest stress values are obtained for an area around 34 e to 35 e they are higher than the average pre seismic stress value for the series of eight earthquakes investigated in this study all results are critically dependent on the assumption of the initial stress field being homogeneous along the western part of the north anatolian fault zone

delayed triggering of the 1999 hector mine earthquake by viscoelastic stress transfer stress changes in the crust due to an earthquake can hasten the failure of neighbouring faults and induce earthquake sequences in some cases1 2 3 4 5 the 1999 hector mine earthquake in southern california magnitude 7 1 occurred only 20 km from and 7 years after the 1992 landers earthquake magnitude 7 3 this suggests that the hector mine earthquake was triggered in some fashion by the earlier event but uncertainties in the slip distribution and rock friction properties associated with the landers earthquake have led to widely varying estimates of both the magnitude and sign of the resulting stress change that would be induced at the location of the hector mine hypocentre with estimates varying from 1 4 bar ref 6 to 0 5 bar ref 7 more importantly coseismic stress changes alone cannot satisfactorily explain the delay of 7 years between the two events here we present the results of a three dimensional viscoelastic model that simulates stress transfer from the ductile lower crust and upper mantle to the brittle upper crust in the 7 years following the landers earthquake using viscoelastic parameters that can reproduce the observed horizontal surface deformation following the landers earthquake our calculations suggest that lower crustal or upper mantle flow can lead to postseismic stress increases of up to 1 2 bar at the location of the hector mine hypocentre during this time period contributing to the eventual occurrence of the 1999 hector mine earthquake these results attest to the importance of considering viscoelastic processes in the assessment of seismic hazard8 9 10 11

triggering of earthquake aftershocks by dynamic stresses it is thought that small static stress changes due to permanent fault displacement can alter the likelihood of or trigger earthquakes on nearby faults many studies of triggering in the near field particularly of aftershocks rely on these static changes as the triggering agent and consider them only in terms of equivalent changes in the applied load on the fault here we report a comparison of the aftershock pattern of the moment magnitude mw 7 3 landers earthquake not only with static stress changes but also with transient oscillatory stress changes transmitted as seismic waves that is dynamic stresses dynamic stresses do not permanently change the applied load and thus can trigger earthquakes only by altering the mechanical state or properties of the fault zone these dynamically weakened faults may fail after the seismic waves have passed by and might even cause earthquakes that would not otherwise have occurred we find similar asymmetries in the aftershock and dynamic stress patterns the latter being due to rupture propagation whereas the static stress changes lack this asymmetry previous studies have shown that dynamic stresses can promote failure at remote distances but here we show that they can also do so nearby

interseismic strain accumulation across the manyi fault tibet prior to the 1997 mw 7 6 earthquake 1 the coseismic displacements caused by the mw 7 6 1997 manyi strike slip earthquake have been extensively studied in order to assess whether the current deformation around the manyi fault is due to one or more postseismic mechanisms and to constrain the rate state models of afterslip an estimate of the interseismic motion across the fault prior to the earthquake is needed we use esa ers data to form 20 interferograms covering the five year period of 1992 1997 which are combined using a multi interferogram method to calculate a map of line of sight velocities inverting this velocity map using a monte carlo method we estimate relative motion across the fault of 3 2 mm yr prior to the 1997 earthquake one third the rate of other major faults in the area such as the kunlun and the altyn tagh faults the locking depth is poorly resolved but is estimated to be 22 15 km the localised pattern of deformation observed suggest that the viscosity of the lower crust and upper mantle in the manyi area is greater than 4 1018 pa s proposed by previous postseismic studies of the area we find no evidence of significant deformation across possible westward extensions of the kunlun fault these rates of interseismic deformation are much smaller than the rates still being observed today 10 years after the event indicating the current rates must be due to one of the postseismic deformation mechanisms

viscoelastic stress triggering of the 1999 hector mine earthquake by the 1992 landers earthquake the 1999 mw 7 1 hector mine earthquake occurred only 20 km from the 1992 mw 7 3 landers earthquake fault the close spacing between the two earthquakes suggests that the landers earthquake trigger the hector mine event based on an elastic half space model scientists from the usgs scec and cdmg 2000 have found a negative coulomb stress change at the hector mine hypocenter due to landers this negative stress change is inconsistent with the hypothesis of static stress triggering in this paper i show evidence of stress triggering of the hector mine earthquake by landers due to a process governed by viscoelastic flow in the lower crust this visoelastic flow has produced broad scale postseismic rebound observed by gps and insar measurements the result of this study is that viscoelastic flow has significantly modified the regional stress field in the mojave desert after the landers earthquake the evolving stress field including viscoelastic flow has gradually moved the coulomb stress change at the hector mine hypocenter to a positive level the increase in coulomb stress exceeded 1 bar right before the hector mine earthquake bringing the hector mine ruptures to the proximity of catastrophic failure

recalculated probability of m 7 earthquakes beneath the sea of marmara turkey 1 new earthquake probability calculations are made for the sea of marmara region and the city of istanbul providing a revised forecast and an evaluation of time dependent interaction techniques calculations incorporate newly obtained bathymetric images of the north anatolian fault beneath the sea of marmara le pichon et al 2001 armijo et al 2002 newly interpreted fault segmentation enables an improved regional a d 1500 2000 earthquake catalog and interevent model which form the basis for time dependent probability estimates calculations presented here also employ detailed models of coseismic and postseismic slip associated with the 17 august 1999 m 7 4 izmit earthquake to investigate effects of stress transfer on seismic hazard probability changes caused by the 1999 shock depend on marmara sea fault stressing rates which are calculated with a new finite element model the combined 2004 2034 regional poisson probability of m 7 earthquakes is 38 the regional time dependent probability is 44 18 and incorporation of stress transfer raises it to 53 18 the most important effect of adding time dependence and stress transfer to the calculations is an increase in the 30 year probability of a m 7 earthquake affecting istanbul the 30 year poisson probability at istanbul is 21 and the addition of time dependence and stress transfer raises it to 41 14 the ranges given on probability values are sensitivities of the calculations to input parameters determined by monte carlo analysis 1000 calculations are made using parameters drawn at random from distributions sensitivities are large relative to mean probability values and enhancements caused by stress transfer reflecting a poor understanding of large earthquake aperiodicity index terms 7223 seismology seismic hazard assessment and prediction 7230 seismology seismicity and seismotectonics 8150 tectonophysics plate boundary general 3040 keywords earthquake probability sea of marmara seismic hazard turkey stress interaction north anatolian fault

stress transfer and nonlinear stress accumulation at the north anatolian fault turkey an analysis is presented of the accumulation of stress along the north anatolian fault the analysis is based on the time dependent reloading of the plate boundary by using a modified elsasser model of a coupled lithosphere asthenosphere system

differences between spontaneous and triggered earthquakes their influences on foreshock probabilities 1 in this study we investigate the foreshock probabilities calculated from earthquake catalogs from japan southern california and new zealand unlike conventional studies on foreshocks we use a probability based declustering method to separate each catalog into stochastic versions of family trees such that each event is classified as either having been triggered by a preceding event or being a spontaneous event the probabilities are determined from parameters that provide the best fit of the real catalogue using a space time epidemic type aftershock sequence etas model the model assumes that background and triggered earthquakes have the same magnitude dependent triggering capability a foreshock here is defined as a spontaneous event that has one or more larger descendants and a triggered foreshock is a triggered event that has one or more larger descendants the proportion of foreshocks in spontaneous events of each catalog is found to be lower than the proportion of triggered foreshocks in triggered events one possibility is that this is due to different triggering productivity in spontaneous versus triggered events i e a triggered event triggers more children than a spontaneous events of the same magnitude however further analysis on simulated data shows that such difference might be caused by the events triggered by smaller events below the magnitude threshold of the catalog even if the physical interpretation is unclear a clustering model where spontaneous events and triggered events have different triggering behaviors can be used to assess the risk of foreshocks and to avoid overpredicting

viscosity of oceanic asthenosphere inferred from remote triggering of earthquakes a sequence of large interplate earthquakes from 1952 to 1965 along the aleutian arc and kurile kamchatka trench released accumulated stresses along nearly the entire northern portion of the pacific plate boundary the postseismic stress evolution across the northern pacific and arctic basins calculated from a viscoelastic coupling model with an asthenospheric viscosity of 5 x 10 17 pascal seconds is consistent with triggering of oceanic intraplate earthquakes temporal patterns in seismicity at remote plate boundaries and space based geodetic measurements of anomalous velocity over an area 7000 by 7000 kilometers square during the 30 year period after the sequence

a dislocation model for the earthquake cycle at convergent plate boundaries summary a kinematic model for the earthquake cycle at convergent plate boundaries has been constructed on the basis of dislocation theory we model the lithosphere asthenosphere system by a stratified semi infinite medium under gravity consisting of an elastic surface layer an intervening layer with maxwell viscoelasticity and an elastic substratum the steady motion of plate convergence is naturally represented by uniform slip at a constant rate on the upper boundary of the descending oceanic plate the occurrence of interplate earthquakes is regarded as a perturbation of the steady state plate motion and represented by a periodic sequence of step slips on a finite seismic zone of the plate interface based on dislocation theory we can show that the steady slip on the interface deeper than the lithosphereasthenosphere boundary does not contribute to surface deformation in the steady state accordingly the surface deformation associated with the earthquake cycle is given by the superposition of viscoelastic responses to the steady slip on the interface shallower than the lithosphere asthenosphere boundary the steady backslip on the seismic zone and the periodic sequence of seismic slips we have computed cyclic patterns of vertical displacements at the free surface for two representative cases taking account of gravity effects the patterns of vertical displacements differ notably in the latter stage of the cycle depending on whether or not the seismic zone extends through the entire thickness of the lithosphere after the completion of one earthquake cycle our model yields a certain amount of permanent deformation resulting from the steady plate convergence the pattern of the permanent deformation that is characterized by steep uplift on the continental side sharp subsidence at the plate boundary and gentle uplift on the oceanic side is irrespective of the cyclic process of stress accumulation and release repeated on the seismic zone the earthquake cycle model developed here provides a possible explanation for the formation of earthquake origin marine terraces

continuous deformation of the tibetan plateau from global positioning system data global positioning system velocities from 553 control points within the tibetan plateau and on its margins show that the present day tectonics in the plateau is best described as deformation of a continuous medium at least when averaged over distances of 100 km deformation occurs throughout the plateau interior by ese wnw extension and slightly slower nne ssw shortening relative to eurasia material within the plateau interior moves roughly eastward with speeds that increase toward the east and then flows southward around the eastern end of the himalaya crustal thickening on the northeast ern and eastern margins of the plateau occurs over a zone 400 km wide and cannot be the result of elastic strain on a single major thrust fault shortening there accommodates much of india s penetration into eurasia a description in terms of movements of rigid blocks with elastic strain associated with slip on faults between them cannot match the velocity field

postseismic relaxation across the central nevada seismic belt 1 two gps geodetic surveys across the basin and range br province of western north america have detected an anomalous compression east of the central nevada seismic belt cnsb the first network installed by the u s geological survey along an east west trending transect across the br at approximately 40 n consisted of 63 monuments observed campaign style in 1992 1996 and 1998 the second network installed by the california institute of technology consisted of 50 continuously operating gps receivers 18 of which were roughly along the same transect as the campaign survey we have used a viscoelastic postseismic relaxation model of the four largest earthquakes in the cnsb on the pleasant valley fault in 1915 the cedar mountain fault in 1932 and on the fairview peak and dixie valley faults in 1954 to interpret the geodetic velocities observed across the cnsb a model of postseismic relaxation with a lower crustal maxwell viscosity of 5 50 1018 pa s can explain the apparent compression regardless of the assumed mantle viscosity the geodetic velocities that we determined after removing the postseismic contribution indicate that within current gps detection limits the br is stable east of the cnsb and is undergoing rapid right lateral shear west of the cnsb

stress coupling between earthquakes in northwest turkey and the north aegean sea we have investigated the coulomb stress interactions of 29 earthquakes m s greater than or equal to 6 0 that have occurred in the region of northwest turkey and north aegean sea since 1912 of these events 23 may be related to earlier events and 16 are clearly related to earlier events all events after 1967 are related to previous events events in the early part of our time interval that show no correlation could be related to historical events as yet unidentified in some cases faults that have received a stress reduction from earlier events are prepared for an event by an earthquake occurring a few years before that creates a local coulomb stress rise thus regions of coulomb stress shadow can become regions where a damaging earthquake may occur the relation between smaller events and the coulomb stress distribution is less clear but may be related to poor data quality and practical limitations of our modeling technique nonetheless there are 4 times as many events per unit area in regions of enhanced stress than where stress is reduced we discuss the contemporary distribution of coulomb stress and argue that it is possible to identify the likely locations of future damaging earthquakes including identifying the most likely candidate faults

weak ductile shear zone beneath a major strike slip fault inferences from earthquake cycle model constrained by geodetic observations of the western north anatolian fault zone gps data before and after the 1999 izmit duzce earthquakes on the north anatolian fault zone turkey reveal a preseismic strain localization within about 25 km of the fault and a rapid postseismic transient using 3 d finite element calculations of the earthquake cycle in an idealized model of the crust comprising elastic above maxwell viscoelastic layers we show that spatially varying viscosity in the crust can explain these observations depth dependent viscosity without lateral variations can reproduce some of the observations but cannot explain the proximity to the fault of maximum postseismic velocities a localized weak zone beneath the faulted elastic lid satisfactorily explains the observations if the weak zone extends down to midcrustal depths and the ratio of relaxation time to earthquake repeat time ranges from 0 005 to 0 01 for weak zone widths of 24 and 40 km respectively in the weakened domain and greater than 1 0 elsewhere corresponding to viscosities of 1018 0 3 pa s and greater than 1020 pa s models with sharp weak zone boundaries fit the data better than those with a smooth viscosity increase away from the fault implying that the weak zone may be bounded by a relatively abrupt change in material properties such a change might result from lithological contrast grain size reduction fabric development or water content in addition to any effects from shear heating our models also imply that viscosities inferred from postseismic studies primarily reflect the rheology of the weak zone and should not be used to infer the mechanical properties of normal crust

seismicity of the sea of marmara turkey since 1500 summary we use the earthquake history of the last 500 years to help evaluate the tectonic and hazard contexts of the1999 earthquakes at izmit and dzce in westernturkey the 20th century has been unusually active but over the 500 year period the seismic moment release can account for the known right lateral shear velocity across the marmara region observed by gps two areas of known late quaternary faulting stand out as unusually quiet over this period the northwest shore of the sea of marmara and the southern branch of the north anatolian fault system between bursa and mudurnu

the 11 april 2012 east indian ocean earthquake triggered large aftershocks worldwide although strong remote aftershocks are exceedingly rare their rate increased fivefold during the six days following the 2012 east indian ocean earthquake perhaps as a result of the strike slip nature of the 2012 event or a build up of close to failure nucleation sites

reconciling viscoelastic models of postseismic and interseismic deformation effects of viscous shear zones and finite length ruptures we have developed a suite of earthquake cycle models for strike slip faults to investigate how finite ruptures and lithosphere scale viscous shear zones affect interseismic deformation in particular we assess whether localized and stationary interseismic deformation and large scale rapidly decaying postseismic transients may be explained with models incorporating either or both of these features models incorporating viscous shear zones give more stationary interseismic deformation than layered half space maxwell viscoelastic models producing similar early postseismic deformation in the near field this tendency is accentuated when the effective viscosity per unit width of the shear zone increases either with depth or with interseismic time models with finite 200 km long ruptures produce time dependent deformation similar to that from models with infinitely long ruptures though with smaller magnitude and somewhat more localized surface velocity fluctuations models incorporating a stiff lithosphere a low viscosity mantle asthenosphere and a crust to lithosphere scale viscous shear zone can replicate postseismic and interseismic deformation typical of large strike slip earthquakes such models require depth dependent power law or transient rheologies for the viscous shear zone material in the crust as long as the effective viscosity per unit shear zone width is approximately 1015 pa s m at crustal depths during the postseismic interval below the moho the shear zone effective viscosity per unit width must be higher throughout the seismic cycle at least over a short depth interval for example if shear zone viscosity per unit width is 5 1016 pa s m in the mantle lithosphere a model with a 50 km thick lithosphere and asthenosphere effective viscosities of 1 to 5 1018 pa s can reproduce reference velocity profiles for both postseismic and later interseismic deformation

time dependent distributed afterslip on and deep below the izmit earthquake rupture surface deformation transients measured with the global positioning system during the 87 days between the 17 august 1999 izmit earthquake and the 12 november 1999 duzce earthquake indicate rapidly decaying aseismic fault slip on and well below the coseismic rupture elastic model inversions for time dependent distributed fault slip using a network inversion filter approach show that afterslip was highest between and below the regions of maximum coseismic slip and propa gated downward to or even below the base of the crust maximum afterslip rates decayed from greater than 2 m yr immediately after the i zmit earthquake to about 1 2 m yr just prior to the duzce earthquake maximum afterslip occurred below the eastern karadere rupture segment and near the i zmit hypocenter afterslip in the upper 16 km decayed more rapidly than that below the seismogenic zone these observations are consistent with a phase of rapid aseismic fault slip concentrated near the base of the seismogenic zone continued loading from the rapid deep afterslip along the eastern rupture zone is a plausible mechanism that helped trigger the nearby mw 7 2 12 november duzce earthquake

postseismic stress diffusion in chile and south peru abstract by means of a spherical model of global postseismic deformation we perform an analysis of the postseismic stress diffusion process associated with the main seismic events which occurred in chile and south peru in the last century our aim is to ascertain if the viscoelastic relaxation of the mantle and asthenosphere following the earthquakes superimposed on the main mechanism of stress accumulation in the lithosphere that is to say the subduction process has in some way influenced the spatiotemporal pattern of seismic energy release in this region our investigations focus particularly on the areas where two important seismic gaps in an advanced mature state can be recognized we found that the evolution of the postseismic stress might give a satisfactory explanation for the anomalous duration of the seismic quiescence in the gap areas and also for the possible filling of one of these gaps

remote triggered seismicity caused by the 2011 m9 0 tohoku oki japan earthquake 1 seismic waves from large earthquakes have been shown to trigger seismicity large distances from a mainshock and this is termed remotely or dynamically triggered seismicity we performed a global search for seismicity potentially triggered by the seismic waves from the 2011 m9 0 tohoku oki japan earthquake using seismograms from global seismic networks and an event catalog we search for earthquakes and tremors instantaneously triggered during the passing of the seismic waves as well as for statistically significant changes in local and global seismic rates after the passing of the waves for earthquakes we find potential cases of instantaneous triggering in the united states russia china ecuador and mexico while for tremors we find evidence for triggering in taiwan armenia cuba and the united states in addition we observed a potential case of delayed triggering of larger magnitude earthquakes including a m5 2 in baja california mexico

depositional environment and characteristics of late eocene carbonaceous swampy tidal flat facies in the fayoum basin egypt abstract this study addresses the stratigraphic and sedimentological characteristics of the late eocene carbonaceous shale bearing qasr el sagha formation in the fayoum basin egypt the qasr el sagha succession is comprised of four facies types coastal mudflat tidal flat swamp and storm affected tidal channels the swamp facies contain the fayoum carbonaceous shale facies which have not been studied in the past the present study reports the first publicly available sedimentological palynological and geochemical results for the fayoum facies eight samples of the sequence were taken from a freshly exposed road cut and analyzed petrographically geochemically and palynologically in order to determine the paleoenvironment of deposition and prevailing conditions the palynomorph assemblages show that the lower part of the sequence was deposited in a lowland riparian environment with continued freshwater influx the depositional regime in the upper part of the sequence was swampy and dominated by fresh water mixed angiosperms and pteridophytes dominated the woody forest vegetation and were the source for the formation of the fayoum carbonaceous shale facies the recovered palynomorph assemblage points to the prevalence of a tropical to a sub tropical warm humid climate with heavy precipitation in the lowland swampy areas that were in close proximity to the freshwater influx the water table was above the fen surface preventing oxidation of the vegetation intermittent flooding or fluctuation in paleo water levels likely occurred in the peat paleo mire the fayoum samples have ro ran values of 0 40 0 50 which is in very good agreement with the tmax from rock eval pyrolysis although a few of the samples have elevated s2 15 24 mg hc g rock and hi values 125 140 mg hc g toc they do not have any hydrocarbon generating potential in the sampled location as a result of their immaturity petrographically the analyzed samples are dominated by huminite group macerals up to 77 with telohuminite eu eulminite b being dominant liptinite content is up to 3 5 whereas inertinite content is up to 6 dominated by fungal sclerotia funginite the toc of the facies samples does not exceed 40 wt

static stress impact of the 1992 landers earthquake sequence on nucleation and slip at the site of the 1999 m 7 1 hector mine earthquake southern california the proximity in time 7 years and space 20 km between the 1992 m 7 3 landers earthquake and the 1999 m 7 1 hector mine event suggests a possible link between the quakes we thus calculated the static stress changes following the 1992 joshua tree landers big bear earthquake sequence on the 1999 m 7 1 hector mine rupture plane in southern california resolving the stress tensor into rake parallel and fault normal components and comparing with changes in the post landers seismicity rate allows us to estimate a coefficient of friction on the hector mine plane seismicity following the 1992 sequence increased at hector mine where the fault was unclamped this increase occurred despite a calculated reduction in right lateral shear stress the dependence of seismicity change primarily on normal stress change implies a high coefficient of static friction 0 8 we calculated the coulomb stress change using 0 8 and found that the hector mine hypocenter was mildly encouraged 0 5 bars by the 1992 earthquake sequence in addition the region of peak slip during the hector mine quake occurred where coulomb stress is calculated to have increased by 0 5 1 5 bars in general slip was more limited where coulomb stress was reduced though there was some slip where the strongest stress decrease was calculated interestingly many smaller earthquakes nucleated at or near the 1999 hector mine hypocenter after 1992 but only in 1999 did an event spread to become a m 7 1 earthquake

seismicity response to stress perturbations analysed for a world wide catalogue summary a statistical analysis of the relative distance and time delay separating pairs of earthquakes is performed to determine how a seismicity system evolves dynamically following a stress perturbation earthquake we analyse the space time correlations of a worldwide seismicity data set cnss catalogue 1963 1998 m 5 depth 70 km and show that seismic activity diffuses away from an earthquake as the time delay increases following its occurrence two regimes are observed a slow diffusion at short timescales up to 10 days during which the mean distance r t between the initial earthquake and the subsequent earthquakes grows as r t t h with h 0 19 and a second regime at longer timescales with h 0 4 the growth exponent h in the first regime increases systematically with the size of the initial earthquake but no such dependence is observed for the second regime associating the latter with the viscous diffusion of stress in the upper mantle we obtain an estimate of about 10 17 pa s for the asthenospheric lateral viscosity this diffusion indicates that the relaxation response of the crust to a stress step depends non linearly in respect of both its intensity and general form on the perturbation a positive correlation between the regional heat flow and diffusion exponent is found suggesting a strong thermal control on the diffusion the overall autodecorrelation and this diffusion process are the two major mechanisms by which seismicity systems relax stress concentrations by redistributing them in space and in time both processes exhibit typical power law behaviours supporting the notion of space time scale invariance of stress exchanges between seismically active faults

postseismic deformation and stress changes following the 1819 rann of kachchh india earthquake was the 2001 bhuj earthquake a triggered event 1 the 2001 mw 7 6 bhuj earthquake occurred in an intra plate region with rather unusual active seismicity including an earlier major earthquake the 1819 rann of kachchh earthquake m7 7 we examine if static coseismic and transient postseismic deformation following the 1819 earthquake contributed to the enhanced seismicity in the region and the occurrence of the 2001 bhuj earthquake 100 km away and almost two centuries later based on the indian shield setting great rupture depth of the 2001 event and lack of significant early postseismic deformation measured following the 2001 event we infer that little viscous relaxation occurs in the lower crust and choose an upper mantle effective viscosity of 1019 pas the predicted coulomb failure stress dcfs on the rupture plane of the 2001 event increased by more than 0 1 bar at 20 km depth which is a small but possibly significant amount stress change from the 1819 event may have also affected the occurrence of other historic earthquakes in this region we also evaluate the postseismic deformation and cfs in this region due to the 2001 event positive cfs from the 2001 event occur to the nw and se of the bhuj earthquake rupture

lower crustal relaxation beneath the tibetan plateau and qaidam basin following the 2001 kokoxili earthquake summary in 2001 november a magnitude 7 8 earthquake ruptured a 400 km long portion of the kunlun fault northeastern tibet in this study we analyse over five years of post seismic geodetic data and interpret the observed surface deformation in terms of stress relaxation in the thick tibetan lower crust we model gps time series first year and insar line of sight measurements years two to five and infer that the most likely mechanism of post seismic stress relaxation is time dependent distributed creep of viscoelastic material in the lower crust since a single relaxation time is not sufficient to model the observed deformation viscous flow is modelled by a lower crustal burgers rheology which has two material relaxation times the optimum model has a transient viscosity 9 1017 pa s steady state viscosity 1 1019 pa s and a ratio of long term to maxwell shear modulus of 2 3 this model gives a good fit to gps stations south of the kunlun fault while displacements at stations north of the fault are over predicted we attribute this asymmetry in the gps residual to lateral heterogeneity in rheological structure across the southern margin of the qaidam basin with thinner crust higher viscosities beneath the basin than beneath the tibetan plateau deep afterslip localized in a shear zone beneath the fault rupture gives a reasonable match to the observed insar data but the slip model does not fit the earlier gps data well we conclude that while some localized afterslip likely occurred during the early post seismic phase the bulk of the observed deformation signal is due to viscous flow in the lower crust to investigate regional variability in rheological structure we also analyse post seismic displacements following the 1997 manyi earthquake that occurred 250 km west of the kokoxili rupture we find that viscoelastic properties are the same as for the kokoxili area except for the transient viscosity which is 5 1017 pa s the viscosities estimated for the manyi and kokoxili areas are consistent with constraints obtained from other earthquakes in the northwest and south central parts of the tibetan plateau

earthquake nucleation on faults with rate and state dependent strength abstract dieterich j h 1992 earthquake nucleation on faults with rate and state dependent strength in t mikumo k aki m ohnaka l j ruff and p k p spudich editors earthquake source physics and earthquake precursors tectonophysics 211 115 134 faults with rate and state dependent constitutive properties reproduce a range of observed fault slip phenomena including spontaneous nucleation of slip instabilities at stresses above some critical stress level and recovery of strength following slip instability calculations with a plane strain fault model with spatially varying properties demonstrate that accelerating slip precedes instability and becomes localized to a fault patch the dimensions of the fault patch follow scaling relations for the minimum critical length for unstable fault slip the critical length is a function of normal stress loading conditions and constitutive parameters which include dc the characteristic slip distance if slip starts on a patch that exceeds the critical size the length of the rapidly accelerating zone tends to shrink to the characteristic size as the time of instability approaches solutions have been obtained for a uniform fixed patch model that are in good agreement with results from the plane strain model over a wide range of conditions above the steady state stress the logarithm of the time to instability linearly decreases as the initial stress increases because nucleation patch length and premonitory displacement are proportional to dc the moment of premonitory slip scales by d3c the scaling of dc is currently an open question unless dc for earthquake faults is significantly greater than that observed on laboratory faults premonitory strain arising from the nucleation process for earthquakes may by too small to detect using current observation methods excluding the possibility that dc in the nucleation zone controls the magnitude of the subsequent earthquake then the source dimensions of the smallest earthquakes in a region provide an upper limit for the size of the nucleation patch

viscoelastic deformation from north anatolian fault zone earthquakes and the eastern mediterranean gps velocity field 1 we have modeled linear viscoelastic relaxation of a uniform viscosity asthenosphere following large earthquakes in the aegean anatolian region during the 20th century to evaluate whether this process contributes significantly to the regional velocity field we address in particular whether southward motion of the aegean sea region relative to central anatolia and thus extension of western turkey can be attributed to a postseismic strain pulse our models show that postseismic relaxation of a thick 250 km viscoelastic substrate cannot generate the observed extension in western turkey regardless of the choice of viscosity we also find that the asthenosphere viscosity must exceed about 5 1020 pa s at least north of the north anatolian fault zone nafz to be consistent with low gps site velocities in the black sea region and highly localized strain around the fault

the 17 august 1999 izmit earthquake on 17 august 1999 an earthquake of magnitude 7 4 shook northwestern turkey details on the earthquake9s characteristics and effects across northwestern turkey are provided and are put in the historical context of previous earthquakes in the region the earthquake was the seventh in a series of earthquakes migrating westwards along the north anatolian fault since 1939 information on historical earthquakes modeling and estimates of the slip rate along the fault indicate that the location and severity of the earthquake should not have come as a surprise

the seismic activity of the marmara sea region over the last 2000 years we examined the seismicity of the region of the sea of marmara in northwest turkey over the last 2000 yr using the historical record of the region we found no evidence for truly large earthquakes of a size comparable to those in the north anatolian fault zone in the marmara basin events are smaller in keeping with the known fault segmentation of the basin over the last 2000 yr seismic mo ment release accounted for the known right lateral shear velocity across the marmara region observed by global positioning system measurements its average rate is relatively constant and varies between 1 6 and 2 4 cm yr the long term seismicity in the marmara sea region shows that large earthquakes are less frequent than pre dicted from the 100 yr long instrumental period

gps constraints on continental deformation in the africa arabia eurasia continental collision zone and implications for the dynamics of plate interactions 1 the gps derived velocity field 1988 2005 for the zone of interaction of the arabian african nubian somalian and eurasian plates indicates counterclockwise rotation of a broad area of the earth s surface including the arabian plate adjacent parts of the zagros and central iran turkey and the aegean peloponnesus relative to eurasia at rates in the range of 20 30 mm yr this relatively rapid motion occurs within the framework of the slow moving 5 mm yr relative motions eurasian nubian and somalian plates the circulatory pattern of motion increases in rate toward the hellenic trench system we develop an elastic block model to constrain present day plate motions relative euler vectors regional deformation within the interplate zone and slip rates for major faults substantial areas of continental lithosphere within the region of plate interaction show coherent motion with internal deformations below 1 2 mm yr including central and eastern anatolia turkey the southwestern aegean peloponnesus the lesser caucasus and central iran geodetic slip rates for major block bounding structures are mostly comparable to geologic rates estimated for the most recent geological period 3 5 myr we find that the convergence of arabia with eurasia is accommodated in large part by lateral transport within the interior part of the collision zone and lithospheric shortening along the caucasus and zagros mountain belts around the periphery of the collision zone in addition we find that the principal boundary between the westerly moving anatolian plate and arabia east anatolian fault is presently characterized by pure left lateral strike slip with no fault normal convergence this implies that extrusion is not presently inducing westward motion of anatolia on the basis of the observed kinematics we hypothesize that deformation in the africa arabia eurasia collision zone is driven in large part by rollback of the subducting african lithosphere beneath the hellenic and cyprus trenches aided by slab pull on the southeastern side of the subducting arabian plate along the makran subduction zone we further suggest that the separation of arabia from africa is a response to plate motions induced by active subduction

elastic and inelastic triggering of earthquakes in the north anatolian fault zone abstract deformation models used to explain the triggering mechanism often assume pure elastic behaviour for the crust and upper mantle in reality however the mantle and possibly the lower crust behave viscoelastically particularly over longer time scales consequently the stress field of an earthquake is in general time dependent in addition if the elastic stress increase were enough to trigger a later earthquake this triggered event should occur instantaneously and not many years after the triggering event hence it is appropriate to include inelastic behaviour when analysing stress transfer and earthquake interaction in this work we analyse a sequence of 10 magnitude m s 6 5 events along the north anatolian fault between 1939 and 1999 to study the evolution of the regional coulomb stress field we investigate the triggering of these events by stress transfer taking viscoelastic relaxation into account we evaluate the contribution of elastic stress changes of post seismic viscoelastic relaxation in the lower crust and mantle and of steady tectonic loading to the total coulomb stress field we analyse the evolution of stress in the region under study as well as on the rupture surfaces of the considered events and their epicentres we study the state of the coulomb stress field before the 1999 izmit and duzce earthquakes as well as in the marmara sea region in general the coulomb stress failure criterion offers a plausible explanation for the location of these events however we show that using a purely elastic model disregards an important part of the actual stress increase decrease in several cases post seismic relaxation effects are important and greater in magnitude than the stress changes due to steady tectonic loading consequently viscoelastic relaxation should be considered in any study dealing with coulomb stress changes according to our study and assuming that an important part of the rupture surface must be stressed for an earthquake to occur the most likely value for the viscosity of the lower crust or mantle in this region is 5 10 17 10 18 pa s our results cannot rule out the possibility of other time dependent processes involved in the triggering of the 1999 duzce event however the stress increase due to viscoelastic relaxation brought 22 of the 1999 duzce rupture area over the threshold value of c 0 01 mpa 0 1 bar and took the whole surface closer to failure by an average of 0 2 mpa finally we argue that the marmara sea region is currently being loaded with positive coulomb stresses at a much faster rate than would arise exclusively from steady tectonic loading on the north anatolian fault

estimates of seismic potential in the marmara sea region from block models of secular deformation constrained by global positioning system measurements we model the geodetically observed secular velocity field in north western turkey with a block model that accounts for recoverable elastic strain ac cumulation the block model allows us to estimate internally consistent fault slip rates and locking depths the northern strand of the north anatolian fault zone nafz carries approximately four times as much right lateral motion 24 mm yr as does the southern strand in the marmara sea region the data show strain accu mulation to be highly localized we find that a straight fault geometry with a shallow locking depth of 6 7 km fits the observed global positioning system velocities better than does a stepped fault geometry that follows the northern and eastern edges of the sea this shallow locking depth suggests that the moment release associated with an earthquake on these faults should be smaller by a factor of 2 3 than previously inferred assuming a locking depth of 15 km online material an updated version of velocity field data

heightened odds of large earthquakes near istanbul an interaction based probability calculation we calculate the probability of strong shaking in istanbul an urban center of 10 million people from the description of earthquakes on the north anatolian fault system in the marmara sea during the past 500 years and test the resulting catalog against the frequency of damage in istanbul during the preceding millennium departing from current practice we include the time dependent effect of stress transferred by the 1999 moment magnitude m 7 4 izmit earthquake to faults nearer to istanbul we find a 62 15 probability one standard deviation of strong shaking during the next 30 years and 32 12 during the next decade

aftershock triggering by complete coulomb stress changes 1 we examine the correlation between seismicity rate change following the 1992 m7 3 landers california earthquake and characteristics of the complete coulomb failure stress cfs changes cfs t that this earthquake generated at close distances the time varying dynamic portion of the stress change depends on how the rupture develops temporally and spatially and arises from radiated seismic waves and from permanent coseismic fault displacement the permanent static portion cfs depends only on the final coseismic displacement cfs diminishes much more rapidly with distance than the transient dynamic stress changes a common interpretation of the strong correlation between cfs and aftershocks is that load changes can advance or delay failure stress changes may also promote failure by physically altering properties of the fault or its environs because it is transient cfs t can alter the failure rate only by the latter means we calculate both cfs and the maximum positive value of cfs t peak cfs t using a reflectivity program input parameters are constrained by modeling landers displacement seismograms we quantify the correlation between maps of seismicity rate changes and maps of modeled cfs and peak cfs t and find agreement for both models however rupture directivity which does not affect cfs creates larger peak cfs t values northwest of the main shock this asymmetry is also observed in seismicity rate changes but not in cfs this result implies that dynamic stress changes are as effective as static stress changes in triggering aftershocks and may trigger earthquakes long after the waves have passed

izmit earthquake postseismic deformation and dynamics of the north anatolian fault zone 1 we have modeled postseismic deformation from 1999 to 2003 in the region surrounding the 1999 izmit and duzce earthquake ruptures using a three dimensional viscoelastic finite element method our models confirm earlier findings that surface deformation within the first few months of the izmit earthquake is principally due to stable frictional afterslip on and below the izmit earthquake rupture a second deformation process is required however to fit the surface deformation after several months viscoelastic relaxation of lower crust and or upper mantle with a viscosity of the order of 2 to 5 1019 pa s improves the models fit to later gps site velocities however for a linear viscous rheology this range of values is inconsistent with highly localized interseismic deformation around the north anatolian fault zone nafz that was well observed prior to the earthquake sequence the simplest solution to this problem is to assume that the effective viscosity of the relaxing material increases with time after large earthquakes that is that it has a power law or burger s body transient rheology a burger s body rheology with two characteristic viscosities 2 to 5 1019 pa s and at least 2 1020 pa s in the mantle is consistent with deformation around the nafz throughout the earthquake cycle