parkfield earthquakes characteristic or complementary we model the two most recent mw 6 parkfield california earthquakes which occurred in 1966 and 2004 from a nonlinear global inversion of near fault strong motion seismograms our rupture models are characterized by spatially variable slip amplitude and rake rupture velocity and risetime the rupture models indicate that the two earthquakes generated slip in regions of the fault that are not identical as earlier suggested given the sparse seismic data set available for the 1966 earthquake we conduct a series of tests to verify our results 1 we perform synthetic tests in order to study the resolution of the 1966 seismic data set 2 we perform an inversion of the 2004 earthquake using a data set equivalent to the 1966 earthquake and 3 we model the 1966 data set under the a priori assumption that it was similar to the 2004 earthquake all of the tests as well as independent observations indicate that slip during the 1966 and 2004 parkfield earthquakes occurred in different regions of the fault this result implies that regions of a fault that are frictionally locked may remain locked even during a main shock moderate size earthquake in this scenario large earthquakes occur when all the locked regions of a fault are synchronized and ready to slip at the same time

quantifying slip balance in the earthquake cycle coseismic slip model constrained by interseismic coupling the long term slip on faults has to follow on average the plate motion while slip deficit is accumulated over shorter timescales e g between the large earthquakes accumulated slip deficits eventually have to be released by earthquakes and aseismic processes in this study we propose a new inversion approach for coseismic slip taking interseismic slip deficit as prior information we assume a linear correlation between coseismic slip and interseismic slip deficit and invert for the coefficients that link the coseismic displacements to the required strain accumulation time and seismic release level of the earthquake we apply our approach to the 2011 m9 tohoku oki earthquake and the 2004 m6 parkfield earthquake under the assumption that the largest slip almost fully releases the local strain as indicated by borehole measurements our results suggest that the strain accumulated along the tohoku oki earthquake segment has been almost fully released during the 2011 m9 rupture the remaining slip deficit can be attributed to the postseismic processes similar conclusions can be drawn for the 2004 m6 parkfield earthquake we also estimate the required time of strain accumulation for the 2004 m6 parkfield earthquake to be 25 years confidence interval of 17 43 years consistent with the observed average recurrence time of 22 years for m6 earthquakes in parkfield for the tohoku oki earthquake we estimate the recurrence time of 500 700 years this new inversion approach for evaluating slip balance can be generally applied to any earthquake for which dense geodetic measurements are available

distribution of slip from 11 mw 6 earthquakes in the northern chile subduction zone we use interferometric synthetic aperture radar gps and teleseismic data to constrain the relative location of coseismic slip from 11 earthquakes on the subduction interface in northern chile 23 25 s between the years 1993 and 2000 we invert body wave waveforms and geodetic data both jointly and separately for the four largest earthquakes during this time period 1993 m w 6 8 1995 m w 8 1 1996 m w 6 7 1998 m w 7 1 while the location of slip in the teleseismic only geodetic only and joint slip inversions is similar for the small earthquakes there are differences for the 1995 m w 8 1 event probably related to nonuniqueness of models that fit the teleseismic data there is a consistent mislocation of the harvard centroid moment tensor locations of many of the 6 6 earthquakes as well as three m w 7 events from the 1980s all of these earthquakes appear to rupture different portions of the fault interface and do not rerupture a limited number of asperities

interseismic strain accumulation and the earthquake potential on the southern san andreas fault system the southern section of the san andreas fault is the only part of the fault that hasn t ruptured in historic times for this reason it is believed to pose the largest seismic risk in california although whether tectonic stress is actually accumulating there is a topic of heated debate using data from radar interferometry satellites yuri fialko has produced a detailed map of surface deformation in the area that shows that elastic stress is accumulating at a fairly high rate during the past 300 years a displacement of 6 to 9 metres has built up this suggests that the southern san andreas fault is nearing the end of the interseismic phase of the earthquake cycle and that increased seismic activity of some kind can be expected the san andreas fault in california is a mature continental transform fault that accommodates a significant fraction of motion between the north american and pacific plates the two most recent great earthquakes on this fault ruptured its northern and central sections in 1906 and 1857 respectively the southern section of the fault however has not produced a great earthquake in historic times for at least 250 years assuming the average slip rate of a few centimetres per year typical of the rest of the san andreas fault the minimum amount of slip deficit accrued on the southern section is of the order of 7 10 metres comparable to the maximum co seismic offset ever documented on the fault1 2 here i present high resolution measurements of interseismic deformation across the southern san andreas fault system using a well populated catalogue of space borne synthetic aperture radar data the data reveal a nearly equal partitioning of deformation between the southern san andreas and san jacinto faults with a pronounced asymmetry in strain accumulation with respect to the geologically mapped fault traces the observed strain rates confirm that the southern section of the san andreas fault may be approaching the end of the interseismic phase of the earthquake cycle

interseismic strain accumulation measured by gps in the seismic gap between constitucion and concepcion in chile the concepcion constitucion area 35 37 s in south central chile is very likely a mature seismic gap since no large subduction earthquake has occurred there since 1835 three campaigns of global positioning system gps measurements were carried out in this area in 1996 1999 and 2002 we observed a network of about 40 sites including two east west transects ranging from the coastal area to the argentina border and one north south profile along the coast our measurements are consistent with the nazca south america relative angular velocity 55 9 n 95 2 w 0 610 ma discussed by vigny et al 2008 this issue which predicts a convergence of 68 mm year oriented 79 n at the chilean trench near

interseismic coupling and asperity distribution along the kamchatka subduction zone 1 gps measurements of interseismic horizontal surface velocities reveal the degree of kinematic coupling of the plate boundary thrust along the kamchatka subduction zone from about 51 degrees to 57 degrees n latitude inversions for the distribution of aseismic slip rate along the similar to 15 degrees nw dipping underthrust suggest a nonslipping plate interface in southern kamchatka above similar to 50 km depth along the segment that ruptured in the m w 9 1952 earthquake north of similar to 53 degrees n the subduction interface experiences significant aseismic slip consistent with the lower seismic moment release in m 8 5 earthquakes along this portion of the subduction zone the gps velocities are consistent with a boundary element forward model in which historic earthquake rupture zones are represented as locked asperities surrounded by a zero shear stress subduction interface loaded by plate convergence models in which the complete rupture zones of historic earthquakes are considered locked greatly overpredict the degree of kinematic coupling reducing the area of the locked model asperities to the central 25 area of historic rupture zones fits the data well suggesting that large earthquakes involve small fully locked core asperities surrounded by conditionally stable portions of the plate interface areas of low aseismic slip rate appear to be roughly correlated with areas of low isostatic gravity anomalies over offshore forearc basins while less coupled portions of the kamchatka subduction zone coincide with high gravity anomalies offshore of two peninsulas possibly related to the subduction of the emperor meji seamount chain and the kruzenstern fracture zone

under the hood of the earthquake machine toward predictive modeling of the seismic cycle advances in observational laboratory and modeling techniques open the way to the development of physical models of the seismic cycle with potentially predictive power to explore that possibility we developed an integrative and fully dynamic model of the parkfield segment of the san andreas fault the model succeeds in reproducing a realistic earthquake sequence of irregular moment magnitude m w 6 0 main shocks including events similar to the ones in 1966 and 2004 and provides an excellent match for the detailed interseismic coseismic and postseismic observations collected along this fault during the most recent earthquake cycle such calibrated physical models provide new ways to assess seismic hazards and forecast seismicity response to perturbations of natural or anthropogenic origins

detection of a locked zone at depth on the parkfield california segment of the san andreas fault the parkfield california segment of the san andreas fault is transitional in character between the creeping segment of the fault to the northwest and the locked carrizo plain segment to the southeast the rate of shallow fault slip decreases from 25 30 mm yr northwest of the epicenter of the 1966 parkfield earthquake to zero at the southeastern end of the 1966 rupture zone data from a network of trilateration lines spanning the san andreas fault near parkfield and extending to the pacific coast near san luis obispo shed light on the rate of fault slip at depth since the 1966 earthquake in this study average rates of line length change and shallow fault slip were inverted to determine the slip rate at depth on the parkfield fault segment the fault is taken to be a vertical surface with unknown distribution of strike slip displacement in an elastic half space a striking result of the inversions is that all solutions providing acceptable fits to the data exhibit a locked zone essentially coincident with the rupture surface of the 1966 parkfield earthquake the data require that the locked zone extend nearly as far north as the 1966 epicenter however the vertical extent of the locked zone is not well resolved over much of the parkfield segment the fault is slipping faster at the earth s surface than it is at seismogenic depths in order to fit the trilateration measurements it is necessary to include a component of contraction normal to the trend of the san andreas the inversion results suggest a spatially uniform normal strain of 0 06 strain yr the orientation of the contraction is compatible with geologic and seismic evidence of active folding and reverse faulting in the region the magnitude of the contraction is consistent with convergence rates inferred from global plate motion models

joint determination of slip and stress drop in a bayesian inversion approach a case study for the 2010 m8 8 maule earthquake stress drop is a key factor in earthquake mechanics and engineering seismology however stress drop calculations based on fault slip can be significantly biased particularly due to subjectively determined smoothing conditions in the traditional least square slip inversion in this study we introduce a mechanically constrained bayesian approach to simultaneously invert for fault slip and stress drop based on geodetic measurements a gaussian distribution for stress drop is implemented in the inversion as a prior we have done several synthetic tests to evaluate the stability and reliability of the inversion approach considering different fault discretization fault geometries utilized datasets and variability of the slip direction respectively we finally apply the approach to the 2010 m8 8 maule earthquake and invert for the coseismic slip and stress drop simultaneously two fault geometries from the literature are tested our results indicate that the derived slip models based on both fault geometries are similar showing major slip north of the hypocenter and relatively weak slip in the south as indicated in the slip models of other studies the derived mean stress drop is 5 6 mpa which is close to the stress drop of 7 mpa that was independently determined according to force balance in this region luttrell et al j geophys res 2011 these findings indicate that stress drop values can be consistently extracted from geodetic data

how similar were the 1934 and 1966 parkfield earthquakes bakun and mcevilly 1984 showed that surface waves from the 1934 and 1966 parkfield earthquakes are remarkably similar this observation together with other seismic and geologic data led to the forecast of a repeat of a characteristic parkfield earthquake by 1993 in this paper we model near field geodetic measurements collected before and after the 1934 and 1966 parkfield earthquakes the slip in 1934 on the northwestern half of the rupture is poorly constrained due to the limited station coverage in this part of the rupture near the hypocenter the geodetic measurements permit the two earthquakes to have the same slip distribution on the other hand the data clearly show that the 1966 earthquake ruptured through the right step in the surface trace of the fault while the 1934 earthquake stopped northwest of the step if we assume only that the slip distribution is to some degree smooth we find that the centroid of the 1934 slip distribution could be as much as 10 km northwest of the centroid of the 1966 slip the data are consistent with but do not demand the largest slip in 1934 occurring in a region of low slip in 1966 the geodetically determined moments of the two earthquakes from smooth inversions are indistinguishable m0 4 4 0 4 1018 n m we also examine inversions in which we assume that the two earthquakes start identically and estimate how far down the fault the two earthquakes could have remained the same we find that the 1934 event could have had the same slip as in 1966 up to the fault step the 1934 earthquake must have stopped at the step whereas the 1966 event slipped southeast of the step in this quasi characteristic model m0 of the 1934 quake is only 60 of that in 1966 the difference presumably occurring as afterslip in 1966 if the 1934 geodetic moment was indeed less than in 1966 and the loading rate was constant this observation could explain the early occurrence of the 1934 earthquake

coseismic and postseismic slip of the 2004 parkfield earthquake from space geodetic data we invert interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar data jointly with campaign and continuous global positioning system gps data for slip in the coseismic and postseismic periods of the 2004 parkfield earthquake the insar dataset consists of eight interferograms from data collected by the envisat and radarsat satellites spanning the time of the earthquake and variable amounts of the postseismic period the two datasets complement each other with the insar providing dense sampling of motion in the range direction of the satellite and the gps providing more sparse but three dimensional measurements of ground motion the model assumes exponential decay of the postseismic slip with a decay time constant of 0 087 years determined from time series modeling of continuous gps and creepmeter data we find a geodetic moment magnitude of m 6 2 for a 1 day coseismic model and m w 6 1 for the entire postseismic period the coseismic rupture occurred mainly in two slip asperities one near the hypocenter and the other 15 20 km north postseismic slip occurred on the shallow portions of the fault and near the rupture areas of two m 5 0 aftershocks a comparison of the geodetic slip models with seismic moment estimates suggests that the coseismic moment release of the parkfield earthquake is as little as 25 of the total this underlines the importance of aseismic slip in the slip budget for the parkfield segment online material complete data tables and supplemental tables

coupled afterslip and viscoelastic flow following the 2002 denali fault alaska earthquake summary models of postseismic deformation following the 2002 m 7 9 denali fault alaska earthquake provide insight into the rheologic structure of the alaskan lithosphere and the physical processes activated following a large earthquake we model coseismic gps displacements and 4 yr of postseismic gps position time series with a coupled model of afterslip on the fault in the lithosphere and distributed viscous flow in the asthenosphere afterslip is assumed to be governed by a simplified version of a laboratory derived rate strengthening friction law that is characterized with a single parameter a b where is the effective normal stress on the fault and a b is a dimensionless empirical parameter afterslip is driven by coseismic stress changes on the fault generated by the main shock the lithosphere is modelled as an elastic plate overlying a linear maxwell viscoelastic asthenosphere we devise a scheme to simultaneously estimate the distributions of coseismic slip and afterslip friction parameters lithosphere thickness and asthenosphere viscosity the postseismic gps time series are best reproduced with a 45 85 km thick elastic lithosphere overlying an asthenosphere of viscosity 0 6 1 5 1019 pa s the 45 85 km elastic lithosphere thickness is greater than or equal to the average crustal thickness in the region suggesting that distributed postseismic flow occurs largely within the mantle while postseismic deformation in the crust is confined largely to slip on a discrete fault penetrating the entire crust and perhaps into the uppermost mantle for typical laboratory values of a b of order 10 2 at temperatures corresponding to the inferred depth of afterslip the estimated effective normal stress on the fault is 50 mpa which is about an order of magnitude lower than effective normal stresses at hydrostatic pore pressure previous studies showed that models with linear newtonian rheology cannot reproduce the observed gps time series but that models incorporating non linear or biviscous flow of the mantle do fit the data we show that a model with afterslip governed by a non linear fault zone rheology coupled to newtonian mantle flow is sufficient to reproduce the gps time series

forecast model for moderate earthquakes near parkfield california earthquake instability models have possible application to earthquake forecasting because the models simulate both preseismic and coseismic changes of fault slip and ground deformation in the forecast procedure proposed here repeated measurements of preseismic fault slip and ground deformation constrain the values of model parameters the early part of the model simulation corresponds to the available field data and the subsequent part constitutes an estimate of future faulting and ground deformation in particular the time location and size of unstable faulting are estimates of the pending earthquake parameters the forecast accuracy depends on the model realism and parameter resolution the forecast procedure is applied to fault creep and trilateration data measured near parkfield california where at least five magnitude 5 5 to 6 earthquakes have occurred regularly since 1881 the last in 1966 the quasi static model consists of a flat vertical plane embedded in an elastic half space spacially variable fault slip of strike slip sense is driven by an increasing regional shear stress but is impeded by a relatively strong patch of brittle strain softening fault the field data are consistent with these approximate values of patch parameters radius of 3 km patch center 5 km deep and 8 km southeast of the 1966 epicenter and maximum brittle strength of 26 bars fluctuations in the available field data prevent estimating the earthquake time with any more precision than use of the 21 8 year recurrence interval however the model may later give a more precise estimate of the earthquake time if the fault slip rate near the inferred patch increases before the earthquake as predicted by the model

possible deep fault slip preceding the 2004 parkfield earthquake inferred from detailed observations of tectonic tremor 1 earthquake predictability depends in part on the degree to which sudden slip is preceded by slow aseismic slip recently observations of deep tremor have enabled inferences of deep slow slip even when detection by other means is not possible but these data are limited to certain areas and mostly the last decade the region near parkfield california provides a unique convergence of several years of high quality tremor data bracketing a moderate earthquake the 2004 magnitude 6 0 event here i present detailed observations of tectonic tremor from mid 2001 through 2008 that indicate deep fault slip both before and after the parkfield earthquake that cannot be detected with surface geodetic instruments while there is no obvious short term precursor i find unidirectional tremor migration accompanied by elevated tremor rates in the 3 months prior to the earthquake which suggests accelerated creep on the fault 16 km beneath the eventual earthquake hypocenter

post seismic motion following the 1997 manyi tibet earthquake insar observations and modelling summary on november 8 1997 a mw 7 6 earthquake occurred in the manyi region of northern tibet near the western end of the kunlun fault over 7 m of left lateral slip occurred on a 200 kmlong fault here we use insar observations of post seismic surface deformation following the manyi earthquake to investigate possible causal mechanisms time series of deformation are constructed from 26 interferograms covering the entire length of the fault for nearly 4 yr after the earthquake three different modelling approaches are used to try and understand the observed variations in surface displacement first order poroelastic models predict displacement fields which do not match those observed modelling of viscoelastic stress relaxation in a half space with standard linear solid rheology beneath an elastic lid provides a reasonable fit to the observations and demonstrates that two relaxation times are needed to characterize the post seismic transient the best fitting viscosity is 4 10 18 pa s and the fully relaxed shear modulus is 32 per cent of the purely elastic value a model with a maxwell viscoelastic halfspace underlying the lid cannot explain the observations at later times larger viscosities are required than at earlier times this increase in effective viscosity with time may be consistent with stress relaxation occurring in a power law rheology the time series are also inverted for distributed afterslip on an extension of the coseismic rupture along strike correlation of coseismic and post seismic slip maxima suggests that afterslip is a plausible mechanism the maximum slip in the afterslip model is 0 72 m after 3 yr and the equivalent moment release is approximately 20 per cent of the coseismic moment this study shows that it is possible to rule out certain mechanisms as the dominant post seismic process but with the current insar data set it is difficult to distinguish between other plausible options

narrow subducting slabs and the origin of backarc basins abstract both tectonic and seismic data suggest that horizontally wide in the direction parallel to the axis of the trench dipping subducting slabs typically move stably at fixed angles to the horizontal and that their associated trenches migrate very slowly or not at all in contrast where backarc basins babs exist the associated trenches typically migrate at rates of several cm year this behavior may be related to the finite width of the slabs under babs analysis shows that hydrodynamic suction created by the downdip motion of a wide slab is sufficient to balance the pull of gravity on the heavy slab however for a narrow slab sideways asthenospheric flow into the slab overriding plate corner effectively eliminates the suction which results in the rapid sinking of the slab hydrodynamic modeling is used to quantify this hypothesis modeling is used also to show that wide slabs are stable in their inclined position not because of the gravitational wing like sliding but due to the lifting force produced by the negative pressure suction in the slab overriding plate corner finally the model results confirm that for relatively narrow slabs this lifting force is small and cannot counterbalance gravity therefore when bending moments in a narrow slab exceed the plastic yield limit the slab becomes unstable this instability can cause the rapid migration of the slab s hinge and the associated arc at rates of 10 20 cm year and thus form the bab

rapid afterslip following the 1999 chi chi taiwan earthquake 1 postseismic displacements of as much as 14 cm were recorded by gps measurements in the 3 months following the mw 7 6 1999 chi chi taiwan earthquake data from 35 continuous and 90 campaign surveyed stations which show continued east over west thrusting are analyzed to estimate the postseismic slip distribution and fault geometry assuming the shallow fault dips 24 e as determined by numerous studies of the mainshock we invert for the deeper fault structure our results show that the fault dip shallows with depth below the hypocenter merging into a nearly horizontal decollement at a depth of 8 12 km the afterslip distribution shows a maximum slip of 25 cm in the hypocentral region at 7 12 km depth as well as significant slip on the lower decollement afterslip is notably absent in the region of maximum coseismic slip consistent with the afterslip being driven by the mainshock stress change

seismic and aseismic moment budget and implication for the seismic potential of the parkfield segment of the san andreas fault this study explores methods to assess the seismic potential of a fault based on geodetic measurements geological information of fault slip rate and seismicity data the methods are applied to the parkfield section along the san andreas fault saf at the transition zone between the saf creeping segment in the north and the locked section of cholame to the south where m w 6 earthquakes occurred every 24 5 yrs on average since the 1857 m w 7 7 fort tejon earthquake we compare the moment released by the known earthquakes and associated postseismic deformation with the moment deficit accumulated during the interseismic period derived from geodetic measurement of interseismic strain we find that the recurring m w 6 earthquakes are insufficient to balance the slip budget we discuss and evaluate various possible scenarios which might account for the residual moment deficit and implications of the possible magnitude and return period of m w 6 earthquakes on that fault segment the most likely explanation is that this fault segment hosts m w 6 5 7 5 earthquakes with a return period of 140 300 yrs such events could happen as independent earthquakes in conjunction with ruptures of the carrizo plain segment of the saf we show how the results from our analysis can be formally incorporated in probabilistic seismic hazard assessment assuming various magnitude frequency distribution and renewal time models

coulomb stress accumulation along the san andreas fault system 1 stress accumulation rates along the primary segments of the san andreas fault system are computed using a three dimensional 3 d elastic half space model with realistic fault geometry the model is developed in the fourier domain by solving for the response of an elastic half space due to a point vector body force and analytically integrating the force from a locking depth to infinite depth this approach is then applied to the san andreas fault system using published slip rates along 18 major fault strands of the fault zone gps derived horizontal velocity measurements spanning the entire 1700 200 km region are then used to solve for apparent locking depth along each primary fault segment this simple model fits remarkably well 2 43 mm yr rms misfit although some discrepancies occur in the eastern california shear zone the model also predicts vertical uplift and subsidence rates that are in agreement with independent geologic and geodetic estimates in addition shear and normal stresses along the major fault strands are used to compute coulomb stress accumulation rate as a result we find earthquake recurrence intervals along the san andreas fault system to be inversely proportional to coulomb stress accumulation rate in agreement with typical coseismic stress drops of 1 10 mpa this 3 d deformation model can ultimately be extended to include both time dependent forcing and viscoelastic response

interaction of the san andreas fault creeping segment with adjacent great rupture zones and earthquake recurrence at parkfield three dimensional finite element calculations are employed to study interactions in space and time between the creeping segment of the san andreas fault in central california and the adjacent currently locked zones of the 1857 and 1906 great earthquakes vertically the model consists of an elastic upper crust over a maxwell viscoelastic region representing the entire lower crust or a narrower horizontal detachment layer and a stiffer and more viscous upper mantle the crust has a single vertical fault extending to the top of the mantle at 25 km depth in zones along strike corresponding to the 1857 and 1906 events the top 12 5 km of the fault is locked against slip except in great earthquakes below the locked zones and everywhere along the creeping region between them the fault is freely slipping the model parameters are compatible with seismological and geological observations and with a ratio of maxwell relaxation time to the relaxing layer thickness in the range 1 to 2 yr km as established by li and rice 1987 and fares and rice 1988 based on fits to geodetic data along the san andreas fault an imposed constant far field shear motion and periodic 1857 and 1906 type earthquakes generate slip rates along the creeping fault segment that evolve in time throughout the entire earthquake cycle shortly after an adjacent great earthquake slip rates in the creeping zone are higher than the far field velocity while later in the cycle they are lower hence time dependency should be accounted for when measurements of fault slip are used to estimate the plate motion if parkfield earthquakes are a response to a time dependent loading of the type simulated here their recurrence interval would tend to lengthen with time since the 1857 event thus the hypothesis of characteristic periodic earthquakes at parkfield may not provide the best estimate of the occurrence time of the next event using for example the statistics of past events and assuming that parkfield earthquakes are a response to a slip deficit near middle mountain and that the elastic crustal layer is 17 5 km thick we find that the next event is predicted for about 1992 9 years if the lower crust is a 7 5 km thick layer having a material relaxation time of 15 years and 1995 11 years if the 7 5 km thick lower crust is characterized by a relaxation time of 7 5 years these values may be compared to the 1988 7 years estimate based on periodicity in time the modeling results also indicate that the interaction between the 1857 and 1906 rupture zones is small

spatial correlation of interseismic coupling and coseismic rupture extent of the 2011 mw 9 0 tohoku oki earthquake 1 imaging the extent to which the rupture areas of great earthquakes coincide with regions of pre seismic interplate coupling is central to understanding patterns of strain accumulation and release through the earthquake cycle both geodetic and seismic estimates of the coseismic rupture extent for the march 11 2011 mw 8 9 9 0 earthquake tohoku oki earthquake may be spatially correlated 0 26 0 05 to 0 82 0 05 with a region estimated to be partially to fully coupled in the interseismic period preceding the earthquake though there is substantial variation in the estimated distribution and magnitude of coseismic slip the 400 km long region estimated to have slipped 4 m corresponds to an area of the subduction zone interface that was coupled at 30 of long term plate convergence rate with peak slip near a region coupled 80 the northern termination of rupture is collocated with a region of relatively low 20 interseismic coupling near the epicenter of the 1994 mw 7 6 sanriku oki earthquake and near a region of potential long term low coupling or ongoing slow slip slip on the subduction interface beneath the coastline 40 50 km depth is best constrained by the land based gps data and least constrained on the shallowest portion of the plate interface due to the 230 km distance between geodetic observations and the japan trench

slip deficit on the san andreas fault at parkfield california as revealed by inversion of geodetic data a network of geodetic lines spanning the san andreas fault near the rupture zone of the 1966 parkfield california earthquake magnitude m 6 has been repeatedly surveyed since 1959 in the study reported here the average rates of line length change since 1966 were inverted to determine the distribution of interseismic slip rate on the fault these results indicate that the parkfield rupture surface has not slipped significantly since 1966 comparison of the geodetically determined seismic moment of the 1966 earthquake with the interseismic slip deficit rate suggests that the strain released by the latest shock will most likely be restored between 1984 and 1989 although this may not occur until 1995 these results lend independent support to the earlier forecast of an m 6 earthquake near parkfield within 5 years of 1988

distribution of interseismic slip rates and the potential for significant earthquakes on the calaveras fault central california 1 the calaveras fault is a major component of the san andreas fault system in the san francisco bay area that generated 13 earthquakes of ml 5 since 1850 in most recent ml 5 events premain shock and postmain shock microseismicity is sparse in the region of coseismic slip these aseismic areas are believed to represent locked patches of the fault that are accumulating strain to be released in ml 5 events we analyze geodetic data to better characterize the spatial distribution of interseismic slip rates on the calaveras fault modeling the slip distribution in the seismogenic zone by inversion of over 25 years of surface deformation data we use a regional fault model with the seismogenic zone of the calaveras fault discretized into 6 km 3 km elements employing a weighted least squares approach with smoothing and positivity constraints our discretized fault slip model consistently identifies regions of slip deficit in the seismogenic zone of the calaveras fault that generally correspond to regions of decreased microseismicity and ruptures of previous moderate earthquakes in particular we find correspondence with the 1979 coyote lake and 1984 morgan hill events as well as regions where historical earthquakes on the coyote and the sunol san ramon segments have occurred moment magnitude calculations based on the estimated slip deficit fault area and recurrence intervals agree with measured magnitudes of modern events and interpreted historical magnitudes the results suggest that a combination of geodetically derived fault slip models and microseismicity distribution can be used to characterize seismic hazard

some thoughts on the use of insar data to constrain models of surface deformation noise structure and data downsampling repeat pass interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar provides spatially dense maps of surface deformation with potentially tens of millions of data points here we estimate the actual covariance structure of noise in insar data we compare the results for several independent interferograms with a large ensemble of gps observations of tropospheric delay and discuss how the common approaches used during processing of insar data affects the inferred covariance structure motivated by computational concerns associated with numerical modeling of deformation sources we then combine the data covariance information with the inherent resolution of an assumed source model to develop an efficient algorithm for spatially variable data resampling or averaging we illustrate these technical developments with two earthquake scenarios at different ends of the earthquake magnitude spectrum for the larger events our goal is to invert for the coseismic fault slip distribution for smaller events we infer the hypocenter location and moment we compare the results of inversions using several different resampling algorithms and we assess the importance of using the full noise covariance matrix

frictional properties on the san andreas fault near parkfield california inferred from models of afterslip following the 2004 earthquake the abundance of geodetic and seismic data recording postseismic deformation following the 2004 parkfield earthquake provides an unprecedented opportunity to resolve frictional properties on the parkfield section of the san andreas fault the parkfield segment is a transition between the locked section to the southeast that last ruptured in the 1857 fort tejon earthquake and the creeping section to the northwest we develop three dimensional rate and state dependent friction models of afterslip following the 2004 earthquake to investigate the frictional behavior of the fault it is assumed that the coseismic rupture occurred on an area of the fault surrounded by aseismic creep that accelerated after the earthquake we estimate the distribution of coseismic slip afterslip and rate state frictional parameters by inverting a two step slip model in the model we 1 estimate the coseismic slip distribution from 1 hz global positioning system gps data and 2 use the corresponding coseismic shear stress change on the fault as input into a numerical afterslip model governed by rate state friction we find the rate state frictional parameter a b an indicator of frictional stability is in the range 10 4 10 3 at 50 mpa normal stress which is near the transition from potentially unstable negative a b to nominally stable positive a b friction the estimate of a b values falls within a wide range of experimental values reported for serpentinite which crops out along the san andreas fault zone the critical slip distance d c which characterizes the distance over which strength breaks down during a slip event is in the range 0 01 0 1 m consistent with seismic estimates and a fault gouge thickness of 1 10 m the afterslip model reproduces most features observed in the gps time series data including high surface velocities in the first few months after the earthquake and lower rates at later times as well as the cumulative postseismic displacement the model tends to underpredict the displacement data at later times suggesting that perhaps the modeled afterslip period ends too quickly or an unmodeled deformation process dominates the signal at later times

constraining earthquake source inversions with gps data 1 resolution based removal of artifacts 1 we present a resolution analysis of an inversion of gps data from the 2004 mw 6 0 parkfield earthquake this earthquake was recorded at thirteen 1 hz gps receivers which provides for a truly coseismic data set that can be used to infer the static slip field we find that the resolution of our inverted slip model is poor at depth and near the edges of the modeled fault plane that are far from gps receivers the spatial heterogeneity of the model resolution in the static field inversion leads to artifacts in poorly resolved areas of the fault plane these artifacts look qualitatively similar to asperities commonly seen in the final slip models of earthquake source inversions but in this inversion they are caused by a surplus of free parameters the location of the artifacts depends on the station geometry and the assumed velocity structure we demonstrate that a nonuniform gridding of model parameters on the fault can remove these artifacts from the inversion we generate a nonuniform grid with a grid spacing that matches the local resolution length on the fault and show that it outperforms uniform grids which either generate spurious structure in poorly resolved regions or lose recoverable information in well resolved areas of the fault in a synthetic test the nonuniform grid correctly averages slip in poorly resolved areas of the fault while recovering small scale structure near the surface finally we present an inversion of the parkfield gps data set on the nonuniform grid and analyze the errors in the final model

2010 maule earthquake slip correlates with pre seismic locking of andean subduction zone analysis of seismic data and global positioning system gps observations from the region around the site of the recent magnitude 8 8 maule earthquake in chile have been combined with modelling of the andean subduction zone to build up a detailed image of the event the earthquake occurred at a seismic gap part of the fault that has not experienced a major earthquake since 1835 and it seems to have released most of the stress accumulated since that time the observations suggest that coseismic slip heterogeneity at the scale of single asperities and therefore the seismic potential of future great earthquakes might be anticipated by geodetic observations these authors show evidence for a high coherence between the slip distribution inferred from the 2010 maule earthquake chile and the patchwork of interseismic locking distribution derived from global positioning system observations during the previous decade their work suggests that coseismic slip heterogeneity at the scale of single asperities should indicate the seismic potential of future earthquakes which thus might be anticipated by geodetic observations the magnitude 8 8 maule chile earthquake of 27 february 2010 ruptured a segment of the andean subduction zone megathrust that has been suspected to be of high seismic potential1 2 3 4 5 6 it is the largest earthquake to rupture a mature seismic gap in a subduction zone that has been monitored with a dense space geodetic network before the event this provides an image of the pre seismically locked state of the plate interface of unprecedentedly high resolution allowing for an assessment of the spatial correlation of interseismic locking with coseismic slip pre seismic locking might be used to anticipate future ruptures in many seismic gaps6 7 8 9 10 11 12 given the fundamental assumption that locking and slip are similar this hypothesis however could not be tested without the occurrence of the first gap filling earthquake here we show evidence that the 2010 maule earthquake slip distribution correlates closely with the patchwork of interseismic locking distribution as derived by inversion of global positioning system gps observations during the previous decade the earthquake nucleated in a region of high locking gradient and released most of the stresses accumulated in the area since the last major event in 1835 two regions of high seismic slip asperities appeared to be nearly fully locked before the earthquake between these asperities the rupture bridged a zone that was creeping interseismically with consistently low coseismic slip the rupture stopped in areas that were highly locked before the earthquake but where pre stress had been significantly reduced by overlapping twentieth century earthquakes our work suggests that coseismic slip heterogeneity at the scale of single asperities should indicate the seismic potential of future great earthquakes which thus might be anticipated by geodetic observations

bayesian imaging of the 2000 western tottori japan earthquake through fitting of strong motion and gps data summary we image the rupture process of the 2000 western tottori earthquake m w 6 6 through fitting of strong motion and gps data we consider an observational network consisting of 18 strong motion and 16 gps stations located within three fault lengths from the epicentre we assume a planar fault and compute green s functions for a 1 d velocity model the earthquake rupture is described as a shear dislocation parameterized in terms of peak slip velocity rake angle rupture time and rise time defined on a regular grid of nodes on the fault surface and derived at inner points through bilinear interpolation our inversion procedure is based on a bayesian approach the solution of the inverse problem is stated in terms of a posterior probability density function pdf representing the conjunction of prior information with information contained in the data and in the physical law relating model parameters with data inferences on model parameters are thus expressed in terms of posterior marginal pdfs due to the non linearity of the problem we use a markov chain monte carlo mcmc method based on the metropolis algorithm to compute posterior marginals except for a few cases posterior marginals do not show a gaussian like distribution this prevents us from providing a mean model and from characterizing uncertainties in terms of standard deviations only resolution on each single parameter is analysed by looking at the difference between prior and posterior marginal pdfs posterior marginals indicate that the best resolved feature is a major slip patch peak value of 311 140 cm located between the hypocentre and the top edge of the fault centered at a depth of 4 5 km this shallow slip patch is triggered about 3 s after the earthquake nucleated and required about 4 s to reach its final slip value the presence of this shallow slip patch is common to all previous studies in contrast to some previous studies we do not identify any significant slip 1 m at the bottom of the fault we also compare inferences from both strong motion and gps data with inferences derived from strong motion data only in both cases the shallow slip patch is identified at other locations the main effect of the gps data is in reducing the probability associated with high values of slip gps data reduce the presence of spurious fault slip and therefore strongly influence the resulting final seismic moment

afterslip and viscoelastic relaxation following the 1999 m 7 4 izmit earthquake from gps measurements summary intensive global positioning system gps monitoring after the 1999 izmit earthquake provides an opportunity to understand the postseismic behaviour of a strike slip fault and the rheology below the brittle upper crust two data sets are available displacements measured during the first 300 days after the izmit earthquake and velocity measurements between 2003 and 2005 using an inversion method and a forward modelling respectively we investigate two mechanisms 1 afterslip on and below the coseismic rupture plane and 2 viscoelastic stress relaxation in the lower crust and upper mantle described by a maxwell or a standard linear solid sls rheology the inversion results show that the first several months following the izmit earthquake were dominated by afterslip at depths shallower than 30 km and the slip amount decayed with time after that apparent afterslip has a very different spatial distribution and is located much deeper for viscoelastic relaxation a model with an elastic upper crust and a maxwell viscoelastic lower crust overlying a maxwell mantle e m m fits the data measured in the first 300 days better in the far field than in the near field however the observed far field 300 day displacement and the long term 2003 2005 displacement which might be dominated by viscoelastic relaxation cannot be described by a maxwell rheological model with constant viscosity the effective viscosity increases over time therefore we have built a refined rheological model an elastic upper crust and an sls lower crust overlying a maxwell viscoelastic mantle e sls m our best solution yields a viscosity for the lower crust of 2 1018 pa s a relaxation strength of 2 3 and a viscosity for the maxwell mantle of 7 1019 pa s finally we explain the data using a composite model consisting of the preferred e sls m model and the afterslip model obtained from the residual displacement after correcting for viscoelastic relaxation for the early time period the residual displacements can be mainly explained by a shallow afterslip whose magnitude decays with time and whose spatial distribution is stable whereas the residual displacements for the later time period require negligible afterslip it indicates that the postseismic deformation in the later time period induced by a deep source can be almost entirely explained by the e sls m model the composite model can generally explain the data in the entire spatial and temporal space

assessment of stress coupling among the inter co and post seismic phases related to the 2004 m6 parkfield earthquake due to large uncertainties and non uniqueness in fault slip inversion the investigation of stress coupling based on the direct comparison of independent slip inversions for example between the coseismic slip distribution and the interseismic slip deficit may lead to ambiguous conclusions in this study we therefore adopt the stress constrained joint inversion in the bayesian approach of wang et al and implement the physical hypothesis of stress coupling as a prior we test the hypothesis that interseismic locking is coupled with the coseismic rupture and the early post seismic deformation is a stress relaxation process in response to the coseismic stress perturbation we characterize the role of stress coupling in the seismic cycle by evaluating the efficiency of the model to explain the available data taking the 2004 m6 parkfield earthquake as a study case we find that the stress coupling hypothesis is in agreement with the data the coseismic rupture zone is found to be strongly locked during the interseismic phase and the post seismic slip zone is indicated to be weakly creeping the post seismic deformation plays an important role to rebuild stress in the coseismic rupture zone based on our results for the stress accumulation during both inter and post seismic phase in the coseismic rupture zone together with the coseismic stress drop we estimate a recurrence time of m6 earthquake in parkfield around 23 41 yr suggesting that the duration of 38 yr between the two recent m6 events in parkfield is not a surprise

inversion of gps data for spatially variable slip rate on the san andreas fault near parkfield ca we analyze gps data collected from 1991 1998 at 35 sites near the parkeld segment of the san andreas fault inverting the resultant site velocities for the distri bution of interseismic slip rate on the san andreas reveals an area of low slip rate on thefault extendingfrom between middle mountain and carr hill to southeast of gold hill this slip rate patternis similar to thatfoundbyharris and segall 1987 using trilateration data collected between 1966 and 1984 we infer a deep slip rate 33 mm yr and depth of the transition between seismogenic and non seismogenic slip 14km thatagree betterwithindependentgeologic ev idence than those found in the 1987 study in contrast to harris and segall 1987 wendnoevidenceoffault normal contraction

sn velocities in western and eastern north america we have investigated the use of the new delay time data set of engdahl et al 1997 for the construction of tomographic images of sn velocity in north america the delays show a significant difference in average delay between paths located west and east of 105 w this difference is larger when paths longer than 10 are included indicating a positive gradient for the s velocity in eastern north america discarding outliers two separate regions in the western and eastern united states and canada where imaged low velocities were found under the colorado plateau extending westwards towards the gulf of california in the eastern u s the michigan basin stands out with low sn velocity and the grenville province is characterized by a positive anomaly

limited overlap between the seismic gap and coseismic slip of the great 2010 chile earthquake the mw 8 8 chile earthquake on 27 february 2010 occurred in a broad region where tectonic loading has been accumulating since the great 1835 earthquake a joint inversion of tsunami and geodetic data suggests that the 2010 earthquake rupture only partly overlapped with the zone of preseismic locking

geodetic measurements near parkfield california 1959 1984 trilateration measurements have been made by various agencies since 1959 near parkfield california in the transition zone between the central creeping section and the southern locked section of the san andreas fault within the transition zone there are several creep meters and alignment arrays four small aperture trilateration networks and a broad trilateration network extending 70 km southwest from the san andreas fault to the pacific coast line length changes observed after the 1966 ml 5 6 parkfield earthquake indicate a geodetic moment of 4 5 1 0 1025 dyn cm the data are consistent with either 91 8 cm slip on a rupture zone which is 30 km long and extends from 3 to 8 km below the surface or 59 5 cm on a 30 km long zone 2 10 km deep this moment estimate includes some postseismic slip and is a factor of 2 4 greater than the moment determined from seismic surface waves the post 1966 data set is well suited to discriminate between the effects of surface and deep slip surface slip rates determined by creep meters alinement arrays and small aperture trilateration networks decrease from 29 mm yr at slack canyon to zero south of highway 46 a gradient of roughly 0 48 0 01 mm yr km deformation of a subset of the trilateration network between cholame and san luis obispo is consistent with shallow slip of 2 9 1 2 mm yr from the surface to a depth of 16 km and 33 4 5 5 mm yr below 16 km the trilateration data alone do not uniquely constrain both the transition depth from shallow to deep slip and the deep slip rate a transition depth near 16 km is preferred because it provides the best fit to the data and because the predicted slip rate is consistent with independent estimates of the total slip rate across the san andreas fault this simple two dimensional model neglects along strike variations in the deformation the data show no evidence for significant strike slip deformation across faults between the san andreas and the pacific coast

estimating recurrence times and seismic hazard of large earthquakes on an individual fault summary we present a strategy for estimating the recurrence times between large earthquakes and associated seismic hazard on a given fault section the goal of the analysis is to address two fundamental problems 1 the lack of sufficient direct earthquake data and 2 the existence of subgrid processes that can not be accounted for in any model we deal with the first problem by using long simulations some 10 000 yr of a physically motivated coarsegrain model that reproduces the main statistical properties of seismicity on individual faults we address the second problem by adding stochasticity to the macroscopic model parameters a small number n of observational earthquake times 2 n 10 can be used to determine the values of model parameters which are most representative for the fault as an application of the method we consider a model set up that produces the characteristic earthquake distribution and where the stress drops are associated with some uncertainty using several model realizations with different values of stress drops we generate a set of corresponding synthetic earthquake catalogues the recurrence time distributions in the simulated catalogues are fitted approximately by a gamma distribution a superposition of appropriately scaled gamma distributions is then used to construct a distribution of recurrence intervals that incorporates the assumed uncertainty of the stress drops combining such synthetic data with observed recurrence times between the observational m6 earthquakes on the parkfield segment of the san andreas fault allows us to constrain the distribution of recurrence intervals and to estimate the average stress drop of the events based on this procedure we calculate for the parkfield region the expected recurrence time distribution the hazard function and the mean waiting time to the next m6 earthquake using five observational recurrence times from 1857 to 1966 the recurrence time distribution has a maximum at 22 2 yr and decays rapidly for higher intervals the probability for the post 1966 large event to occur on or before 2004 september 28 is 94 per cent the average stress drop of m6 parkfield earthquakes is in the range 3 04 0 27 mpa

spatially variable fault friction derived from dynamic modeling of aseismic afterslip due to the 2004 parkfield earthquake we investigate fault friction from dynamic modeling of fault slip prior to and following the m w 6 0 earthquake which ruptured the parkfield segment of the san andreas fault in 2004 the dynamic modeling assumes a purely rate strengthening friction law with a logarithmic dependency on sliding rate a b ln v v the initial state of stress is explicitly taken into account and afterslip is triggered by the stress change induced by the earthquake source model given a priori we consider different initial stress states and two coseismic models and invert for the other model parameters using a nonlinear inversion scheme the model parameters include the reference friction the friction rate dependency characterized by the quantity a b assumed to be either uniform or depth dependent the model parameters are determined from fitting the transient postseismic geodetic signal measured at continuous gps stations our study provides a view of frictional properties at the kilometers scale over the 0 15 km depth illuminated by the coseismic stress change induced by the parkfield earthquake the reference friction is estimated to be between 0 1 and 0 5 with independent a priori constraints on the amplitude of differential stress the range of possible values narrows down to 0 1 0 17 the friction rate coefficient a b is estimated to be 10 3 10 2 with a hint that it increases upward from about 1 3 10 3 at 3 7 km depth to about 4 7 10 3 at 0 1 km depth it is remarkable that our results are consistent with frictional properties measured on rock samples recovered from the fault zone thanks to the san andreas fault observatory at depth experiment

variations in fault slip and strain accumulation at parkfield california initial results using two color geodimeter measurements 1984 1988 repeated length measurements of several geodetic baselines near parkfield california have revealed significant variations in the local rates of shallow fault slip and strain this network of baselines surveyed several times each week straddles the san andreas fault in the transition zone between the creeping section to the northwest and the locked section to the southeast the length measurements characterized by a precision approaching 0 1 ppm reveal large fluctuations in the rates of baseline extension principal mode analysis of the length change data indicates that the two largest components of the signal are 1 secular extensions and contractions consistent with surface slip on the main strand of the san andreas fault and 2 a large seasonal oscillation with no obvious spatial coherence on most of these baselines the second component appears to be in phase with seasonal rainfall when data from the baselines with the largest amplitude of the seasonal signal are excluded the remaining data can be modeled in terms of both spatial and temporal variations in surface slip variations in the components of the changes in uniform strain and the possible displacement of the central monument in this radial network in parameterizing this model the spatial variation of slip beneath the near surface is reflected by changes in shear strain although the computed secular shear is highly dependent upon the specified parameterization of surface slip the data are consistent with the hypothesis that slip at intermediate depths lags behind the surface slip rate however the range in models that fit the data does not necessarily imply that there is a deficit in slip at depth relative to the surface comparison of the inferred values of surface slip from the model with the observed fault slip measured by very short baseline creep meters indicates close agreement in secular rates but the short term variations observed with the creep meters are either highly attenuated or nonexistent in the modeled slip since the modeled slip is a spatial average which smooths out possible short wavelength variations in the surface slip for which the creep instruments are most sensitive an interesting conclusion from the two color data is that surface slip on the san andreas fault appears to be spread over a 2 km wide zone on the south flank of middle mountain but is confined to a very narrow zone to the south as the fault passes through the center of the network this conclusion is dependent upon the assumption that a few critical monuments are stable and track tectonic displacements in the long term finally the largest observed strain change is an extensional strain coincident with the kettleman hills earthquake m5 5 in august 1985

strong interseismic coupling fault afterslip and viscoelastic flow before and after the oct 9 1995 colima jalisco earthquake continuous gps measurements from colima mexico 1 continuous gps measurements from colima mexico during 4 93 6 01 bracketing the oct 9 1995 m 8 0 colima jalisco earthquake provide new constraints on rivera plate subduction mechanics modeling of margin normal strain accumulation before the earthquake suggests the rivera north america subduction interface was fully locked transient postseismic motion from 10 95 6 97 is well fit by a model that includes logarithmically decaying fault afterslip elastic strain from shallow fault relocking and possibly a minor viscoelastic response but is fit poorly by models that assume a dominant maxwell viscoelastic response of the lower crust and upper mantle independent of the assumed viscosities landward margin normal motion since mid 1997 is parallel to but 75 slower than the pre seismic velocity afterslip alone fails to account for this slowdown the viscoelastic response predicted by a fem correctly resolves the remaining velocity difference within the uncertainties both processes thus offset elastic strain accumulating from the relocked subduction interface

postseismic deformation due to the mw 6 0 2004 parkfield earthquake stress driven creep on a fault with spatially variable rate and state friction parameters 1 we investigate the coseismic and postseismic deformation due to the m w 6 0 2004 parkfield california earthquake we produce coseismic and postseismic slip models by inverting data from an array of 14 continuous gps stations from the scign network kinematic inversions of postseismic gps data over a time period of 3 years show that afterslip occurred in areas of low seismicity and low coseismic slip predominantly at a depth of 5 km inversions suggest that coseismic stress increases were relaxed by predominantly aseismic afterslip on a fault plane the kinetics of afterslip is consistent with a velocity strengthening friction generalized to include the case of infinitesimal velocities we performed simulations of stress driven creep using a numerical model that evaluates the time dependent deformation due to coseismic stress changes in a viscoelastoplastic half space starting with a coseismic slip distribution we compute the time dependent evolution of afterslip on a fault plane and the associated displacements at the gps stations data are best explained by a rate strengthening model with frictional parameter a b 7 x 10 3 at a high end of values observed in laboratory experiments we also find that the geodetic moment due to creep is a factor of 100 greater than the cumulative seismic moment of aftershocks the rate of aftershocks in the top 10 km of the seismogenic zone mirrors the kinetics of afterslip suggesting that postearthquake seismicity is governed by loading from the nearby aseismic creep the san andreas fault around parkfield is deduced to have large along strike variations in rate and state frictional properties velocity strengthening areas may be responsible for the separation of the coseismic slip in two distinct asperities and for the ongoing aseismic creep occurring between the velocity weakening patches after the 2004 rupture

seismic coupling and outer rise earthquakes variation of interplate seismic coupling at subduction zones is a major factor controlling the size of the largest underthrusting events this variation also has a profound effect on the regional intraplate stresses in the vicinity of the subduction zone outer rise seismicity is strongly correlated with variations in interplate coupling reflecting the stress state of the interplate coupled zone over 200 outer rise earthquakes with known focal mechanisms are used to investigate the relationship between stresses in the outer rise and interplate seismic coupling these events occur within the downgoing i e oceanic plate near the bathymetric trench axes and generally fall into the categories of tensional normal or compressional thrust with their tensional or compressional stress axes oriented approximately horizontal and perpendicular to the trench in uncoupled subduction zones only tensional outer rise earthquakes occur which indicates that the outer rise is dominated by tensional stresses associated with plate bending and or slab pull forces in strongly coupled subduction zones both tensional and compressional outer rise events are found these events are related both spatially and temporally to the distribution of large underthrusting earthquakes and are thus an integral part of the earthquake cycle in the strongly coupled regions tensional outer rise events follow large underthrusting events as the outer rise is temporarily in tension due to the underthrusting motion compressional outer rise events take place as compressional stress slowly accumulates oceanward of locked sections of the interplate zone in four instances compressional outer rise earthquakes have been followed by large underthrusting events which have occurred 2 4 7 and 19 years after the associated outer rise event the remaining compressional outer rise events are located in regions that are either known seismic gaps or in regions where the seismic potential is unknown the occurrence of compressional outer rise earthquakes suggests that compressional stress is accumulating in the adjacent interplate region and that there is the potential for a future large underthrusting event in the region thirty compressional outer rise events have been located in trench segments of middle and south america the kurile islands the tonga and kermadec islands the new hebrides arc and the solomon islands regions in both the southern kamchatka and northern new hebrides regions the outer rise seismicity indicates that the stress regimes in the outer rise have changed with time from tensional following a previous large underthrusting event to compressional at present thus three stages of the cycle from underthrusting to tensional outer rise regime to compressional outer rise regime are present requiring only the occurrence of the next underthrusting event to complete the cycle the occurrence of compressional outer rise events is useful for assessing the seismic potential of a region on an intermediate time scale

slip on the san andreas fault at parkfield california over two earthquake cycles and the implications for seismic hazard parkfield california which experienced m 6 0 earthquakes in 1934 1966 and 2004 is one of the few locales for which geodetic observations span multiple earthquake cycles we undertake a comprehensive study of deformation over the most recent earthquake cycle and explore the results in the context of geodetic data collected prior to the 1966 event through joint inversion of the variety of parkfield geodetic measurements trilateration two color laser and global positioning system including previously unpublished two color data we estimate the spatial distribution of slip and slip rate along the san andreas using a fault geometry based on precisely relocated seismicity although the three most recent parkfield earthquakes appear complementary in their along strike distributions of slip they do not produce uniform strain release along strike over multiple seismic cycles since the 1934 earthquake more than 1 m of slip deficit has accumulated on portions of the fault that slipped in the 1966 and 2004 earthquakes and an average of 2 m of slip deficit exists on the 33 km of the fault southeast of gold hill to be released in a future perhaps larger earthquake it appears that the fault is capable of partially releasing stored strain in moderate earthquakes maintaining a disequilibrium through multiple earthquake cycles this complicates the application of simple earthquake recurrence models that assume only the strain accumulated since the most recent event is relevant to the size or timing of an upcoming earthquake our findings further emphasize that accumulated slip deficit is not sufficient for earthquake nucleation online material model fault geometry fit to the data for the inversions and model resolution

stress and aftershock constrained joint inversions for coseismic and postseismic slip applied to the 2004 m6 0 parkfield earthquake 1 both aftershocks and geodetically measured postseismic displacements are important markers of the stress relaxation process following large earthquakes postseismic displacements can be related to creep like relaxation in the vicinity of the coseismic rupture by means of inversion methods however the results of slip inversions are typically non unique and subject to large uncertainties therefore we explore the possibility to improve inversions by mechanical constraints in particular we take into account the physical understanding that postseismic deformation is stress driven and occurs in the coseismically stressed zone we do joint inversions for coseismic and postseismic slip in a bayesian framework in the case of the 2004 m6 0 parkfield earthquake we perform a number of inversions with different constraints and calculate their statistical significance according to information criteria the best result is preferably related to a physically reasonable model constrained by the stress condition namely postseismic creep is driven by coseismic stress and the condition that coseismic slip and large aftershocks are disjunct this model explains 97 of the coseismic displacements and 91 of the postseismic displacements during day 1 5 following the parkfield event respectively it indicates that the major postseismic deformation can be generally explained by a stress relaxation process for the parkfield case this result also indicates that the data to constrain the coseismic slip model could be enriched postseismically for the 2004 parkfield event we additionally observe asymmetric relaxation process at the two sides of the fault which can be explained by material contrast ratio across the fault of 1 15 in seismic velocity

comparison of various inversion techniques as applied to the determination of a geophysical deformation model for the 1983 borah peak earthquake abstract a number of techniques are employed to overcome nonuniqueness and instability inherent in linear inverse problems to test the factors that enter into the selection of an inversion technique for fault slip distribution we used a penalty function with smoothness pf s a damped least squares method dls damped least squares method with a positivity constraint dls p and a penalty function with smoothness and a positivity constraint pf s p for inverting the elevation changes for slip associated with the 1983 borah peak earthquake unlike solving an ill posed inverse problem using a gradient technique ward and barrientos 1986 we have restored the well posed character between the elevation changes and normal slip distribution studies showed that the constraints based on sound understanding of the physical nature of the problem are crucial in the derivation of a meaningful solution and dictates primarily the selection of a particular inversion technique all available geological and geophysical information were used to determine a geophysical deformation model for the earthquake it is suggested that the pf s p solution for a fault length of 75 km is the preferred model the long wavelength features in the estimated slip distribution are similar to those obtained by ward and barrientos 1986 whereas the shorter wavelength features differ between two solutions the fault dips 49 to the southwest the slipped zones deepen from the surface at the northwest to about 20 km downdip depth at the southeast the fault extends to the southeast beyond the epicenter of the mainshock it is also shown that only the long wavelength features of the slip distribution are well resolved the resolution is better at shallower levels than at deeper levels the resolution deteriorates when the deformation sources are away from the leveling lines smoothness constraints provide better resolution than damping does at depth the addition of a positivity constraint significantly improves the model resolution

tremor reveals stress shadowing deep postseismic creep and depth dependent slip recurrence on the lower crustal san andreas fault near parkfield 1 the 2003 magnitude 6 5 san simeon and the 2004 magnitude 6 0 parkfield earthquakes induced small but significant static stress changes in the lower crust on the central san andreas fault where recently detected tectonic tremor sources provide new constraints on deep fault creep processes we find that these earthquakes affect tremor rates very differently consistent with their differing transferred static shear stresses the san simeon event appears to have cast a stress shadow north of parkfield where tremor activity was stifled for 3 6 weeks in contrast the 2004 parkfield earthquake dramatically increased tremor activity rates both north and south of parkfield allowing us to track deep postseismic slip following this event rates initially increased by up to two orders of magnitude for the relatively shallow tremor sources closest to the rupture with activity in some sources persisting above background rates for more than a year we also observe strong depth dependence in tremor recurrence patterns with shallower sources generally exhibiting larger less frequent bursts possibly signaling a transition toward steady creep with increasing temperature and depth

the parkfield california earthquake prediction experiment five moderate magnitude 6 earthquakes with similar features have occurred on the parkfield section of the san andreas fault in central california since 1857 the next moderate parkfield earthquake is expected to occur before 1993 the parkfield prediction experiment is designed to monitor the details of the final stages of the earthquake preparation process observations and reports of seismicity and aseismic slip associated with the last moderate parkfield earthquake in 1966 constitute much of the basis of the design of the experiment

geodetic data inversion using a bayesian information criterion for spatial distribution of fault slip summary we developed a new inversion method to reconstruct static images of seismic sources from geodetic data using akaike s bayesian information criterion abic coseismic surface displacements are generally related with a slip distribution on a fault surface by linear integral equations parametric expansion of the fault slip distribution by a finite number of known basis functions yields a set of observation equations expressed in a simple vector form incorporating prior constraints on the smoothness of slip distribution with the observation equations we construct a bayesian model with unknown hyperparameters the optimal values of the hyperparameters which control the structure of the bayesian model are objectively determined from observed data by using abic once the values of hyperparameters are determined we can use the maximum likelihood method to find the optimal distribution of fault slip we examined the validity of this method through a numerical experiment using theoretical data with random noise we analysed geodetic data associated with the 1946 nankaido earthquake ms 8 2 by using this method the result shows that the fault slip distribution of this earthquake has two main peaks of 4 and 6 m located off kii peninsula and muroto promontory these two high slip areas are clearly separated by a low slip zone extending along kii strait such a slip distribution corresponds with the fact that the rupture process of this earthquake in the western part is notably different from that in the eastern part

inference of coseismic slip via joint inversion of gps and aftershock data the 2004 parkfield example 1 in many coseismic slip inversions the number of model parameters is much larger than that of the independent observations and the problem is extremely underdetermined it is thus instructive to incorporate additional data sets into the slip inversion in this study i describe a new approach for coseismic slip inversion whereby both gps displacements and first day aftershock rate changes are used jointly to constrain the solution the joint inversion incorporates the dieterich s aftershock model which adopts a constitutive friction that depends logarithmically on the sliding rate the method is applied to the 2004 parkfield earthquake the joint inversion not only provides resolving power of slip at depths inaccessible to gps only inversions but it also helps to gain insight on the fault mechanical properties i show that the data are consistent with the adopted aftershock model being the dominant mechanism for aftershock production along the parkfield segment and i obtain an upper bound on the friction dependence on the log of rate of fault patches that have experienced aftershock activity a consequence of the irregular aftershock distribution is that the slip distribution is extremely nonsmooth with the aftershock zones acting as barriers

spatiotemporal evolution of a transient slip event on the san andreas fault near parkfield california 1 in 1993 several baselines of the two color electronic distance meter edm network at parkfield california deviated from their long term rates coincident with anomalous observations from nearby strain meters and a creep meter as well as an increase in microseismicity between october 1992 and december 1994 three m 4 5 earthquakes occurred beneath middle mountain near the hypocenter of the 1934 and 1966 parkfield m6 events we analyzed the two color edm data using a kalman filtering based technique to image the spatiotemporal evolution of slip on the fault at parkfield between the mid 1980s and 2003 this method accounts for localized random walk motion of the geodetic monuments and a prominent seasonal signal that affects many baselines we find that a slip rate increase occurred between january 1993 and july 1996 on the upper 8 km of the fault near middle mountain the peak estimated slip rate during this time was 49 mm yr which exceeds the long term geologic rate of 35 mm yr the slip rate evolution appears episodic with an initial modest increase after the m4 3 earthquake and a much larger jump following the shallower m4 7 event in december 1994 this temporal correlation between inferred slip and seismicity suggests that the moderate earthquakes triggered the aseismic fault slip the edm data cannot resolve whether transient slip propagated across the nucleation zone of the 1934 and 1966 m6 parkfield earthquakes however transient slip and its associated stress release in the hypocentral area of previous parkfield events is consistent with the nucleation of the 2004 m6 parkfield earthquake elsewhere on the fault

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