the 9 june 94 bolivian deep earthquake an exceptional event in an extraordinary subduction zone we investigate the physical setting of the bolivian shock based on the history of the subducting nazca plate intraslab seismicity deep seismic moment release and seismic tomography south america has two broad regions of reverse arc curvature subduction constrained to this unique geometry produces slab kinking contortions that may cause unusual slab thickening as they sink to the bottom of the transition zone and encounter resistance to penetration into the lower mantle such contortions are observed at intermediate depths upstream from the slab source regions of both the great 1970 colombian and 1994 bolivian events thickening helps explain how the nazca slab accommodates large seismic source dimensions at depths of 625 650 km

near field deformation seen on distant broadband seismograms although far field body waves and surface waves are widely recognized the improvements in broadband networks now allow the measurement of near field deformation of large earthquakes at great distances near field motions have been recognized previously only in theory and in close in recordings of earthquakes we show examples from two recent events for the large deep event on june 9 1994 in bolivia there is a clear offset after the arrival of the p wave that has the amplitude expected for the near field term in the shallow september 2 1992 nicaragua earthquake the very long period motion observed between the p and s waves has roughly the amplitude expected from near field terms such near field terms are insensitive to earth structure but supply information on long period source processes and their observation begins to close the gap between long period seismology and geodesy

rupture characteristics of the deep bolivian earthquake of 9 june 1994 and the mechanism of deep focus earthquakes the m w 8 3 deep 636 kilometers bolivian earthquake of 9 june 1994 was the largest deep focus earthquake ever recorded seismic data from permanent stations plus portable instruments in south america show that rupture occurred on a horizontal plane and extended at least 30 by 50 kilometers rupture proceeded at 1 to 3 kilometers per second along the down dip azimuth of the slab and penetrated through more than a third of the slab thickness this extent is more than three times that expected for a metastable wedge of olivine at the core of the slab and thus appears to be incompatible with an origin by transformational faulting these large events may instead represent slip on preserved zones of weakness established in oceanic lithosphere at the earth s surface

the morphology of supraglacial lake ogives supraglacial lakes on grounded regions of the greenland and antarctic ice sheets sometimes produce lake ogives or banded structures that sweep downstream from the lakes using a variety of remote sensing data we demonstrate that lake ogives originate from supraglacial lakes that form each year in the same bedrock fixed location near the equilibrium line altitude as the ice flows underneath one of these lakes an image of the lake is imprinted on the ice surface both by summer season ablation and by superimposed ice lake ice formation ogives associated with a lake are sequenced in time with the downstream ogives being the oldest and with spatial separation equal to the local annual ice displacement in addition lake ogives can have decimeter to meter scale topographic relief much like wave ogives that form below icefalls on alpine glaciers our observations highlight the fact that lake ogives and other related surface features are a consequence of hydrological processes in a bedrock fixed reference frame these features should arise naturally from physically based thermodynamic models of supraglacial water transport and thus they may serve as fiducial features that help to test the performance of such models

imaging of subducted lithosphere beneath south america tomographic images are produced for the deep structure of the andean subduction zone beneath western south america the data used in the imaging are the delay times of p pp and pwp phases from relocated teleseismic earthquakes in the region regionally structural features larger than about 150 km are resolved by the data presentations of layer anomaly maps and cross sections reveal 1 the nazca slab is probably continuous laterally and at depth over most regions 2 the offset between the north and south deep earthquake zones containing the 1994 deep bolivia main shock and its aftershocks can be modelled by a northwest striking and steeply northeast dipping slab structure and 3 the nazca slab clearly penetrates the lower mantle beneath central south america but is partly deflected in the southern deep zone

viscosity determinations of some frictionally generated silicate melts implications for fault zone rheology at high strain rates analytical scanning electron microscopy has been used to determine the major element compositions of some natural and artificial silicate glasses and their microcrystalline equivalents derived by the frictional melting of intermediate to acid protoliths the data show that the matrices of the friction melts which cool to form pseudotachylytes are relatively basic and hydrous even when their protoliths are intermediate to acid this is because frictional fusion involves the selective comminution and nonequilibrium melting of minerals based on their individual mechanical properties and melting points not the formation of minimum melts through equilibrium mineral interaction this means that hydrous ferromagnesian minerals e g micas and amphiboles melt preferentially to form the liquid matrix while feldspars and especially quartz more readily survive as clasts pseudotachylytes generated by frictional melting are therefore not bulk melts and as clast melt suspensions they cannot be considered as simple newtonian fluids the calculated viscosities of the friction melts are low for example at 1200 c most friction melts possess zero shear suspension viscosities of 102 104 dpa s 1 dpa s 1 p this is equivalent to the viscosities of tholeiitic and alkaline basaltic magmas at the same temperature these viscosities are maximum determinations because as clast melt suspensions friction melts may undergo shear thinning and exhibit pseudoplasticity at high shear rates i e during slip on a fault surface contrary to earlier suggestions where the bulk melting of intermediate to acid protoliths was believed to result in the generation of viscous friction melts that could act to inhibit continued sliding this work shows that most pseudotachylytes are partial melts possessing low viscosities the formation of highly fluid suspensions during slip may have profound effects on the dissipation of stored strain energy in the rocks surrounding a fault interface lubrication could facilitate an increase in the slip rate and the rate of energy dissipation this would be manifest as an increase in high frequency seismic wave radiation and vibrational

the deep earthquakes of 1921 1922 in northern peru abstract we present a detailed analysis of the 1921 and 1922 deep events in northern peru which we identify as the only reliably located earthquakes in the vicinity of the great 1970 deep colombian shock all other reported seismicity in a three dimensional radius of 550 km centered on the 1970 hypocenter is erroneous and can be relocated to other seismic provinces the 1921 1922 earthquakes relocate approximately 230 km to the south of the 1970 event at depths of 630 km and 660 km respectively a combination of centroid moment tensor inversion and forward modeling using ray theory and reflectivity synthetics yields focal mechanisms indicating down dip compression and seismic moments of 1 2 1027 dyn cm and 6 1027 dyn cm respectively the 1921 1922 and 1970 events take place on a piece of subducted farallon plate aged approximately 55 ma i e anomalously young to support deep seismicity we suggest that this unusual seismic activity may be due to a local heterogeneity on the slab whose nature however remains unknown

the 1996 june 17 flores sea and 1994 march 9 fiji tonga earthquakes source processes and deep earthquake mechanisms summary source parameters of the 1996 flores sea and 1994 fiji tonga deep earthquakes are derived from teleseismic body waves recorded by the global seismic network of broad band seismograph stations both events consisted of several subevents models to approximate the spatial and temporal extent of the source process include point sources propagating point sources and a combination of these for the flores sea event rupture lasted about 23 s and terminated some 70 km east of the nucleation point as inferred from the duration of p wave pulses in agreement with the findings reported by other investigators our preferred model suggests bilateral rupture propagation it consists of four point sources that have variable double couple radiation patterns and source time histories and explains well the large compensated linear vector dipole clvd component inferred from the harvard centroid moment tensor cmt solution the main moment release in the fiji tonga event lasted only about 15 s our best model consists of two point sources with a total moment release of 2 8 1020 n m rupture propagated subhorizontally from the nucleation point to the north the termination of rupture was located about 40 km to the north of rupture initiation the inferred velocity of moment release in the flores sea and fiji tonga events was 3 5 km s 1 a value which is higher than that inferred for the great bolivian earthquake of june 1994 other derived source parameters static stress drop radiated seismic energy and maximum seismic efficiency are also significantly different from those inferred for the 1994 bolivian event suggesting that deep earthquake processes do not follow an easily detectable common mechanism

seismicity and shape of the subducted nazca plate an updated compilation of earthquake locations and focal mechanism solutions from the international seismological centre and preliminary determination of earthquakes is the basis of a comprehensive study of the geometry of the wadati benioff zone beneath western south america the new data support previous mapping of a sharp flexure rather than a tear in the subducted nazca plate beneath southern peru and provide evidence for a similar flexure in the southward transition from nearly horizontal subduction to a slab with 30 dip at latitude 33 s in contrast the transition from 30 slab dip beneath bolivia to a nearly horizontal dip in the region between 28 s 32 s is more gradual occurring over several hundred kilometers of along strike distance between 20 s and 32 s this southward flattening corresponds to a broadening of a horizontal benchlike part of the subducted plate formed between 100 and 125 km depth the transition in continental tectonic style near 27 s 28 s from a wide volcanically active plateau to a narrow nonvolcanic cordillera appears not to be associated with the main slab flattening which begins to the north of these latitudes but with a more abrupt change in curvature of the subducted slab from convex upward to concave upward immediately below the plate boundary interface the concept of gaussian curvature is applied to slab bending to explain how subduction geometry is affected by the shape of the south american plate we hypothesize that the polarity of vertical curvature in the subducting slab is governed by the orientation of lateral curvature of the plate margin focal mechanism solutions for intermediate and deep earthquakes are grouped by geographic region and inverted for the orientation and relative magnitudes of the principal stresses results of the inversion indicate that downdip extension dominates in the slab above 350 km while downdip compression dominates at greater depths

the depth dependence of earthquake duration and implications for rupture mechanisms the duration of rupture is a fundamental characteristic of earthquakes and is important for understanding the mechanics of faulting1 2 the complexity of the seismic source and the incoherence of the high frequency seismic wavefield often inhibit the identification location and timing of features in the later part of earthquake rupture here we sum many teleseismic records from regional seismic arrays producing an unusually clear depiction of the earthquake source at short periods by suppressing background noise and coda generated near the receivers the ending as well as the beginning of rupture is clearly identifiable for most earthquakes examined measurements of 130 large earthquakes show that near 100 km depth rupture duration averages 11 s when scaled to a moment of 1026 dyn cm this decreases to 5 5 s at 650 km depth models of faulting suggest that duration should be inversely proportional to the shear wave velocity and the cube root of stress drop thus to explain the observed twofold decrease in duration with depth stress drops would have to increase by a factor of four as shear velocity increases with depth by only about 20 however observed stress drops show no strong trend with depth3 4 suggesting that the faulting process changes with depth

grain size evolution in subducted oceanic lithosphere associated with the olivine spinel transformation and its effects on rheology we investigate the role of grain size reduction during the olivine spinel transformation on rheological properties of subducting slabs on the basis of a scaling model for microstructural development during nucleation and growth in this model the size of spinel grains nucleating at olivine grain boundaries is controlled by the relative rates of nucleation and growth taking into account the impingement through the collision of grains due to growth when the volume fraction of spinel reaches a certain threshold value critical volume fraction 1 10 depending on the p t conditions in the slab the new phase will form a continuous film and will significantly reduce the strength of the two phase aggregate if spinel grain size is small the size of spinel grains d at this stage is calculated and is shown to be highly sensitive to 0 size and 2 a subducting slab has a complicated rheological structure containing a weak region below the tip of a metastable olivine bearing wedge in a cold slab possible implications of these anomalous rheological structures of slabs on the dynamics of subduction are discussed including the mechanisms of deep earthquakes

on the interpretation of subevents in teleseismic waveforms the 1994 bolivia deep earthquake revisited we evaluate the methodologies that aim at resolving the space time slip distribution during large earthquakes in one common approach the source process of an event is assumed to be composed of a series of subevents critical points in teleseismic body waves such as peaks and coherent arrivals are viewed as discrete points in the spatiotemporal history of an earthquake we show that these features can be interpreted as the instantaneous centroid locations of the moment release history we demonstrate this result with an analysis of the mw 8 2 bolivia 1994 deep event we reconstruct the slip distribution in two contrasting ways first broadband p waves are interpreted as being composed of subevents five peaks in the moment release rate are located relative to the onset of the rupture using the azimuthal variations of onset to peak times second we invert broadband p waves for the slip distribution on a subhorizontal fault we use a nonlinear tomographic imaging technique called simulated annealing and an l1 misfit norm rupture velocities appear to be 2 km s 1 and largest slip values are found to the east and north of the onset in a 40 by 50 km region the instantaneous centroids of the moment release history correspond closely to the locations found using the subevent analysis however especially near the middle and the end of the rupture the instantaneous centroid locations are in regions of little moment release we discuss how the subevent analysis and the instantaneous centroid approach lead to dissimilar interpretations of rupture processes especially for events with length to width ratios near unity another result of this study is that the rupture of the 1994 bolivia event appears to end 50 km to the northwest of the onset implying that the slip area is larger that previously thought comparing the slip distribution with the aftershock distribution suggests that more than one physical mechanism is necessary to account for the rupture process of this great deep event

tectonic implications of tomographic images of subducted lithosphere beneath northwestern south america we used seismic tomography to investigate the complex structure of the upper mantle below northwestern south america images of slab structure not delineated by previous seismicity studies help us to refine existing tectonic models of subducted caribbean pacific lithosphere beneath the study area beneath western venezuela and colombia we distinguish two slabs a maracaibo and a redefined bucaramanga slab the maracaibo slab coinciding with most of the bucaramanga slab previously defined by w d pennington dips in a direction of 150 at an angle of 17 to a depth of 275 km and correlates to the subducted late cretaceous oceanic plateau of the caribbean plate farther south a second slab dips at an angle of 50 in a direction of 125 to a depth of at least 500 km and correlates to the subducted oceanic crust of the nazca plate and the downdip extension of the panama island arc we refer to this slab as the redefined bucaramanga slab because it is different from the bucaramanga slab segment defined by pennington the area of the south american plate overriding both slabs is characterized by the absence of an active volcanic arc an anomalously wide topographically uplifted and tectonically active area and the northward escape of the maracaibo block along active strike slip faults in support of earlier studies we attribute this to the underthrusting of the caribbean oceanic plateau our shallowly dipping maracaibo slab along the base of the south american lithosphere and to the recent collision of the panama island arc rafted in on more steeply dipping crust of the nazca plate our redefined bucaramanga slab

digital isochrons of the world s ocean floor we have created a digital age grid of the ocean floor with a grid node interval of 6 arc min using a self consistent set of global isochrons and associated plate reconstruction poles the age at each grid node was determined by linear interpolation between adjacent isochrons in the direction of spreading ages for ocean floor between the oldest identified magnetic anomalies and continental crust were interpolated by estimating the ages of passive continental margin segments from geological data and published plate models we have constructed an age grid with error estimates for each grid cell as a function of 1 the error of ocean floor ages identified from magnetic anomalies along ship tracks and the age of the corresponding grid cells in our age grid 2 the distance of a given grid cell to the nearest magnetic anomaly identification and 3 the gradient of the age grid i e larger errors are associated with high age gradients at fracture zones or other age discontinuities future applications of this digital grid include studies of the thermal and elastic structure of the lithosphere the heat loss of the earth ridge push forces through time asymmetry of spreading and providing constraints for seismic tomography and mantle convection models

bokan mountain peralkaline granitic complex alexander terrane southeastern alaska evidence for early jurassic rifting prior to accretion with north america the circular bokan mountain complex bmc on southern prince of wales island southernmost alaska is a jurassic peralkaline granitic intrusion about 3 km in diameter that crosscuts igneous and metasedimentary rocks of the alexander terrane the bmc hosts significant rare metal rare earth elements y u th zr and nb mineralization related to the last stage of bmc emplacement u pb zircon and 40ar 39ar amphibole and whole rock geochronology indicates the following sequence of intrusive activity i a paleozoic basement composed mainly of 469 4 ma granitic rocks ii intrusion of the bmc at 177 1 ma followed by rapid cooling through ca 550 c at 176 1 ma that was synchronous with mineralization associated with vertical wnw trending pegmatites felsic dikes and aegirine fluorite veins and late stage sinistral shear deformation and iii intrusion of crosscutting lamprophyre dikes at 150 ma and again at ca 105 ma the peralkaline nature of the bmc and the wnw trend of associated dikes

a regionalized upper mantle rum seismic model seismic velocity heterogeneity in the earth s mantle is strongly concentrated near its top the shallow heterogeneity of the mantle correlates strongly with surface tectonics we use these observations as constraints of a tomographic experiment aimed at building a regionalized upper mantle rum reference model we use a select set of teleseismic travel times to minimize the mapping of mislocation into structure the data selection emphasizes the robustness of individual picks the form of the rum model is a set of velocity profiles as functions of depth through the upper mantle for each of the different tectonic provinces of earth together the profiles constitute a three dimensional model which incorporates considerable structural detail but is described by only 90 parameters and has only about 22 degrees of freedom this is achieved by irregularly sampling a detailed regionalization of the globe by detailed mapping of subducted lithosphere in the mantle as defined by seismicity and by combining these structures in an irregular grid in which bookkeeping is efficiently handled the resulting rum model includes subducting slabs as sharp fast features in the upper mantle old continents are fast young oceans are slow models have been derived for both compressional and shear velocity the rum model is designed to represent as much of upper mantle heterogeneity as seen by body wave travel times as possible with a simple model it can be useful as a reference model for individual tectonic regions travel times are efficiently generated for the rum model mislocations of explosions of known location are significantly reduced when corrections for the rum model are applied to travel time residuals for a spherically symmetrical earth model

body wave inversion of the 1970 and 1963 south american large deep focus earthquakes a comprehensive set of teleseismic waveforms from two south american deep focus earthquakes of the predigital era the 1970 colombia mw 8 1 and 1963 peru bolivia mw 7 7 events are inverted for source mechanism seismic moment rupture history and centroid depth the p and sh wave inversion of the colombia event confirms previous work indicating that rupture occurred on a plane that dips steeply west rupture direction paralleled the trend of the wadati benioff zone we decompose the source into subevents based on a source time function which shows two major moment release pulses separated by 20 s the first subevent is located near the initiation point at a depth of 630 km the main moment release was located 70 km to the southeast and 20 km shallower rupture subsequently propagated farther southeast the source time function has an initial subevent accounting for 30 of the moment release of the entire event whereas the long period centroid moment tensor cmt analysis russakoff et al 1997 has the initial subevent yielding 50 the high angle nodal plane rotated 15 clockwise during the rupture explaining the large compensated linear vector dipole clvd component inferred from cmt solutions individual subevents have large clvd and compressive isotropic components a full moment tensor inversion of the colombia and 1994 bolivia events suggests that the initial subevents might contain a large non double couple ndc component for the 1963 peru bolivia event using p waves rupture propagated nnw for a distance of 70 km parallel to the high angle nodal plane and the trend of the wadati benioff zone the focal mechanism changed dramatically after the second subevent causing a very large ndc component both events together with the 1994 bolivia earthquake have a precursor separated in space and time from the main rupture and show rupture velocities varying between 3 and 4 km s between subevents with 2 0 km s on average for the entire event low seismic efficiencies and rupture velocities support a highly dissipative temperature dependent rupture mechanism for large deep focus south american earthquakes compared with events in cold subducting slabs

earthquake source scaling relationships from 1 to 5 ml using seismograms recorded at 2 5 km depth the scaling relationships of earthquake sources less than about magnitude 3 have been the subject of considerable controversy over the last two decades studies of such events have shown a tendency for the constant stress drop self similarity of larger earthquakes to breakdown at small magnitudes and an apparent minimum source dimension of about 100 m has been observed other studies showed that this apparent breakdown in scaling could be an artifact of severe near surface attenuation limiting the spatial resolution of surface data in this study source parameters are determined for over 100 nearby tectonic earthquakes from recordings at a depth of 2 5 km in granite in the cajon pass scientific drill hole southern california comparison of the seismograms recorded at this depth with those at the wellhead clearly demonstrates the effect of the severe attenuation in the upper kilometers of the earth s crust source parameters are calculated by spectral modeling of three component p and s waves assuming four source models based on the brune 2 n 2 model in model l n 2 is fixed and q of p and s waves is determined to be 912 581 1433 and 1078 879 1323 respectively the numbers in parentheses are 1 standard deviation in model 2 qp qs 1000 is assumed and n is allowed to vary the 2 model is a good average for the data set but there is some real scatter supported by the data in model 3 qp qs 1000 is also assumed and 2 is constrained and in model 4 attenuation is ignored and n is allowed to vary source dimensions of less than 10m are observed for all four models 10 times smaller than the proposed minimum no breakdown in constant stress drop scaling is seen in the downhole data approximately ml 1 to 5 5 m0 109 1016 nm the ratio between radiated seismic energy estimated by integrating the velocity squared spectra with adequate signal bandwidth and seismic moment appears to decrease gradually with decreasing moment in the magnitude range 1 to 7 this is not incompatible with a constant stress drop but could result from errors in calculating energy the ratio of the s wave energy to that radiated by the p waves is about 14 after correction for attenuation this low value is consistent with the corner frequency shift of about 1 3 this corner frequency shift is observed for all four source models and therefore is interpreted as being source controlled

a broadband p wave analysis of the large deep fiji island and bolivia earthquakes of 1994 the complex broadband p wave displacement recordings of the 570 km deep march 9 1994 mw 7 6 fiji island and the 660 km deep june 9 1994 mw 8 2 bolivia earthquakes are analyzed to estimate the spatial and temporal characteristics of their ruptures we model relative arrival times and amplitudes of coherent subevents in p waveforms and perform waveform analyses we resolve 1 short rupture durations relative to their seismic moments 12 and 40 s for the fiji and bolivia earthquakes respectively 2 small areas of main moment release for both earthquakes 30 40 km 3 high stress drops compared to shallow earthquakes with the stress drop of the bolivia event 283 mpa being significantly higher than the stress drop of the fiji event 26 mpa 4 small changes in mechanism up to 10 changes in fault plane orientation and 5 a steeply dipping rupture plane for the fiji earthquake and a shallowly dipping rupture plane for the bolivia earthquake details of the ruptures are difficult to resolve using teleseismic p waveforms

uranium lead isotopic ages from the sierra nevada batholith california this study provides new information on the timing and distribution of mesozoic magmatic events in the sierra nevada batholithic complex chiefly between 36 and 37 n latitude u pb ages have been determined for 133 zircon and 7 sphene separates from 82 samples of granitoid rocks granitoid rocks in this area range in age from 217 to 80 m y triassic intrusions are restricted to the east side of the batholith jurassic plutons occur south of the triassic plutons east of the sierra nevada as isolated masses within the cretaceous batholith and in the western foothills of the range cretaceous plutons form a continuous belt along the axis of the batholith and occur as isolated masses east of the sierra nevada no granitic intrusions were emplaced for 37 m y east of the sierra nevada following the end of jurassic plutonism however following emplacement of the eastern jurassic granitoids regional extension produced a fracture system at least 350 km long into which the dominantly mafic calc alkalic independence dike swarm was intruded 148 m y ago the dike fractures probably represents a period of regional crustal extension caused by a redistribution of the regional stress pattern accompanying the nevadan orogeny intrusion of cretaceous granitic plutons began in large volume about 120 m y ago in the western sierra nevada and migrated steadily eastward for 40 m y at a rate of 2 7 mm y this slow and constant migration indicates remarkably uniform conditions of subduction with perhaps downward migration of parent magma generation or a slight flattening of the subduction zone such steady conditions could be necessary for the production of large batholithic complexes such as the sierra nevada the abrupt termination of plutonism 80 m y ago may have resulted from an increased rate of convergence of the american and eastern pacific plates and dramatic flattening of the subduction zone u pb ages of the giant forest alaskite sequence in sequoia national park are all in the range 99 3 m y indicating a relatively short period of emplacement and cooling for this nested group of plutons u pb ages of a mafic inclusion and its host granodiorite indicate that both were derived from a common source or that the mafic inclusion was totally equilibrated with the granodioritic magma comparison of isotopic ages determined by different methods such as zircon u pb sphene u pb hornblende k ar and biotite k ar suggests that zircon u pb ages generally approximate the emplacement age of a pluton however some plutons probably contain inherited or entrained old zircons and the zircons of some samples are disturbed by younger thermal and metamorphic events the ages reported here are consistent with u pb age determinations previously made on granitic rocks to the north stern et al 1981 the age distribution of granitic belts determined here is in general agreement with those established by k ar dating evernden and kistler 1970 but does not differentiate the five epochs of plutonism determined in their study

rupture history of the great bolivian earthquake slab interaction with the 660 km discontinuity teleseismic body waves of the great bolivian earthquake of june 9 1994 are analyzed to determine the focal parameters and rupture history broadband seismograms reveal a complex rupture process a small initial event mw 7 2 was followed about 10 s later by a large moment release pulse of about 40 s duration focal mechanisms determined for the mainshock indicate normal faulting with one very shallow ne dipping plane azimuthal variation in body wave displacement pulse widths suggest northward rupture from master event and body wave inversion the main moment release is located 25 50 km ne of the initiation point at about 650 km depth with only small depth variations between the initial and main event this suggests that rupture was n directed on the near horizontal plane because the slab along other parts of the andean arc at about 600 km depth dips steeply a sub horizontal plane may imply shearing perpendicular to slab dip downdip compression on a sub horizontal plane would then imply that the slab does not penetrate the 660 km seismic discontinuity but rather is being sheared out to the ne this interpretation is not unique as other scenarios are also possible such an event immediately above the 660 km discontinuity suggests massive deformation above the discontinuity with no smooth slab penetration into the lower mantle

determination of the isotropic component of the 1994 bolivia deep earthquake we determine the isotropic component of the moment tensor of the 1994 bolivia deep earthquake using various seismic waves including body waves surface waves and normal mode data in the period band between 20 s and 1000 s we carefully investigate whether the isotropic component can be obtained independently from the other components by checking the correlation matrices we show that it is possible to obtain a precise estimate of the isotropic component by using normal mode data in the period band between 550 and 1000 s we find that the bolivia earthquake did not have a significant isotropic component in this period band

spatial patterns of aftershocks of deep focus earthquakes this paper presents precise relative relocations for aftershocks of 59 intermediate and deep earthquakes using p pp and pkp arrival times read by us or reported in the literature these aftershocks included 36 rupture subevents occurring within 1 min of the initial event and 71 true aftershocks occurring later and identified statistically as being related to the initial event we compare the relative locations with the orientations of the wadati benioff zones and with the available focal mechanisms using statistical methods not previously applied to earthquake data surprisingly neither true aftershocks nor rupture subevents cluster along the nodal planes of intermediate or deep earthquake focal mechanisms aftershocks more than 20 km from the initial events occur preferentially in the plane of the wadati benioff zone while those lying closer have isotropically distributed directions rupture subevents occur after the travel time of the s wave from the initial event larger magnitude earthquakes generally possess rupture subevents lying farther from the initial event whereas true aftershocks can occur 50 km or more from initial events having magnitudes as small as 5 3 except following a few unusually large earthquakes with focal depths of about 100 km we find no rupture subevents or true aftershocks more than about 80 km from the initial hypocenter the existence of many aftershocks far from nodal planes does not favor models in which deep earthquake failure is simply slip along a planar fault rather the aftershocks may occur in response to a general redistribution of stress caused either by the occurrence of the initial event or possibly by nearby continuing phase transitions alternatively the failure zones of deep earthquakes may be surfaces which are frequently curved by 40 or more from the orientation of the initial nodal plane perhaps due to inhomogeneous stress distributions

isolated deep earthquakes and the fate of subduction in the mantle the locations of earthquakes with depth in the mantle provide direct evidence of the trajectory and state of stress of subducting lithosphere the occurrence over the last decade of isolated large deep earthquakes outside the main wadati benioff zones in the kurile izu bonin and chile deep seismic areas in addition to the observed flat distributions of deep seismicity beneath the banda sea and fiji plateau areas and the large number of deep earthquakes located away from the main slab in the tonga arc supports recent tomographic and other seismological studies leading to a reconsideration of slabs as simple planar structures sinking undeformed into the lower mantle the focal geometries of these isolated earthquakes which often exhibit near vertical compressional stresses are distinct from adjacent events in the main wadati benioff zone they are also different in orientation from events in the deflecting toe of the slab and from the stress orientation expected if the deflected slab acts as a stress guide these isolated mantle earthquakes are interpreted to take place in subducted lithosphere that has deflected to a horizontal posture at the base of the upper mantle conversely the deep seismicity in the adjacent wadati benioff zone is associated with the deflection of the subducting lithosphere

the march 9 1994 m w 7 6 deep tonga earthquake rupture outside the seismically active slab we investigate the rupture process of the march 9 1994 m w 7 6 deep tonga earthquake and its relationship to the background seismicity of the subducted tonga slab variations in observed p and s wave pulse duration indicate that the rupture propagated to the nne and extended well beyond the background seismicity we inverted 47 p and sh waveforms including regional broadband waveforms from the southwest pacific seismic experiment using a method that solves for the focal mechanism change during the rupture and the distribution of moment release along the fault plane the results indicate that significant moment release occurred in previously aseismic regions outside the active seismic zone and that the rupture terminated 10 20 km beyond the bounds of the previous seismic activity a significant change in focal mechanism occurred when the rupture propagated into the previously aseismic region rupture along the near vertical nne striking nodal plane provides a somewhat better fit to the body waveforms than rupture along the near horizontal nodal plane this result combined with the planar alignment of aftershocks and the general nne directivity of the waveforms provides strong evidence that the rupture occurred on the near vertical plane thermal modeling of the tonga slab indicates that the rupture terminated in material about 200 c warmer than the temperature that normally limits the occurrence of smaller earthquakes additionally aftershocks seem to be suppressed in the outer regions of the rupture which contain about half of the moment release but only 1 of the 15 well located aftershocks we suggest that slabs may be composed of an inner cold core where seismic rupture initiates and small earthquakes occur and a thermal halo of warmer material which can sustain rupture and only a few aftershocks the mechanism by which rupture propagates through the warmer material need not be similar to the process governing rupture nucleation in the cold slab core nucleation may occur through a process limited to the cold core such as transformational faulting and propagation through the warmer material may occur through ductile faulting or plastic instabilities isolated deep earthquakes in other subduction zones such as the 1994 bolivia event may occur almost completely within the warmer zone accounting for the lack of background seismicity and the dearth of aftershocks

teleseismic estimates of radiated seismic energy the e m 0 discriminant for tsunami earthquakes we adapt the formalism of boatwright and choy for the computation of radiated seismic energy from broadband records at teleseismic distances to the real time situation when neither the depth nor the focal geometry of the source is known accurately the analysis of a large data set of more than 500 records from 52 large recent earthquakes shows that this procedure yields values of the estimated energy ee in good agreement with values computed from available source parameters for example as published by the national earthquake information center neic the average logarithmic residual being only 0 26 units we analyze the energy to moment ratio by defining log10 ee m0 for regular earthquakes this parameter agrees well with values expected from theoretical models and from the worldwide neic catalogue there is a one to one correspondence between values of that are deficient by one full unit or more and the so called tsunami earthquakes previously identified in the literature as having exceedingly slow sources and believed due to the presence of sedimentary structures in the fault zone our formalism can be applied to single station measurements and its coupling to automated real time measurements of the seismic moment using the mantle magnitude mm should significantly improve real time tsunami warning

directivity analysis of the deep bolivian earthquake of june 9 1994 the june 9 1994 deep bolivian earthquake m w 8 3 d 636 km occurred on a nearly horizontal rupture plane with an approximate area of 2000 km 2 the rupture plane is constrained by directivity analysis of the p wave displacement pulses recorded at local regional and teleseismic distances the fact that there are local recordings of the displacement provides a strong constraint on the vertical extent of faulting which is less than 10 km the moment release had at least four distinct episodes or subevents the best overall explanation for the subevents is rupture which initiates on the western margin of the fault plane propagates to the east and then continues bilaterally along a 350 azimuth with most of the moment release occurring to the north the apparent rupture velocity between subevents is very low approximately 1 2 km s

membrane strain rates in the subducting plate beneath south america geometric constraints associated with the concave oceanward bend in the trench and andes mountains known as the bolivian orocline force along strike compression in the subducting slab our calculations of membrane strain rates in an assumed continuous slab demonstrate that this can be accommodated by either 10 along strike compressive strain or by geometric buckling in nearly all other subduction zones exhibiting a similar bend in the trench the compression is accommodated by slab arching landward of the trench bend the slab geometry is markedly different in south america two regions of nearly flat lying slab north and south of the bolivian orocline result in the 150 km slab depth contour being much straighter than the trench profile our calculations show that this geometry helps to relieve along strike compression along the deeper part of the subduction zone the along strike compression seems to be accommodated by pronounced along strike buckling we infer the approximate geometry of this buckle in an otherwise aseismic region from the great mw 8 3 bolivian deep earthquake on june 9 1994 and its aftershocks the deep slab appears to have a nearly east west strike in the vicinity of this earthquake whereas the strike is more nearly north south to the north and south the focal mechanisms of deep earthquakes exhibit consistent down dip compression and along strike null axes tracking the contortions in slab geometry however our calculations indicate that the particle paths themselves are not down dip everywhere instead where the deep slab strike is oriented nearly east west the particle flow is more nearly along strike than down dip in general this is not a major problem but if the slab is anchored in the lower mantle and moving very slowly this produces large deformation rates near the base of the upper mantle where the slab is assumed to move at near plate rates this increased complex deformation in the deep slab may contribute to the conditions for very large earthquakes in two ways first this may dramatically increase deformation rates and secondly the increased deformation may lead to anomalous advective thickening of a proposed overdriven olivine wedge this provides a mechanism for locally thickening the olivine wedge and allowing transformational faulting to occur over a much larger volume than allowed for normal subduction

the non double couple component of deep earthquakes and the width of the seismogenic zone it has recently been proposed that all deep earthquakes 400 km depth are caused by a shear instability associated with the transformation of metastable olivine to its high pressure polymorphs within the cold core of subducting slabs green and burnley 1989 kirby et al 1991 if so then the seismogenic zone would narrow with depth below 400 km following slab isotherms because the ratio of fault slip to length does not increase markedly with depth and stress orientations indicate that deep fault planes are not parallel to the subducting slab a fault plane large enough to generate a very large deep earthquake would not fit within a narrow seismogenic zone and multiple fault planes would be needed if the fault planes are not parallel due to spatial variations in stress a deviatoric non double couple component volume preserving non shearing part of the seismic moment tensor is likely to result thus if the seismogenic zone narrows with depth one would expect an increasing non double couple component 1 for large earthquakes as depth increases from 400 to 700 km and 2 for very deep earthquakes below 550 km depth as seismic moment increases data from the harvard cmt catalog augmented by moment tensor inversions for the two largest deep earthquakes during the past thirty years are examined for these features although significant scatter is present the data roughly follow the trends described above suggesting a relationship between the non double couple component of deep earthquakes and the geometry of a seismogenic zone narrowing with depth

frictional melting during the rupture of the 1994 bolivian earthquake the source parameters of the 1994 bolivian earthquake magnitude m w 8 3 suggest that the maximum seismic efficiency was 0 036 and the minimum frictional stress was 550 bars thus the source process was dissipative which is consistent with the observed slow rupture speed only 20 of the locals wave velocity the amount of nonradiated energy produced during the bolivian rupture was comparable to or larger than the thermal energy of the 1980 mount st helens eruption and was sufficient to have melted a layer as thick as 31 centimeters once rupture was initiated melting could occur which reduces friction and promotes fault slip

deep earthquakes beneath the fiji basin sw pacific earth s most intense deep seismicity in stagnant slabs abstract previous work has suggested that many of the deep earthquakes beneath the fiji basin occur in slab material that has been detached and foundered to the bottom of the transition zone or has been laid down by trench migration in a similar recumbent position since nowhere else in the earth do so many earthquakes occur in slabs stagnated in the transition zone these earthquakes merit closer study accordingly we have assembled from historical and modern data a comprehensive catalogue of the relocated hypocenters and focal mechanisms of well located deep events in the geographic area between the bottoms of the main vanuatu and tonga wadati benioff zones two regions of deep seismogenesis are recognized there i 163 deep shocks have occurred north of 15 s in the vityaz group from 1949 to 1996 these seismological observations and the absence of other features characteristic of active subduction suggest that the vityaz group represents deep failure in a detached slab that has foundered to a horizontal orientation near the bottom of the transition zone ii another group of nearly 50 outboard deep shocks occur between about 450 and 660 km depth west of the complexly buckled and offset western edge of the tonga wadati benioff zone their geometry is in the form of two or possibly three small circle arcs that roughly parallel the inferred motion of tonga trench migration earthquakes in the southernmost of these arcs occur in a recumbent high seismic wavespeed slab anomaly that connects both to the main inclined tonga anomaly to the east and a lower mantle anomaly to the west van der hilst r 1995 complex morphology of subducted lithosphere in the mantle beneath the tonga trench nature vol 374 pp 154 157 both groups show complexity in their focal mechanisms the major question raised by these observations is the cause of this apparent temporary arrest in the descent of the tonga slab into the lower mantle we approach these questions by considering the effects of buoyant metastable peridotite in cold slab material that was detached and rapidly foundered or was buckled segmented and laid out in the transition zone

t waves from the great 1994 bolivian deep earthquake in relation to channeling of s wave energy up the slab we report the observation of t phases recorded at a number of pacific island sites following the great bolivian deep earthquake of june 9 1994 by studying their arrival times at the various stations we unravel the process of conversion from seismic to acoustic energy at the south american coastline we find that the maxima of amplitude of the phase are incompatible with propagation along the great circle from source to receiver but rather require the generation of the acoustic wave at a common point at the arica bight for all stations in the south pacific and even farther south for stations in hawaii and the bonin islands the timing of these conversions corresponds to the arrival of regional s waves at the conversion points the high frequency nature of the t phase requires the channeling of the s wave from the seismic source to conversion point through low attenuation material which in turns adds supportive evidence for the mechanical continuity of the downgoing slab under that section of south america despite the observed gap in seismicity between 300 and 600 km

rupture processes of large deep focus earthquakes from inversion of moment rate functions we determine the source time histories of five recent 1994 1996 large deep focus earthquakes using a method that inverts for fault slip from far field moment rate functions the moment rate functions are obtained through the deconvolution of multiple body wave phases using broadband records from global seismic network gsn and geoscope stations tests of this method on synthetic data indicate that it is successful in determining the low frequency rupture characteristics of deep earthquakes under a variety of complicating conditions we find that source parameters such as average rupture velocity and stress drop are highly variable among the events studied and that some unusual characteristics exhibited by the june 9 1994 great bolivian earthquake are also found for other events comparison of the slip distributions with background seismicity and aftershock locations indicates that most of the moment release for large deep focus earthquakes is probably occurring within the active slab interior this provides further evidence that temperature controlled mechanisms such as transformational faulting play a large role in deep earthquake faulting most of the events studied also show a tendency for horizontal rupture propagation suggesting that isobaric processes may be an important factor in controlling progression of the rupture large gaps in the slip distributions point to possible occurrence on multiple fault planes

source retrieval for mantle earthquakes by iterative deconvolution of long period p waves abstract long period p waves of eighteen deep and intermediate depth earthquakes in a moment range 1 10 26 3 10 28 dyn cm are analysed by the method of kikuchi and fukao this issue to iteratively derive point dislocations on a plane the fault plane is defined as the plane of point dislocations that gives the best fit between the synthetic and observed waveforms for dip slip type earthquakes the fault plane is found to dip more steeply than the auxiliary plane in general point dislocations tend to cluster into one or a few subevents we characterize the largest subevent by its maximum moment rate m 0 m and its half duration from which the associated stress drop can be roughly estimated for earthquakes shallower than 400 km half duration is approximately constant 5 s so that stress drop increases from 1000 bar as m 0 m increases the value of for the great banda sea earthquake of 1963 h 100 km is exceptionally large 10 s for which 700 bar for earthquakes deeper than 400 km increases from 3 s to 9 s as m 0 m increases so that is approximately constant 700 bar stress drop so obtained approximates to an overall stress drop with a possible exception of the several largest earthquakes the distribution of point dislocations and the moment rate function indicate that rupture most often expands in a fan shaped fault area and that a large part of the rupture front ceases propagation in a coherent manner a sharp contrast in stress drop behavior across a depth of 400 km may be related to the olivine spinel transition within the downgoing slab of lithosphere

implications of spatial and temporal development of the aftershock sequence for the mw 8 3 june 9 1994 deep bolivian earthquake on june 9 1994 the mw 8 3 bolivia earthquake 636 km depth occurred in a region which had not experienced significant deep seismicity for at least 30 years the mainshock and aftershocks were recorded in bolivia on the banjo and seda broadband seismic arrays and on the san calixto network we used the joint hypocenter determination method to determine the relative location of the aftershocks we have identified no foreshocks and 89 aftershocks m 2 2 for the 20 day period following the mainshock the frequency of aftershock occurrence decreased rapidly with only one or two aftershocks per day occuring after day two the temporal decay of aftershock activity is similar to shallow aftershock sequences but the number of aftershocks is two orders of magnitude less additionally a mb 6 apparently triggered earthquake occurred just 10 minutes after the mainshock about 330 km east southeast of the mainshock at a depth of 671 km the aftershock sequence occurred north and east of the mainshock and extends to a depth of 665 km the aftershocks define a slab striking n68 w and dipping 45 ne the strike dip and location of the aftershock zone are consistent with this seismicity being confined within the downward extension of the subducted nazca plate the location and orientation of the aftershock sequence indicate that the subducted nazca plate bends between the nnw striking zone of deep seismicity in western brazil and the n s striking zone of seismicity in central bolivia a tear in the deep slab is not necessitated by the data a subset of the aftershock hypocenters cluster along a subhorizontal plane near the depth of the mainshock favoring a horizontal fault plane the horizontal dimensions of the mainshock beck et al this issue silver et al 1995 and slab defined by the aftershocks are approximately equal indicating that the mainshock ruptured through the slab

the mechanism of the deep bolivia earthquake of june 9 1994 we analyzed the iris broad band seismograms for the june 9 1994 bolivia earthquake the largest deep focus earthquake ever recorded we inverted the record sections with a duration of 330 sec which include p pp and sp phases and obtained a dip slip mechanism dip rake strike 13 4 1 or 89 103 95 with a scalar moment of mo 2 9 10 21 nm mw 8 2 this mechanism is similar to that obtained from long period 175 to 250 sec rayleigh and love waves 83 100 90 mo 3 0 10 21 nm mw 8 3 the main rupture was preceded by about 10 sec by a cluster of smaller events with a total moment of 1 2 10 20 nm mw 7 3 the main rupture starts at about 20 km east or northeast of the initial break and propagates horizontally in the east to northeast direction the source duration is 40 sec and the rupture dimension is about 40km if a fault area of 40 40km is assumed the stress drop is 110 mpa an inversion of body waves p pp and sp with 6 basis moment tensors yielded a best fit solution with a 10 implosive component this result is of marginal significance and its confirmation would require more detailed information on the structures near the source region pp bounce points and stations the observed amplitude of the radial mode 0s 0 1226 sec is consistent with a double couple model with less than 2 isotropic component

seismic evidence for continuity of the deep slab beneath central and eastern peru seismograms of peru brazil deep focus earthquakes recorded on the nearby carnegie broadband station at cuzco peru cus are characterized by an anomalous large amplitude p wave arrival that follows about 1 5 s after direct p the anomalous arrival is interpreted to be an underside wide angle reflection from the upper surface of the descending nazca plate somewhere in the depth range 150 400 km and in a region where the slab is wholly aseismic particle motion analysis of the cus seismograms shows that the direct p wave has arrival angles as predicted from simple ray tracing the large impulsive anomalous phase termed pr also arrives as a p wave but is of opposite polarity and about 1 5 times the amplitude of the direct p arrival the back azimuth of pr is about 20 clockwise from the path of direct p and its angle of emergence is significantly larger forward modeling calculations indicate that the seismic observations are consistent with a model in which pr originates as a p wave that travels up inside the slab from the source and is then reflected at wide angle from the steeply dipping upper plate boundary results from modeling lead to the following conclusions 1 the descending nazca plate exists in and is probably continuous through the aseismic region between 150 and 500 km depth 2 the plate is very steeply dipping 70 below depths of about 150 or 200 km and 3 the velocity discontinuity at the reflection point must be relatively sharp probably less than about 10 km in thickness

u pb geochronology of the bokan mountain peralkaline granite southeastern alaska the bokan mountain arfvedsonite aegirine granite is the only peralkaline acid intrusion actually known on the margin of the canadian cordillera it is the end product of a peralkaline magmatic evolution and is characterized by genetically associated concentrations of u and th the u pb method on zircons has been used to date two samples one from a barren peralkaline granite and one from a low grade u th mineralized albitite a typological study has revealed two genetically different populations of zircons in the barren granite the upper intercept age of 171 5 ma obtained on a concordia diagram dates the emplacement of the peralkaline granite acid wash experiments on zircons have allowed us to remove important quantities of common lead this point is discussed as well as the abnormally low pb content of the feldspar extracted from the barren granite a jurassic period of magmatic activity must be integrated into the geological history of prince of wales island peralkaline magmatism may have occurred w

effect of slab temperature on deep earthquake aftershock productivity and magnitude frequency relations deep earthquakes generally show fewer aftershocks and a larger variability in magnitude frequency relations than shallow earthquakes1 5 these characteristics and the factors that control them may place constraints on the mechanism of deep earthquakes which is still uncertain6 8 here we show that systematic variations in aftershock productivity and magnitude frequency relations are related to the temperature of the downgoing slab as inferred from the vertical velocity and age of the subducting lithosphere deep earthquakes with substantial aftershock sequences are found only in colder slabs and earthquakes in warmer slabs consistently show few aftershocks magnitude frequency relations for deep earthquakes also show systematic variations as a function of slab thermal structure with warmer slabs showing fewer small earthquakes lower b values the statistical properties of deep earthquakes thus appear to be temperature sensitive to an extent not observed for shallow earthquakes and not adequately explained by simple geometrical limitations on fault width

quaternary geology of part of the mcleod lake map area nts 093j central british columbia lithostratigraphy glacial history and chronology the coalescence and subsequent divergence of glaciers near the mcleod lake map area during the last fraser glaciation are recorded by landforms ice flow indicators and the distribution of sediments ice initially flowed into the study area from the northwest with at least one fluctuation in the ice front position ice flow during glacial maximum was generally to the northeast and transitioned to the east during deglaciation the quaternary stratigraphic record spans the fraser glaciation and is represented by a sequence of advance glaciolacustrine sediments multiple till units retreat glaciolacustrine and glaciofluvial sediments and associated postglacial aeolian material the surficial geology is dominated by thick streamlined till that thins where relief is high glaciofluvial outwash occurs mostly in northeast and southeast trending meltwater channels while ice contact glaciofluvial deposits and ablation till occur in depressions throughout the region extensive glaciolacustrine deposits bla

attenuation of short period p pcp scp and pp waves in the earth s mantle the parameter t ratio of body wave travel time to the average quality factor q was estimated under various assumptions of the nature of the earthquake sources for short period p pcp and scp phases originating from earthquakes in the fiji tonga region and recorded at the warramunga seismic array at tennant creek northern territory australia spectral ratios were calculated for the amplitudes of pcp to p and of pp to p the data reveal a laterally varying q structure in the fiji tonga region the high q lithosphere descending beneath the tonga island arc is overlain above 350 km depth by a wedgelike zone of high attenuation with an average q between 120 and 200 at short periods the upper mantle farther to the west of the tonga island arc is less attenuating with q between 370 and 560 q is about 500 in the upper mantle on the oceanic side of the subduction zone the t estimates of this study are much smaller than estimates from the free oscillation model sl8 this can be partly explained by regional variations of q in the upper mantle if no lateral q variations occur in the lower mantle a frequency dependent q can make the pcp and sep observations consistent with model sl8 adopting the absorption band model to describe the frequency dependence of q the parameter 2 the cut off period at the high frequency end of the absorption band was determined for different source models with finite corner frequencies the average 2 for the mantle is between 0 01 and 0 10 s corresponding to frequencies between 16 and 1 6 hz as derived from the pcp data and between 0 06 and 0 12 s 2 7 and 1 3 hz as derived from the scp data

shear instability in a viscoelastic material as the cause of deep focus earthquakes the mechanism of deep focus earthquakes has been examined by numerical and linear analysis of shear instability in subducting slabs we assume subducting slabs deform such that the spatially averaged strain rate becomes time independent furthermore we assume that rheology depends on temperature in the manner of an activation process using this model we investigate quantitatively the conditions under which shear instability takes place i e the deformation in the material concentrates in a thin layer whose temperature increases explosively until melting occurs first we study instability in a material whose rheological properties are spatially homogeneous shear instability takes place in a homogeneous material when exceeds a certain critical level e c which depends strongly on the stress in the slabs but does not depend on the detail of the creep law the value of the activation energy next we study instability in a material that contains shear zones similar to those often observed by field geologists i e a thin layer made of material with lower vicosity than the surrounding region we find that shear zones trigger shear instability even for the case of provided that g the ratio of characteristic time of thermal diffusion to that of shear heating in shear zones exceeds 1 and that f the ratio of stiffness of elastic deformation in the surrounding region to that of ductile deformation in shear zones becomes lower than 1 applying this condition to subducting slabs with shear zones we find that shear zones trigger shear instability even when the average strain rate is lower than by an order of magnitude from these results and from an estimate of in subducting slabs we conclude that shear instability is a mechanism likely to induce deep focus earthquakes

subduction of the eastern panama basin and seismotectonics of northwestern south america spreading along the cocos nazca plate boundary since the breakup of the farallon plate in the miocene has resulted in the formation of the panama basin and a complex interaction of plates in and near northwestern south america current plate boundaries have been defined and segments of subducted lithosphere identified through selection of hypocentral locations of earthquakes considering only well located events and through focal mechanism determinations the existence of relict plate boundaries bathymetric features and the panamanian isthmus has affected the subduction process of the nazca plate beneath south america and determined the present day configuration of the subducting lithospheric plate there is no single triple junction separating the caribbean south american and nazca plates instead the panamanian isthmus and surrounding areas are accommodating east west compression and a lesser degree of north south compression along a series of thrust faults striking nw to ne and the andean ranges of ecuador colombia and venezeula are moving as a block nne relative to the rest of the south american plates along a system of faults following the front of the eastern cordillera the subducted portions of the panama basin and old farallon plate have become segmented into three pieces recognized in this study from north to south they are 1 a bucaramanga segment continuous with the caribbean seafloor northwest of colombia 2 a cauca segment continuous with oceanic crust nazca plate currently being subducted beneath south america at the colombia ecuador trench and 3 an ecuador segment at the northern end of the subducted lithospheric plate which is dipping at a small angle to the east beneath northern peru the segmentation of the subducted plate can be explained by the buoyancy of bathymetric features which have been partially subducted

plastic instabilities implications for the origin of intermediate and deep focus earthquakes adiabatic or catastrophic plastic shear has been reported in metals polymers and metallic glasses the phenomenon is associated with rapid stress drops and audible pings or clicks as the material deforms in a plastic manner the driving force for the plastic instability is the stored elastic strain energy of the loading system and in many respects the behavior is reminiscent of the shear stress response arising from stick slip events during unstable frictional sliding although the precise mechanism is different it is shown here that adiabatic plastic shear is capable of explaining the detailed distribution of intermediate and deep focus earthquakes within subduction zones the earthquake events being the result of instabilities in material undergoing plastic flow it is argued that for a particular strain rate there exists a critical temperature tc which is depth dependent for temperatures below tc the material is strain rate softening and for a soft enough loading system may undergo catastrophic plastic shear for temperatures above tc the material is strain rate hardening and is always stable during plastic shear the cutoff depth for deep focus earthquakes then corresponds to the transition from strain rate softening to strain rate hardening material and for commonly accepted geothermal gradients within the slab corresponds to approximately 800 km the precise distribution of earthquakes within the slab is a function of the subtle interplay between the geothermal gradient and the tc gradient in particular a decrease in seismic activity is to be expected below about 300 km in the slab with total stress drops decreasing from a maximum of 700 mpa above 300 km to a maximum of 50 mpa below 300 km the differences in foci distribution between subduction zones such as tonga new hebrides and peru result from minor differences in the geothermal gradients within the slabs the model predicts the development of triple seismic zones high in the slab double seismic zones down to approximately 300 km and single seismic zones down to 800 km such a distribution is to be expected of relatively young cool slabs as the slab heats up the seismic activity retreats up the slab the paper only proposes a deformation mechanism for earthquake generation it does not address the stress field within the slab but only the distribution of strength thus the distribution of focal plane mechanisms is not considered only the locations where earthquakes due to plastic instabilities are possible the absence of earthquakes does not necessarily mean that the slab does not exist it only means that the slab is too hot to undergo plastic instability this means that aseismic subduction is a distinct possibility in many regions of high geothermal gradient within the slab i e circa 3 c km 1