strong shaking in los angeles expected from southern san andreas earthquake 1 the southernmost san andreas fault has a high probability of rupturing in a large greater than magnitude 7 5 earthquake sometime during the next few decades new simulations show that the chain of sedimentary basins between san bernardino and downtown los angeles form an effective waveguide that channels love waves along the southern edge of the san bernardino and san gabriel mountains earthquake scenarios with northward rupture in which the guided wave is efficiently excited produce unusually high long period ground motions over much of the greater los angeles region including intense localized amplitude modulations arising from variations in waveguide cross section

stress transfer between thirteen successive dyke intrusions in ethiopia large earthquakes are known to trigger subsequent earthquakes in nearby regions but similar triggering has not been confirmed for volcanic hazards analysis of the progressive deformation associated with 13 volcanic dykes intruded in ethiopia between 2005 and 2009 indicates that magmatic intrusions can help to trigger subsequent intrusions

the frictional hydrologic metamorphic and thermal habitat of shallow slow earthquakes slow earthquakes have recently been discovered on the shallow parts of some subduction zones a review of the conditions under which these quakes form reveals that they could be common in most subduction zones globally

seismic velocities from the barbados ridge complex indicators of high pore fluid pressures in an accretionary complex three wide aperture 0 5 km offset seismic profiles were shot perpendicular to the strike of the barbados ridge accretionary complex at 16 12 n line 465 14 23 n line 480 and 13 20 n line 484 to image the deep structure of the accretionary complex and obtain seismic velocity data velocity analyses on full fold common depth point cdp gathers were used to provide velocity depth functions at 1 km separation along each line to map the variation in velocity with depth and distance across the accretionary complex the sediments within the complex show consolidation increasing laterally with greater age of the complex as indicated by the increase in seismic velocity and the inferred decrease in porosity the velocity at the base of the wedge along line 480 is 2 4 km s at the toe the velocity at the wedge base at 60 km from the toe where the wedge thickness has increased from 1 8 km to 5 0 km has increased to greater than 3 0 km s however the velocities within the leading margins and within undeithrust sequences in each of the three sections are low as much as 1 0 km s less than velocities found in undeformed sedimentary sequences of equivalent thickness the low velocity regions are interpreted as sediments with high porosity where porosity is inferred to be high pore fluid pressures are also inferred to exceed hydrostatic and pore fluids actually support the increased lithostatic load produced by recent thrusting and thickening of the complex the correlation between the most rapidly thickened regions and the velocity anomalies suggests that a rapid rate of loading relative to the rate of pore fluid expulsion produced these overpressured sediments velocities in the underthrust sequences where the differences between loading histories of wedge sediments and the underthrust sequences are largest are sufficiently low to produce velocity inversions low velocities also occur in regions adjacent to the complex where the pore fluid pressures may be elevated by the pressure produced in the adjacent wedge west of the wedge in the forearc basin along line 480 and near a seismically imaged mud diapir velocities at a depth of 3 5 km below the seafloor are 0 5 km s less than what is expected in a more normal sedimentary section immediately seaward of the complex the deepest undeformed sequences have a velocity anomaly of 0 5 km s velocities remain low for at least 12 km seaward of the complex but they become closer to a more normal sediment section farther from the wedge

propagation of slow slip leading up to the 2011 mw 9 0 tohoku oki earthquake many large earthquakes are preceded by one or more foreshocks but it is unclear how these foreshocks relate to the nucleation process of the mainshock on the basis of an earthquake catalog created using a waveform correlation technique we identified two distinct sequences of foreshocks migrating at rates of 2 to 10 kilometers per day along the trench axis toward the epicenter of the 2011 moment magnitude mw 9 0 tohoku oki earthquake in japan the time history of quasi static slip along the plate interface based on small repeating earthquakes that were part of the migrating seismicity suggests that two sequences involved slow slip transients propagating toward the initial rupture point the second sequence which involved large slip rates may have caused substantial stress loading prompting the unstable dynamic rupture of the mainshock

large scale dynamic triggering of shallow slow slip enhanced by overlying sedimentary wedge seismic waves can trigger further fault slip analysis of seismic and geodetic data shows that seismic waves from the 2016 kaik ura new zealand earthquake were amplified by subduction zone sediments triggering slow fault slip up to 600 km away

time dependent inversion of three component continuous gps for steady and transient sources in northern cascadia 1 an approach to invert gps time series to estimate crustal block rotations fault locking and strain rates while simultaneously solving for transient slow slip events is described and applied to the northern cascadia subduction zone the method can use continuous or survey mode gps time series or both i invert 5 6 years of 3 component continuous gps time series at 53 sites from cascadia to estimate simultaneously the block motions and strains locking on the subduction zone and source parameters of the four most recent slow slip events over the time period and section of the cascadia margin sampled the strain released in slow slip was 7 to 10 of the accumulated subduction strain but at the base of and immediately downdip of the locked zone beneath the olympic peninsula

recurring and triggered slow slip events near the trench at the nankai trough subduction megathrust the discovery of slow earthquakes has revolutionized the field of earthquake seismology defining the locations of these events and the conditions that favor their occurrence provides important insights into the slip behavior of tectonic faults we report on a family of recurring slow slip events sses on the plate interface immediately seaward of repeated historical moment magnitude mw 8 earthquake rupture areas offshore of japan the sses continue for days to several weeks include both spontaneous and triggered slip recur every 8 to 15 months and are accompanied by swarms of low frequency tremors we can explain the sses with 1 to 4 centimeters of slip along the megathrust centered 25 to 35 kilometers km from the trench 4 to 10 km depth the sses accommodate 30 to 55 of the plate motion indicating frequent release of accumulated strain near the trench

triggering of the 2014 mw7 3 papanoa earthquake by a slow slip event in guerrero mexico since their discovery two decades ago slow slip events have been shown to play an important role in accommodating strain in subduction zones however the physical mechanisms that generate slow slip and the relationships with earthquakes are unclear slow slip events have been recorded in the guerrero segment of the cocos north america subduction zone here we use inversion of position time series recorded by a continuous gps network to reconstruct the evolution of aseismic slip on the subduction interface of the guerrero segment we find that a slow slip event began in february 2014 two months before the magnitude m w 7 3 papanoa earthquake on 18 april the slow slip event initiated in a region adjacent to the earthquake hypocentre and extended into the vicinity of the seismogenic zone this spatio temporal proximity strongly suggests that the papanoa earthquake was triggered by the ongoing slow slip event we demonstrate that the triggering mechanism could be either static stress increases in the hypocentral region as revealed by coulomb stress modelling or enhanced weakening of the earthquake hypocentral area by the slow slip we also show that the plate interface in the guerrero area is highly coupled between slow slip events and that most of the accumulated strain is released aseismically during the slow slip episodes

time dependent modeling of slow slip events and associated seismicity and tremor at the hikurangi subduction zone new zealand we present a time dependent slip model of 12 slow slip events sses occurring in the hikurangi margin of new zealand during 2010 and 2011 this model is obtained by inverting daily gps solutions from geonet s continuous gps network on the north island and northern south island we compare the properties of these sses to observations in japan cascadia and mexico and find that hikurangi sses have comparatively large amounts of slip up to 27 cm high slip rates up to 1 4 cm d and a large range of depths 10 40 km durations 7 270 days and sizes mw 5 9 6 9 we further investigate the relationship between the cape turnagain sse and an associated seismic swarm and find that observations are consistent with stress triggering outside the slowly slipping region however other explanations cannot be ruled out we also compare slip during the long term manawatu sse with the tremor epicenters found by ide 2012 and note that tremor locations are offset in the downdip direction relative to the slipping region similar to observations in the bungo channel of japan and guerrero mexico

intense foreshocks and a slow slip event preceded the 2014 iquique mw 8 1 earthquake the subduction zone in northern chile is a well identified seismic gap that last ruptured in 1877 the moment magnitude mw 8 1 iquique earthquake of 1 april 2014 broke a highly coupled portion of this gap to understand the seismicity preceding this event we studied the location and mechanisms of the foreshocks and computed global positioning system gps time series at stations located on shore seismicity off the coast of iquique started to increase in january 2014 after 16 march several mw 6 events occurred near the low coupled zone these events migrated northward for 50 kilometers until the 1 april earthquake occurred on 16 march on shore continuous gps stations detected a westward motion that we model as a slow slip event situated in the same area where the mainshock occurred

a slow thrust slip event following the two 1996 hyuganada earthquakes beneath the bungo channel southwest japan we report a slow thrust slip event that occurred beneath the bungo channel region southwestern japan on oct and dec 1996 two hyuganada earthquakes both mw 6 7 followed by afterslips occurred in addition a crustal movement characterized by an extremely slow rise was observed around the bungo channel about 200 km north from the epicenters and continued for about 300 days long assuming a slow slip on the plate boundary we estimate its duration and surface displacements from gps time series data by curve fitting and then determine the fault slip distribution we found that a slow slip without any earthquakes continued for nearly one year and released the seismic moment comparable to that of the hyuganada earthquakes occurrence of the slow thrust slip event suggests that this kind of event may be a characteristic mode of stress release at a transition region of interplate coupling

spatial and temporal evolution of stress and slip rate during the 2000 tokai slow earthquake 1 we investigate an ongoing silent thrust event in the tokai seismic gap along the suruga nankai trough central japan prior to the event continuous gps data from april 1996 to the end of 1999 show that this region displaced 2 cm yr to the northwest relative to the landward plate the gps time series show an abrupt change in rate in mid june 2000 that continues as of mid 2005 we model this transient deformation which we refer to as the tokai slow thrust slip event as caused by slip on the interface between the philippine sea and amurian plates the spatial and temporal distribution of slip rate is estimated with kalman filter based inversion methods our inversions reveal two slow subevents the first initiated in late june 2000 slightly before the miyake jima eruption the locus of slip then propagated southeast in the second half of 2000 with maximum slip rates of about 15 cm yr through 2001 a second locus of slip initiated to the northeast in early 2001 the depth of the slip zone is about 25 km which may correspond to the transition zone from a seismogenic to a freely sliding zone the cumulative moment magnitude of the slow slip event up to november 2002 is mw 6 8 we calculate shear stress changes on the plate interface from the slip histories stress change as a function of slip rate shows trajectories similar to that inferred for high speed ruptures however the maximum velocity is 8 orders of magnitude less than in normal earthquakes

waveform tomography imaging of a megasplay fault system in the seismogenic nankai subduction zone abstract we apply frequency domain waveform tomography to form quantitative high resolution p wave velocity images of a megasplay fault system within the central nankai subduction zone offshore of southwest japan using controlled source ocean bottom seismometer obs data originally acquired in 2004 the waveform tomography method exploits recorded seismic waveforms beyond their first arrivals and thus achieves a much higher resolution of the order of a wavelength than that of conventional traveltime tomography methods frequency domain waveform tomography facilitates a multi scale approach to stabilize the inversion in which initial traveltime tomography results are sequentially improved on by first fitting low frequency components of the seismic records starting at 2 25 hz higher frequency components up to 8 5 hz are then introduced progressively our final waveform tomography image allows velocity anomalies as small as 700 m horizontally and 350 m vertically to be discerned and interpreted as confirmed by checkerboard modeling tests the improved explanatory power of the final images is verified by observing that synthetic waveforms calculated from the final results yield much better fit to the observed waveforms than those estimated from the original traveltime tomography image apparent lithological boundaries from waveform tomography agree well with corresponding reflections on seismic migration images providing further confidence in the validity of the results the megasplay fault is evident on the final waveform tomography image as a sharp velocity discontinuity delineating the upper surface of a velocity reduction of nearly 1 km s with respect to the regional 1d velocity trend the megasplay fault can be traced continuously throughout the entire image from a nearly horizontal section at the landward extent moving seaward through to a steeper angle penetrating the old accretionary prisms with several additional splays appearing to branch in the shallow subsurface the location of the low velocity zones imaged by our waveform tomography method coincides with two previously identified low velocity zones the image reveals a low velocity zone that is continuous from deeper to shallower portions of the subsurface suggesting that pore fluids may be transported from the inner wedge to the transition zone and to the surface through fluid conduits associated with the megasplay fault system

a slow slip event triggered by teleseismic surface waves 1 in recent years slow slip events sse have been observed to occur at regular intervals on the deep portions of subduction zone interfaces these are accompanied by seismic tremor that occurs over their duration it has been observed that tremor activity shows transient modulations in response to earth tides and the passage of seismic waves from distant earthquakes here we show for the first time geodetic evidence for the triggering of an interplate sse itself by teleseismic surface waves this sse in southwest japan which had an equivalent magnitude mw 5 3 and duration of 1 5 days was triggered by the surface waves of a mw 7 6 earthquake in tonga this evidence was captured by a newly deployed sensitive strainmeter network the triggered sse occurred on a place on the plate interface where the recurrence time for such events had almost expired whereas other regions at up to 90 of the recurrence time were not triggered this provides information for the conditions for triggering and generation of sses and perhaps for regular earthquakes

slow earthquakes and nonvolcanic tremor nonvolcanic tremor is observed in close association with geodetically observed slow slip events in subduction zones accumulating evidence points to these events as members of a family of slow earthquakes that occur as shear slip on the downdip extensions of fault zones in a regime that is transitional between a frictionally locked region above and a freely slipping region below by virtue of their locations and their properties slow earthquakes are certain to provide new insights into the behavior of earthquakes and faulting and into the hazard they embody

seismic wave triggering of nonvolcanic tremor episodic tremor and slip and earthquakes on vancouver island 1 we explore the physical conditions that enable triggering of nonvolcanic tremor and earthquakes by considering local seismic activity on vancouver island british columbia during and immediately after the arrival of large amplitude seismic waves from 30 teleseismic and 17 regional or local earthquakes we identify tremor triggered by four of the teleseismic earthquakes the close temporal and spatial proximity of triggered tremor to ambient tremor and aseismic slip indicates that when a fault is close to or undergoing failure it is particularly susceptible to triggering of further events the amplitude of the triggering waves also influences the likelihood of triggering both tremor and earthquakes such that large amplitude waves triggered tremor in the absence of detectable aseismic slip or ambient tremor tremor and energy radiated from regional local earthquakes share the same frequency passband so that tremor cannot be identified during these smaller more frequent events we confidently identify triggered local earthquakes following only one teleseism that with the largest amplitude and four regional or local events that generated vigorous aftershock sequences in their immediate vicinity earthquakes tend to be triggered in regions different from tremor and with high ambient seismicity rates we also note an interesting possible correlation between large teleseismic events and episodic tremor and slip ets episodes whereby ets events that are late and have built up more stress than normal are susceptible to triggering by the slight nudge of the shaking from a large distant event while ets events that are early or on time are not

dual megathrust slip behaviors of the 2014 iquique earthquake sequence the transition between seismic rupture and aseismic creep is of central interest to better understand the mechanics of subduction processes a mw 8 2 earthquake occurred on april 1st 2014 in the iquique seismic gap of northern chile this event was preceded by a long foreshock sequence including a 2 week long migration of seismicity initiated by a mw 6 7 earthquake repeating earthquakes were found among the foreshock sequence that migrated towards the mainshock hypocenter suggesting a large scale slow slip event on the megathrust preceding the mainshock the variations of the recurrence times of the repeating earthquakes highlight the diverse seismic and aseismic slip behaviors on different megathrust segments the repeaters that were active only before the mainshock recurred more often and were distributed in areas of substantial coseismic slip while repeaters that occurred both before and after the mainshock were in the area complementary to the mainshock rupture the spatiotemporal distribution of the repeating earthquakes illustrates the essential role of propagating aseismic slip leading up to the mainshock and illuminates the distribution of postseismic afterslip various finite fault models indicate that the largest coseismic slip generally occurred down dip from the foreshock activity and the mainshock hypocenter source imaging by teleseismic back projection indicates an initial down dip propagation stage followed by a rupture expansion stage in the first stage the finite fault models show an emergent onset of moment rate at low frequency 0 5 hz 0 5 hz this indicates frequency dependent manifestations of seismic radiation in the low stress foreshock region in the second stage the rupture expands in rich bursts along the rim of a semi elliptical region with episodes of re ruptures suggesting delayed failure of asperities the high frequency rupture remains within an area of local high trench parallel gravity anomaly tpga suggesting the presence of subducting seamounts that promote high frequency generation our results highlight the complexity of the interactions between large scale aseismic slow slip and dynamic ruptures of megathrust earthquakes

fault interactions and triggering during the 10 january 2012 mw 7 2 sumatra earthquake the 10 january 2012 mw 7 2 sumatra earthquake in the wharton basin occurred 3 months before the great mw 8 6 and mw 8 2 earthquakes in the same region which had complex ruptures and are the largest strike slip earthquakes ever recorded teleseismic p wave back projection of the mw 7 2 earthquake images a unilateral rupture lasting 40 s without observable frequency dependency low frequency 0 05 0 3 hz high frequency 0 3 1 hz in addition to radiation bursts during the mw 7 2 main shock coherent energy releases from 50 to 75 s and from 100 to 125 s are observed about 143 km northeast of the main shock rupture and landward of the trench analysis of globally recorded p waves in both 0 02 0 05 hz velocity records and 1 5 hz stacked envelope functions confirms the presence of coherent sources during the time windows the observed energy bursts are likely to be large early aftershocks occurring on or near the subduction interface both dynamic and static triggering could have induced these early aftershocks as they initiated after the surface wave passed by and the coulomb stress perturbations from the mw 7 2 main shock promote earthquakes in the observed locations the earthquake sequence is a clear example of a seaward intraplate strike slip earthquake triggering landward intraplate earthquakes in the same region in contrast to previously reported normal reverse or reverse normal interactions at subduction zones

complex multifault rupture during the 2016 mw 7 8 kaikōura earthquake new zealand the 2016 moment magnitude m w 7 8 kaik ura earthquake was one of the largest ever to hit new zealand hamling et al show with a new slip model that it was an incredibly complex event unlike most earthquakes multiple faults ruptured to generate the ground shaking a remarkable 12 faults ruptured overall with the rupture jumping between faults located up to 15 km away from each other the earthquake should motivate rethinking of certain seismic hazard models which do not presently allow for this unusual complex rupture pattern science this issue p eaam7194 1 1 lookup doi 10 1126 science aam7194

high pore fluid pressure may cause silent slip in the nankai trough silent slip events have been detected at several subduction zones but the cause of these events is unknown using seismic imaging we detected a cause of the tokai silent slip which occurred at a presumed fault zone of a great earthquake the seismic image that we obtained shows a zone of high pore fluid pressure in the subducted oceanic crust located down dip of a subducted ridge we propose that these structures effectively extend a region of conditionally stable slips and consequently generate the silent slip

triggering of tremors and slow slip event in guerrero mexico by the 2010 mw 8 8 maule chile earthquake 1 we investigate the triggering of seismic tremor and slow slip event in guerrero mexico by the february 27 2010 maule earthquake mw 8 8 triggered tremors start with the arrival of s wave generated by the maule earthquake and keep occurring during the passing of scs ss love and rayleigh waves the rayleigh wave dispersion curve footprints the high frequency energy envelope of the triggered tremor indicating a strong modulation of the source of tremors by the passing surface wave this correlation and modulation by the passing waves is progressively lost with time over a few hours the tremor activity continues during the weeks months after the earthquake gps time series suggest that the second sub event of the 2009 2010 sse in guerrero is actually triggered by the maule earthquake the southward displacement of the gps stations starts coincidently with the earthquake and tremors the long duration of tremors indicate a continuing deformation process at depth which we propose to be the second sub event of the 2009 2010 sse we show a quasi systematic correlation between surface displacement rate measured by gps and tremor activity suggesting that the nvt are controlled by the variations in the slip history of the sse this study shows that two types of tremors emerge 1 those directly triggered by the passing waves and 2 those triggered by the stress variations associated with slow slip this indicates the prominent role of aseismic creep in the mexican subduction zone response to a large teleseismic earthquake possibly leading to large scale stress redistribution

diverse slow slip behavior at the hikurangi subduction margin new zealand 1 the installation of a continuous gps cgps network in new zealand since 2002 has enabled the discovery of 15 slow slip events at the hikurangi subduction margin our analysis and interpretation of the cgps data reveal a marked diversity in characteristics of slow slip events sses in the north island with durations varying from 6 days to 1 5 years equivalent moment release between mw 6 3 7 2 and recurrence intervals of repeating sses on the order of 2 years to more than 5 years the duration and magnitude characteristics of hikurangi sses appear to be related to the depth where they occur the deepest longest duration and largest sses occur at the southern hikurangi margin near the downdip limit of deep down to 40 km depth strong interseismic coupling the shallowest shortest duration smallest and most frequent sses occur at the northern and central hikurangi margin near the downdip limit of unusually shallow 10 15 km depth interseismic coupling the direction of slip on the interface in the hikurangi sses is consistent with slip partitioning at the hikurangi subduction margin we also show that moment accumulation rates on the interface for the time periods between sses are 40 higher than for the period of more than a decade averaging through the sses indicating that sses compose a major portion of the overall moment release budget of the hikurangi subduction interface

an integrated perspective of the continuum between earthquakes and slow slip phenomena slow slip a mechanism by which faults can relieve stress was thought to be distinct from earthquakes however a global review of slow slip phenomena suggests that instead there is a continuum between the two types of event

episodic slow slip events in the japan subduction zone before the 2011 tohoku oki earthquake abstract we describe two transient slow slip events that occurred before the 2011 tohoku oki earthquake the first transient crustal deformation which occurred over a period of a week in november 2008 was recorded simultaneously using ocean bottom pressure gauges and an on shore volumetric strainmeter this deformation has been interpreted as being an m6 8 episodic slow slip event the second had a duration exceeding 1 month and was observed in february 2011 just before the 2011 tohoku oki earthquake the moment magnitude of this event reached 7 0 the two events preceded interplate earthquakes of magnitudes m6 1 december 2008 and m7 3 march 9 2011 respectively the latter is the largest foreshock of the 2011 tohoku oki earthquake our findings indicate that these slow slip events induced increases in shear stress which in turn triggered the interplate earthquakes the slow slip event source area on the fault is also located within the downdip portion of the huge coseismic slip area of the 2011 earthquake this demonstrates episodic slow slip and seismic behavior occurring on the same portions of the megathrust fault suggesting that the faults undergo slip in slow slip events can also rupture seismically

non volcanic tremor beneath the central range in taiwan triggered by the 2001 mw 7 8 kunlun earthquake summary non volcanic tremor nvt is an extended duration and non impulsive seismic signal observed away from volcanic regions although nvt has been found along the circum pacific subduction zones and the transform plate boundary in california it is not clear whether nvt occurs in other tectonic environments nvt is often associated with slow slip events and can be triggered instantaneously during the surface waves of teleseismic events however the underlying mechanisms of tremor generation remain mysterious here we show clear evidence of nvt beneath the central range cr in taiwan triggered by the 2001 m w 7 8 kunlun earthquake in northern tibet tremor occurs when the love wave displacement is to the southwest the lateral motion direction for the cr suggesting a simple frictional response to the driving force we hypothesize that tremor occurred on the weak basal detachment fault beneath the cr our observations indicate that tremor may exist at a wide range of active tectonic environments

slow slip events and the 2016 te araroa mw 7 1 earthquake interaction northern hikurangi subduction new zealand following a sequence of three slow slip events sses on the northern hikurangi margin between june 2015 and august 2016 a mw 7 1 earthquake struck 30 km offshore of the east cape region in the north island of new zealand on the 2nd september 2016 nz local time the earthquake was also followed by a transient deformation event sse or afterslip northeast of the north island closer to the earthquake source area we use data from new zealand s continuous global positioning system cgps networks to invert for the sse slip distribution and evolution on the hikurangi subduction interface our slip inversion results show an increasing amplitude of the slow slip towards the te araroa earthquake foreshock and mainshock area suggesting a possible triggering of the mw 7 1 earthquake by the later stage of the slow slip sequence we also show that the transient deformation following the te araroa earthquake ruptured a portion of the hikurangi trench northeast of the north island further north than any previously observed hikurangi margin sses our slip inversion and the coulomb stress calculation suggest that this transient may have been induced as a response to the increase in the static coulomb stress change downdip of the rupture plane on the megathrust these observations show the importance of considering the interaction between slow slip events seismic and aseismic events not only on the same megathrust interface but also on faults within the surrounding crust

slow wavespeeds and fluid overpressure in a region of shallow geodetic locking and slow slip hikurangi subduction margin new zealand abstract travel times recorded onshore from active source marine seismic surveys were used to determine hikurangi forearc wavespeeds ray path midpoints sample forearc crust above the shallow v p from the seabed to 4 km depth consistent with rapidly deposited clastic sediments and near constant v p 5 0 0 2 km s at depths of 4 10 km within the forearc the northern region has slow slip events at shallow depths of c 5 15 km beneath the volume sampled by our analysis average travel times at offsets of 20 80 km are 1 s more than at equivalent offsets in the south and v p increases with depth within the forearc from 3 5 0 1 km s at 4 km depth to 4 5 0 2 km s at 10 km depth we interpret the low wavespeeds in terms of compaction disequilibrium and compare seismic inferences of anomalously high porosity 10 with hydrostatic reference compaction models to show effective stress is low in both the north 27 10 mpa and south 36 14 mpa in the south pore space and conduits have a high chance of being localized on faults or sand layers the wedge is clearly compressionally critical and we suggest the higher seismic velocities recorded primarily reflect higher effective stress levels transmitted through the rock framework the observed wedge geometry and our estimate of fluid pressure within the wedge 0 87 0 05 suggest a weak overpressured subduction thrust in the north we suggest high fluid pressure is maintained by a large fluid inventory from subducting sediment a pore space geometry characterized by pervasively fractured rock and mudstone and a lower mean stress due to its stable and non critical wedge geometry we consider both end member assumptions of convergent and tensile failure the latter of which reveals the possibility of near lithostatic fluid pressure on the north hikurangi subduction interface although this remains unproven our observations are consistent with high fluid pressures encountered in petroleum wells at depths

slow slip events and seismic tremor at circum pacific subduction zones 1 it has been known for a long time that slip accompanying earthquakes accounts for only a fraction of plate tectonic displacements however only recently has a fuller spectrum of strain release processes including normal slow and silent earthquakes or slow slip events and continuous and episodic slip been observed and generated by numerical simulations of the earthquake cycle despite a profusion of observations and modeling studies the physical mechanism of slow slip events remains elusive the concurrence of seismic tremor with slow slip episodes in cascadia and southwestern japan provides insight into the process of slow slip a perceived similarity between subduction zone and volcanic tremor has led to suggestions that slow slip involves fluid migration on or near the plate interface alternatively evidence is accumulating to support the notion that tremor results from shear failure during slow slip global observations of the location spatial extent magnitude duration slip rate and periodicity of these aseismic slip transients indicate significant variation that may be exploited to better understand their generation most slow slip events occur just downdip of the seismogenic zone consistent with rate and state dependent frictional modeling that requires unstable to stable transitional properties for slow slip generation at a few convergent margins the occurrence of slow slip events within the seismogenic zone makes it highly likely that transitions in frictional properties exist there and are the loci of slow slip nucleation slow slip events perturb the surrounding stress field and may either increase or relieve stress on a fault bringing it closer to or farther from earthquake failure respectively this paper presents a review of slow slip events and related seismic tremor observed at plate boundaries worldwide with a focus on circum pacific subduction zones trends in global observations of slow slip events suggest that 1 slow slip is a common phenomena observed at almost all subduction zones with instrumentation capable of recording it 2 different frictional properties likely control fast versus slow slip 3 the depth range of slow slip may be related to the thermal properties of the plate interface and 4 the equivalent seismic moment of slow slip events is proportional to their duration mo different from the mo 3 scaling observed for earthquakes

ice wedges growth thaw transformation and palaeoenvironmental significance frost cracking and ice wedge growth are fundamental processes within the permafrost environment extensive areas of contemporary permafrost terrain are characterised by frost fissure polygons formed by repeated thermal contraction cracking of the ground the incremental growth of ice veins and wedges along the axes of contraction cracks contributes significantly to the volume of ground ice in near surface permafrost in areas beyond the present limit of permafrost the recognition of ice wedge pseudomorphs provides one of the few unambiguous indications of the former existence of permafrost conditions an understanding of the processes of ice wedge growth and thaw transformation is essential if contemporary ice wedges are to be used as analogues for pleistocene frost fissure structures in palaeoenvironmental reconstructions

dynamic triggering of creep events in the salton trough southern california by regional m 5 4 earthquakes constrained by geodetic observations and numerical simulations abstract since a regional earthquake in 1951 shallow creep events on strike slip faults within the salton trough southern california have been triggered at least 10 times by m 5 4 earthquakes within 200 km the high earthquake and creep activity and the long history of digital recording within the salton trough region provide a unique opportunity to study the mechanism of creep event triggering by nearby earthquakes here we document the history of fault creep events on the superstition hills fault based on data from creepmeters insar and field surveys since 1988 we focus on a subset of these creep events that were triggered by significant nearby earthquakes we model these events by adding realistic static and dynamic perturbations to a theoretical fault model based on rate and state dependent friction we find that the static stress changes from the causal earthquakes are less than 0 1 mpa and too small to instantaneously trigger creep events in contrast we can reproduce the characteristics of triggered slip with dynamic perturbations alone the instantaneous triggering of creep events depends on the peak and the time integrated amplitudes of the dynamic coulomb stress change based on observations and simulations the stress change amplitude required to trigger a creep event of a 0 01 mm surface slip is about 0 6 mpa this threshold is at least an order of magnitude larger than the reported triggering threshold of non volcanic tremors 2 60 kpa and earthquakes in geothermal fields 5 kpa and near shale gas production sites 0 2 0 4 kpa which may result from differences in effective normal stress fault friction the density of nucleation sites in these systems or triggering mechanisms we conclude that shallow frictional heterogeneity can explain both the spontaneous and dynamically triggered creep events on the superstition hills fault

deep tremor in new zealand triggered by the 2010 mw8 8 chile earthquake 1 deep non volcanic tremor nvt is usually associated with episodic slow slip events new zealand is one notable exception where numerous slow slip events have been identified yet nvt has remained undetected here we present the first known case of triggered nvt at new zealand s hikurangi subduction margin following the mw8 8 chilean earthquake of february 27 2010 we identify coherent high frequency tremor signals that are in phase with and modulated by the passing rayleigh waves this is consistent with the surface wave triggering potential for strike normal incidence on a low angle thrust fault after constraining the tremor depth on the plate interface we locate the tremor source within 20 km of the source area of episodic slow slip the tremor location is also near the edge of a region with high seismic attenuation that marks the boundary between dehydrated subducted slab and inferred hydrated underplated sediment we speculate that reduced interface friction and high fluid pressures provided by fluid rich underplated sediment facilitates the tremor generation

simultaneous long term and short term slow slip events at the hikurangi subduction margin new zealand implications for processes that control slow slip event occurrence duration and migration 1 we document a sequence of simultaneous short term and long term slow slip events sses at the hikurangi subduction zone during the 2010 2011 period the sequence of short term events each 2 3 weeks in duration ruptured much of the shallow plate interface 15 km at central and northern hikurangi over a 6 month period was accompanied by microseismicity and involved patchy irregular migration of sse slip we suggest that the patchy migration of the short term sse is due to large scale 100 3500 km heterogeneities on the plate interface related to seamount subduction and sediment subduction and or underplating this is in contrast to a 2010 2011 long term sse at the central hikurangi margin which evolved steadily over 1 5 years and ruptured much of the plate interface between 20 and 70 km depth we suggest that the occurrence of long term versus short term sses at hikurangi is related to differences in effective normal stresses and relative heterogeneity of the subduction interface the long term sse sequence began 1 year before the short term sequence coulomb stress change models suggest that the long term sse may have triggered initiation of the subsequent short term sse sequence initiation of the short term sequence occurred in a region just updip of or within an interseismically locked portion of the plate interface and may be located within the updip transition from seismic to aseismic behavior alternatively it could be characteristic of a region undergoing partial interseismic coupling this is in contrast to sses observed elsewhere in the world that typically occur within the downdip transition from seismic to aseismic behavior

spontaneous and triggered aseismic deformation transients in a subduction fault model 1 aseismic deformation transients can emerge as a natural outcome of the rate and state friction processes revealed in laboratory fault sliding experiments when that constitutive formulation is applied to model subduction earthquake sequences transients can arise spontaneously for certain effective stress variations with depth we show that if interstitial fluids are present and pore pressure is near lithostatic around and downdip from the frictional stability transition transients with recurrence intervals of 1 year are predicted on the basis of laboratory friction parameters and their temperature hence depth variations the recurrence interval decreases with and reaches 14 months when is 2 3 mpa dimensional analysis and numerical studies show that the fault response primarily depends on a parameter w h here the high pore pressure zone extends distance w updip from the stability transition and h is the stable patch size for steady sliding evidence that such fluid conditions may actually be present is independently provided by the occurrence of nonvolcanic tremors as apparent responses to extremely small stress changes and by petrological constraints on expected regions of dehydration for the shallow dipping subduction zones where transients are observed transient sequences can also be triggered by a modest one time step like interseismic stress perturbation on the subduction fault due to nearby earthquakes or to pore pressure changes e g during episodes of metamorphic fluid release properties of triggered transients and future thrust earthquakes depend on the interseismic time when the perturbation is introduced its relative location along the subduction fault and its magnitude

space time correlation of slip and tremor during the 2009 cascadia slow slip event 1 episodic tremor and slip ets involving transient deformations accompanied by emergent low frequency tremor occurs in subduction zones around the world ets events increase the shear stress on locked megathrusts and may potentially trigger damaging earthquakes despite the clear association of tremor and slip the physical relationship between them is unresolved tremor appears to result from slip on small asperities on the plate interface due to either creep on the surrounding fault or stress increases ahead of the propagating slow slip front previous studies of migrating slow slip events have not had sufficient spatial and temporal resolution to differentiate between these two models to address this we invert gps data from the august 2009 ets event in central cascadia for the space time evolution of fault slip rate we find a correlation in both space and time between tremor epicenters and the independently determined position of high fault slip rate this supports the first hypothesis that tremor asperities are loaded directly by slow slip rather than by stress increases ahead of the slip front and provides new insights into the mechanics of ets

a silent slip event on the deeper cascadia subduction interface continuous global positioning system sites in southwestern british columbia canada and northwestern washington state usa have been moving landward as a result of the locked state of the cascadia subduction fault offshore in the summer of 1999 a cluster of seven sites briefly reversed their direction of motion no seismicity was associated with this event the sudden displacements are best explained by 2 centimeters of aseismic slip over a 50 kilometer by 300 kilometer area on the subduction interface downdip from the seismogenic zone a rupture equivalent to an earthquake of moment magnitude 6 7 this provides evidence that slip of the hotter plastic part of the subduction interface and hence stress loading of the megathrust earthquake zone can occur in discrete pulses

spatiotemporal variations of crustal anisotropy from similar events in aftershocks of the 1999 m7 4 izmit and m7 1 duzce turkey earthquake sequences summary we analyse spatiotemporal variations of crustal anisotropy along the karadere duzce branch of the north anatolian fault from similar earthquakes in the aftershock regions of the 1999 mw7 4izmit and mw7 1 duzce earthquakes the similar earthquake clusters are identified by performing cross correlation on waveforms generated by 18 000 earthquakes depending on the applied similarity criterion about 4 60 per cent of the events belong to similar event clusters splitting parameters averaged within each cluster show significant variations for slightly different ray paths indicating strong spatial variations of crustal anisotropy in this area we also find clear changes in the spatiotemporal seismicity patterns following the duzce main shock large apparent co seismic changes up to 30 per cent of shear wave splitting delay times are observed across the time of the duzce main shock at stations near the epicentral region however the changes can be mostly explained by the spatial variations of ray paths due to the changing seismicity rather than changes in the properties of the anisotropic medium splitting parameters measured within similar earthquake clusters indicate at most 2 per cent changes in delay times associated with the occurrence of the duzce main shock the results do not show systematic precursory changes before the duzce main shock

delayed dynamic triggering of deep tremor along the parkfield cholame section of the san andreas fault following the 2014 m6 0 south napa earthquake large distant earthquakes are known to trigger deep tectonic tremor along the san andreas fault and in subduction zones however there are relatively few observations of triggering from regional distance earthquakes here we show that a small tremor episode about 12 18 km nw of parkfield was triggered during and immediately following the passage of surface waves from the 2014 mw 6 0 south napa main shock more notably a major tremor episode followed beginning about 12 h later and centered se of parkfield near cholame this major episode is one of the largest seen over the past several years containing intense activity for 3 days and taking more than 3 weeks to return to background levels this episode showed systematic along strike migration at 5 km d suggesting that it was driven by a slow slip event our results suggest that moderate size earthquakes are capable of triggering major tremor and deep slow slip at regional distances

the kinematics of a transition from subduction to strike slip an example from the central new zealand plate boundary 1 we develop a kinematic model for the transition from subduction beneath the north island new zealand to strike slip in the south island constrained by gps velocities and active fault slip data to interpret these data we use an approach that inverts the kinematic data for poles of rotation of tectonic blocks and the degree of interseismic coupling on faults in the region convergence related to the hikurangi subduction margin becomes very low offshore of the northern south island indicating that in this region the majority of the relative plate motion has been transferred onto faults within the upper plate as suggested by previous studies this result has implications for understanding the likely extent of subduction interface earthquake rupture in central new zealand easterly trending strike slip faults such as the boo boo fault are the key features that facilitate the transfer of strike slip motion from the northern south island faults further north into the southern north island and onto the hikurangi subduction thrust our results also indicate that the transition from rapid forearc rotation adjacent to the hikurangi subduction margin to a strike slip dominated plate boundary with negligible vertical axis rotation in the south island occurs via a crustal scale hinge or kink in the upper plate compatible with paleomagnetic and structural geological data despite the ongoing tectonic evolution of the central new zealand region our study highlights a remarkable consistency between data sets spanning decades gps thousands of years active faulting data and millions of years paleomagnetic data and bedrock structure

tidal modulation of nonvolcanic tremor episodes of nonvolcanic tremor and accompanying slow slip recently have been observed in the subduction zones of japan and cascadia in cascadia such episodes typically last a few weeks and differ from normal earthquakes in their source location and moment duration scaling the three most recent episodes in the puget sound southern vancouver island portion of the cascadia subduction zone were exceptionally well recorded in each episode we saw clear pulsing of tremor activity with periods of 12 4 and 24 to 25 hours the same as the principal lunar and lunisolar tides this indicates that the small stresses associated with the solid earth and ocean tides influence the genesis of tremor much more effectively than they do the genesis of normal earthquakes because the lithostatic stresses are 10 5 times larger than those associated with the tides we argue that tremor occurs on very weak faults