block models of crustal motion in southern california constrained by gps measurements 1 we estimate slip rates on major active faults in southern california using a block model constrained by global positioning system measurements of interseismic deformation the block model includes the effects of block rotation and elastic strain accumulation consistent with a simple model of the earthquake cycle our estimates of the right lateral strike slip rate on the san andreas fault vary by at least a factor of 5 from a high of 35 9 0 5 mm yr in the carrizo plain to a low of 5 1 1 5 mm yr through the san bernadino segment shortening across the puente hills thrust and left lateral slip on the raymond hill fault are consistent with both thickening and escape tectonics in the los angeles basin discrepancies between geodetic and geologic slip rate estimates along the san andreas and san jacinto faults as well as in the eastern california shear zone may be explained by a temporal change in fault system behavior we find no substantial evidence for long term postseismic relaxation and infer that the viscosity of the lower crust upper mantle may be relatively high 1019 pa s

dislocation models of interseismic deformation in the western united states 1 the gps derived crustal velocity field of the western united states is used to construct dislocation models in a viscoelastic medium of interseismic crustal deformation the interseismic velocity field is constrained by 1052 gps velocity vectors spanning the 2500 km long plate boundary zone adjacent to the san andreas fault and cascadia subduction zone and extending 1000 km into the plate interior the gps data set is compiled from u s geological survey campaign data plate boundary observatory data and the western u s cordillera velocity field of bennett et al 1999 in the context of viscoelastic cycle models of postearthquake deformation the interseismic velocity field is modeled with a combination of earthquake sources on 100 known faults plus broadly distributed sources models that best explain the observed interseismic velocity field include the contributions of viscoelastic relaxation from faulting near the major plate margins viscoelastic relaxation from distributed faulting in the plate interior as well as lateral variations in depth averaged rigidity in the elastic lithosphere resulting rigidity variations are consistent with reduced effective elastic plate thickness in a zone a few tens of kilometers wide surrounding the san andreas fault saf system primary deformation characteristics are captured along the entire saf system eastern california shear zone walker lane the mendocino triple junction the cascadia margin and the plate interior up to 1000 km from the major plate boundaries

lower crustal structure in northern california implications from strain rate variations following the 1906 san francisco earthquake 1 it is well known that geodetic data from a single instant in time cannot uniquely characterize structure or rheology beneath active seismogenic zones nevertheless comparison of spatial and temporal variations in deformation rate with time dependent mechanical models can place valuable constraints on fault zone geometry and rheology we consider postseismic strain rate transients by comparing geodetic data from north of san francisco bay obtained between 1906 and 1995 to predictions from viscoelastic finite element models models include 1 an elastic plate over a viscoelastic half space 2 distributed shear within a viscoelastic layer 3 discrete shear zones within an otherwise elastic layer 4 discrete shear zones in combination with distributed viscoelastic shear and 5 midcrustal detachment surfaces we vary as applicable locking depth elastic thickness depth to the top and bottom of the distributed shear layer distributed shear relaxation time discrete shear zone relaxation time and discrete shear zone width the best fitting physically reasonable elastic plate over viscoelastic half space models 1 do a poor job simultaneously predicting spatial and temporal variations in the data the best fitting distributed shear models 2 do a poor job predicting spatial variations in the deformation rate although they fit the geodetic data recent findings from seismic reflection refraction studies in northern california argue against models with shallow subhorizontal detachments 5 models incorporating discrete shear zones 3 4 provide the best fit to the geodetic data and are consistent with seismic studies that argue for discrete fault zones extending through the entire crust

post seismic and interseismic fault creep ii transient creep and interseismic stress shadows on megathrusts we use idealized subduction megathrust models to examine aseismic frictional fault creep throughout the interseismic period we consider rate dependent and rate and state dependent friction when there is significant post seismic creep surrounding locations of coseismic slip the creep rates surrounding an asperity may be lower than the plate convergence rate late in the seismic cycle this lowering of the creep rates is due to stress shadows forming around the interseismically locked asperities the size of the stress shadows increases as there is more transient post seismic creep larger asperities produce larger interseismic stress shadows and multiple asperities can act together to produce a stress shadow larger than the sum of the effects of the individual asperities for rate state frictional megathrusts there is a wide range of transient post seismic creep that occurs from pulses of post seismic creep with decreasing creep rates through time to delayed post seismic creep delayed post seismic creep may occur well into the interseismic period with transient creep lasting over a significant portion of the seismic cycle delayed post seismic creep is generally favoured in velocity strengthening regions with either a larger magnitude of the frictional direct effect or a larger effective normal stress in addition regions of the fault undergoing delayed post seismic creep must be above steady state following coseismic slip

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

relating viscosities from postseismic relaxation to a realistic viscosity structure for the lithosphere summary models of geodetic observations of postseismic relaxation most often represent the lithosphere with only a few layers with constant viscosity this is surpr ising because rock mechanical experiments consistently demonstrate that we should expect a profound vertical gradient in lithospheric viscosities due to the geothermal gradient i n this thermal boundary layer we isolate the effect of lower crustal flow where the effect of visc osity gradients has the largest impact on surface deformation we therefore explore postseismic deformation in models with realistic vertical viscosity gradients and seek to illustrate th e differences between these models and those with idealized uniform viscosity layers by means of synthetic experiments with a semianalytical viscoelastic relaxation model we show how for a given earthquake the averaged viscosity value obtained for a thick viscoelastic layer is d ependent on both the layout of the geodetic network and on the observation time window

block modeling with connected fault network geometries and a linear elastic coupling estimator in spherical coordinates geodetic observations of interseismic deformation provide constraints on the partitioning of fault slip across plate boundary zones the spatial distribution of both elastic and inelastic strain accumulation and the nature of the fault system evolution here we describe linear block theory which decomposes surface velocity fields into four components 1 plate rotations 2 elastic deformation from faults with kinematically consistent slip rates 3 elastic deformation from faults with spatially variable coupling and 4 homogeneous intrablock strain elastic deformation rates are computed for each fault segment in a homogeneous elastic half space using multiple optimal planar cartesian coordinate systems to minimize areal distortion and triangular dislocation elements to accurately represent complex fault system geometry block motions fault slip rates elastic coupling and internal block strain rates are determined simultaneously using a linear estimator with constraints from both geodetically determined velocity fields and geologic fault slip rate estimates we also introduce algorithms for efficiently implementing alternative fault network geometries to quantify parameter sensitivity to nonlinear perturbations in model geometry

block kinematics of the pacific north america plate boundary in the southwestern united states from inversion of gps seismological and geologic data 1 the active deformation of the southwestern united states 30 41 n is represented by a finite number of rotating elastic plastic spherical caps gps derived horizontal velocities geologic fault slip rates transform fault azimuths and earthquake derived fault slip vector azimuths are inverted for block angular velocities creep on block bounding faults permanent strain rates within the blocks and the rotations of 11 published gps velocity fields into to a common north american reference frame gps velocities are considered to be a combination of rigid block rotations recoverable elastic strain rates resulting from friction on block bounding faults and nonrecoverable strain rates resulting from slip on faults within the blocks the resulting pacific north america angular velocity is similar to some published estimates and satisfies transform azimuths and one spreading rate in the gulf of california earthquake slip vectors in the gulf of california and alaska and gps velocities along coastal california and within the pacific basin published fault slip rates are satisfied except in the southern mojave desert where the motion of the mohave block relative to north america is faster than can be explained by mapped faults the largest blocks the sierra nevada great valley and the eastern basin and range show permanent strain rates after removing elastic strain of only a few nanostrain per year demonstrating approximately rigid behavior observed horizontal strain rates correlate strongly with predicted strain rates from known faults suggesting that the short term strains evident in gps velocities are largely elastic in only about 20 of the region is distributed deformation needed to match the data indicating that a plate tectonic style description of the deformation of the western united states is plausible most blocks rotate about vertical axes at approximately the same rate as the pacific relative to north america suggesting that locally spin rates are communicated from block to block arguing against both floating block and ball bearing mechanisms of block rotation the similarities of the blocks spin rates to that of the pacific suggests that the pacific strongly influences their motions through edge tractions however it is shown that the blocks cannot rotate about the pacific north america pole without spinning counter to the sense of pacific north america shear unlike some other broad plate boundaries in the western united states vertical axis rotations take up very little of the slip rate budget across the region

modeling broadscale deformation in northern california and nevada from plate motions and elastic strain accumulation we present a first order method for modeling broadscale deformation consistent with both plate tectonic motions and elastic strain accumulation on plate boundary faults interseismic deformation is assumed to be a superposition of long term rigid body motions between faults defined by angular velocities of spherical plates and backslip on shallow locked portions of faults in an elastic half space this method is applied to 1993 2000 continuous gps data from 35 sites in a profile from the san francisco bay area northern california to eastern nevada deformation is consistent within the 1 mm yr 1 uncertainties of the estimated site velocities with a simple 10 parameter model using 6 rigid plates and 3 locked san andreas system faults

distribution of aseismic slip rate on the hayward fault inferred from seismic and geodetic data 1 we solve for the slip rate distribution on the hayward fault by performing a least squares inversion of geodetic and seismic data sets our analysis focuses on the northern 60 km of the fault interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar data from 13 independent ers interferograms are stacked to obtain range change rates from 1992 to 2000 horizontal surface displacement rates at 141 bench marks are measured using gps from 1994 to 2003 surface creep observations and estimates of deep slip rates determined from characteristic repeating earthquake sequences are also incorporated in the inversion the fault is discretized into 283 triangular dislocation elements that approximate the nonplanar attributes of the fault surface south of the city of hayward a steeply east dipping fault geometry accommodates the divergence of the surface trace and the microseismicity at depth the inferred slip rate distribution is consistent with a fault that creeps aseismically at a rate of 5 mm yr to a depth of 4 6 km the interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar data require an aseismic slip rate that approaches the geologic slip rate on the northernmost fault segment beneath point pinole although the insar data might be complicated by a small dip slip component at this location a low slip rate patch of 1 mm yr is inferred beneath san leandro consistent with the source location of the 1868 earthquake we calculate that the entire fault is accumulating a slip rate deficit equivalent to a mw 6 77 0 05 per century however this estimate of potential coseismic moment represents an upper bound because we do not know how much of the accumulated strain will be released through aseismic processes such as afterslip

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

interplate coupling beneath ne japan inferred from three dimensional displacement field 1 the northeastern japan arc is located in a typical subduction zone and is a seismically active region where large interplate earthquakes have occurred repeatedly the nationwide gps network has made it possible to investigate the crustal deformation in unprecedented detail however vertical displacements are less accurate than the horizontal ones and have not been used to constrain interplate coupling models in this study gps carrier phase data are analyzed in order to estimate three components of site displacements the result indicates uplift along the japan sea coast and subsidence along the pacific ocean coast using the vertical site velocities together with the horizontal ones as the data for a geodetic inversion method a new model of interplate coupling is constructed to explain both the horizontal and vertical velocities for the interseismic period from 1997 to 2001 the model demonstrates strong coupling in the area off miyagi and in the area off aomori through the area off tokachi including the areas of asperities the downdip limit of the locked fault zone on the plate boundary has been estimated seismologically to be at a depth of 50 60 km in northeastern japan and the distribution of slip deficits derived in this study indicates that the transition zone extends down to a depth of about 100 km

viscoelastic coupling model of the san andreas fault along the big bend southern california the big bend segment of the san andreas fault is the 300 km long segment in southern california that strikes about n65 w roughly 25 counterclockwise from the local tangent to the small circle about the pacific north america pole of rotation the broad distribution of deformation of trilateration networks along this segment implies a locking depth of at least 25 km as interpreted by the conventional model of strain accumulation continuous slip on the fault below the locking depth at the rate of relative plate motion whereas the observed seismicity and laboratory data on fault strength suggest that the locking depth should be no greater than 10 to 15 km the discrepancy is explained by the viscoelastic coupling model which accounts for the viscoelastic response of the lower crust thus the broad distribution of deformation observed across the big bend segment can be largely associated with the san andreas fault itself not subsidiary faults distributed throughout the region the working group on california earthquake probabilities 1995 in using geodetic data to estimate the seismic risk in southern california has assumed that strain accumulated off the san andreas fault is released by earthquakes located off the san andreas fault thus they count the san andreas contribution to total seismic moment accumulation more than once leading to an overestimate of the seismicity for magnitude 6 and greater earthquakes in their type c zones

a california statewide three dimensional seismic velocity model from both absolute and differential times abstract we obtain a seismic velocity model of the california crust and uppermost mantle using a regional scale double difference tomography algorithm we begin by using absolute arrival time picks to solve for a coarse three dimensional 3d p velocity v p model with a uniform 30 km horizontal node spacing which we then use as the starting model for a finer scale inversion using double difference tomography applied to absolute and differential pick times for computational reasons we split the state into 5 subregions with a grid spacing of 10 to 20 km and assemble our final statewide v p model by stitching together these local models we also solve for a statewide s wave model using s picks from both the southern california seismic network and usarray assuming a starting model based on the v p results and a v p v s ratio of 1 732 our new model has improved areal coverage compared with previous models extending 570 km in the sw ne direction and 1320 km in the nw se direction it also extends to greater depth due to the inclusion of substantial data at large epicentral distances our v p model generally agrees with previous separate regional models for northern and southern california but we also observe some new features such as high velocity anomalies at shallow depths in the klamath mountains and mount shasta area somewhat slow velocities in the northern coast ranges and slow anomalies beneath the sierra nevada at midcrustal and greater depths this model can be applied to a variety of regional scale studies in california such as developing a unified statewide earthquake location catalog and performing regional waveform modeling

full interseismic locking of the nankai and japan west kurile subduction zones an analysis of uniform elastic strain accumulation in japan constrained by permanent gps we analyze permanent global positioning system gps data obtained over japan between 1995 and 1997 to estimate the instantaneous interseismic coupling ratio of the seismogenic zones due to the subduction of the pacific and philippine sea plates below the japanese islands we first derive the gps strain rate fields that characterize the crustal deformation of southern and northern japan and invert them to determine the effective subduction velocity along the central nankai trough on one side and the japan west kurile trench on the other these reference free velocities are close to those predicted by plate motion models with respect to eurasia we conclude that the eurasian reference frame gives a good approximation to the subduction motion and that to first order both subduction zones were fully locked during the period of measurements we then test whether the coupling ratio shows local variations within the seismogenic zones to do this we divide the subduction interface into 35 km 30 km elements that we model by point source groups and we invert the gps velocity field referenced to eurasia to derive the coupling ratio between 0 and 1 on each fault element the results are coherent over the 3 years and confirm that both the central nankai and the japan west kurile seismogenic zones are homogeneously fully locked most of the coupling ratios are close to 1 and a few are close to 0 intermediate values are rare the zones of decoupling correspond either to strong postseismic afterslip associated with the 1994 sanriku oki interplate earthquake japan trench or to a small overestimation of the actual lower limit of the locked zone we conclude that within the resolution of the gps data and the model 1 partial coupling did not exist during these 3 years along the nankai and japan west kurile trenches 2 the small seismic coupling ratio previously derived from earthquakes analysis for the japan and kurile trenches may indicate that a significant part of the elastic energy is dissipated silently through slow earthquakes and postseismic afterslip and 3 the heterogeneous coseismic slip pattern observed for the large and great earthquakes that rupture both subduction zones is in great contrast to the homogeneous loading finally we discuss the nonelastic residual deformation within the frame of the long term deformation of the japanese islands

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

creep and quakes on the northern transition zone of the san andreas fault from gps and insar data 1 the san juan bautista sjb segment forms the northern transition zone of the creeping section of the san andreas fault it is an area of moderate seismicity the largest instrumentally recorded earthquakes have been m5 5 however historic records suggest six m 6 earthquakes occurred near the sjb segment between 1840 and 1899 it is also an area that has experienced several slow earthquakes we perform a joint inversion of gps and insar data to determine the current rate and distribution of interseismic creep we find two low slip locked segments at mid seismogenic depths that may represent source regions for the 19th century earthquakes we find that the sjb segment is currently accumulating strain energy at the rate of one m6 3 6 7 earthquake per century at this rate the 1840 1899 sequence released 135 510 years of accumulated moment deficit

scaling of fault parameters for continental strike slip earthquakes the long standing conflict between the predictions of elastic dislocation models and the observation that average coseismic slip increases with rupture length is resolved with application of a simple displacement depth function and the assumption that the base of the seismogenic zone does not result from the onset of viscous re laxation but rather a transition to stable sliding in a medium that remains stressed at or close to failure the resulting model maintains the idea of self similarity for earth quakes across the entire spectrum of earthquake sizes

paleoseismology and global positioning system earthquake cycle effects and geodetic versus geologic fault slip rates in the eastern california shear zone published slip rates for the owens valley fault zone in eastern california based on geodetic data and elastic half space models 5 7 mm yr are faster than longer term geologic rates 2 3 mm yr we use global positioning system data spanning the central owens valley a more realistic rheological model with an elastic upper crust over a viscoelastic lower crust and upper mantle and paleoseismic data from adjacent faults to show that this difference could reflect earthquake cycle effects we estimate a long term rate 2 1 0 7 mm yr and earthquake recurrence interval 2750 350 1000 yr from the geodetic data both in agreement with independent geologic estimates

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

postseismic relaxation driven by brittle creep a possible mechanism to reconcile geodetic measurements and the decay rate of aftershocks application to the chi chi earthquake taiwan we evaluate the effect of coseismic stress changes on the fault slip at midcrustal depth assuming a velocity strengthening brittle creep rheology we show that this model can help reconcile the time evolution of afterslip as measured from geodesy with aftershocks decay we propose an analytical expression for slip of the brittle creeping fault zone bcfz that applies to any dynamic or static stress perturbation including shear stress and normal stress changes the model predicts an initial logarithmic increase of slip with time postseismic slip rate decays over a characteristic time t r a that does not depend on the amplitude of the stress perturbation and it asymptotically joins the long term creep imposed by interseismic stress buildup given that the seismicity rate might be considered proportional to the sliding velocity of the bcfz the model predicts a decay rate of aftershocks that follows omori s law with a mathematical formalism identical to that of dieterich 1994 although based on a different mechanical rationale our model also differs from dieterich s model in that it requires that aftershock sequences and deep afterslip as constrained from geodetic measurements should follow the same temporal evolution we test this for the 1999 chi chi earthquake m w 7 6 and find that both sets of data are consistent with a model of afterslip due to the response of the bcfz the inferred relaxation time t r 8 5 years requires a value for a log v being the coefficient of friction in the range between 1 3 10 3 and 10 2

earthquake potential along the northern hayward fault california the hayward fault slips in large earthquakes and by aseismic creep observed along its surface trace dislocation models of the surface deformation adjacent to the hayward fault measured with the global positioning system and interferometric synthetic aperture radar favor creep at 7 millimeters per year to the bottom of the seismogenic zone along a 20 kilometer long northern fault segment microearthquakes with the same waveform repeatedly occur at 4 to 10 kilometer depths and indicate deep creep at 5 to 7 millimeters per year the difference between current creep rates and the long term slip rate of 10 millimeters per year can be reconciled in a mechanical model of a freely slipping northern hayward fault adjacent to the locked 1868 earthquake rupture which broke the southern 40 to 50 kilometers of the fault the potential for a major independent earthquake of the northern hayward fault might be less than previously thought

the delta connectome a network based framework for studying connectivity in river deltas abstract many deltas including the mississippi river delta have been losing land at fast rates compromising the safety and sustainability of their ecosystems knowledge of delta vulnerability has raised global concern and stimulated active interdisciplinary research as deltas are densely populated landscapes rich in agriculture fisheries oil and gas and important means for navigation there are many ways of looking at this problem which all contribute to a deeper understanding of the functioning of coastal systems one aspect that has been overlooked thus far yet fundamental for advancing delta science is connectivity both physical how different portions of the system interact with each other as well as conceptual pathways of process coupling in this paper i propose a framework called delta connectome for studying connectivity in river deltas based on different representations of a delta as a network after analyzing the classic network representation as a set of nodes e g bifurcations and junctions or regions with distinct physical or statistical behavior and links e g channels i show that from connectivity considerations the delta emerges as a leaky network that continuously exchanges fluxes of matter energy and information with its surroundings and evolves over time i explore each network representation and show through several examples how quantifying connectivity can bring to light aspects of deltaic systems so far unexplored and yet fundamental to understanding system functioning and informing coastal management and restoration this paper serves both as an introduction to the delta connectome framework as well as a review of recent applications of the concepts of network and connectivity to deltaic systems within the connectome framework

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

influence of lithosphere viscosity structure on estimates of fault slip rate in the mojave region of the san andreas fault system 1 it is well known that slip rate estimates from geodetic data are nonunique because they depend on model assumptions and parameters that are often not known a priori estimates of fault slip rate on the mojave segment of the san andreas fault system derived from elastic block models and gps data are significantly lower than estimates from geologic data to determine the extent to which the slip rate discrepancy might be due to the oversimplified models of the rheology of the lithosphere we develop a two dimensional linear maxwell viscoelastic earthquake cycle model and simultaneously estimate fault slip rates and lithosphere viscosity structure in the mojave region the model consists of episodic earthquakes in an elastic crust overlying layers with different viscosities that represent the lower crust uppermost mantle and upper mantle we use gps measurements of postseismic relaxation following the 1992 landers earthquake triangulation measurements spanning 1932 1977 gps measurements of the contemporary velocity field and paleoseismic data along the san andreas fault we infer lower crustal 15 30 km depth viscosity of 1019 10 20 pa s uppermost mantle 30 60 km viscosity of 10 20 22 pa s and underlying upper mantle viscosity of 10 18 10 19 pa s consistent with inferences from laboratory experiments of relatively high viscosity lithospheric mantle and lower viscosity lower crust and underlying asthenospheric mantle we infer a 20 30 mm yr slip rate on the san andreas fault in agreement with the lower end of geologic estimates inversions of geodetic data with models that do not incorporate layered viscosity structure may significantly misestimate slip rates

small interseismic asperities and widespread aseismic creep on the northern japan subduction interface the canonical model of fault coupling assumes that slip is partitioned into fixed asperities that display stick slip behavior and regions that creep stably we show that this simple asperity model is inconsistent with gps derived deformation in northern japan associated with interseismic coupling on the subduction interface and the transient response to mw 6 3 7 2 earthquakes during 2003 2011 comparisons of gps data with simulations of earthquakes on asperities and associated velocity strengthening afterslip require that afterslip overlaps areas of the fault that ruptured in previous earthquakes including the 2011 mw 9 tohoku oki earthquake whereas about 55 of the plate interface ruptured in earthquakes during 2003 2011 we infer that only 9 of the plate interface was fully locked between earthquakes inferred locked asperities are roughly 25 the size of rupture areas determined by seismic source inversions these smaller asperities are consistent with interseismic strain accumulation in 2009 although more extensive locking is required a decade earlier in 1998

interseismic coupling and refined earthquake potential on the hayward calaveras fault zone interseismic strain accumulation and fault creep is usually estimated from gps and alignment arrays data which provide precise but spatially sparse measurements here we use interferometric synthetic aperture radar to resolve the interseismic deformation associated with the hayward and calaveras faults hf and cf in the east san francisco bay area the large 1992 2011 sar data set permits evaluation of short and long wavelength deformation larger than 2 mm yr without alignment of the velocity field to a gps based model our time series approach in which the interferogram selection is based on the spatial coherence enables deformation mapping in vegetated areas and leads to refined estimates of along fault surface creep rates creep rates vary from 0 2 mm yr on the northern cf to 14 2 mm yr on the central cf south of the hf surface junction we estimate the long term slip rates by inverting the long wavelength deformation and the distribution of shallow slip due to creep by inverting the remaining velocity field this distribution of slip reveals the locations of locked and slowly creeping patches with potential for a m6 8 0 3 on the hf near san leandro a m6 6 0 2 on the northern cf near dublin a m6 5 0 1 on the hf south of fremont and a m6 2 0 2 on the central cf near morgan hill with cascading multisegment ruptures the hf rupturing from berkeley to the cf junction could produce a m6 9 0 1 the northern cf a m6 6 0 1 the central cf a m6 9 0 2 from the junction to gilroy and a joint rupture of the hf and central cf could produce a m7 1 0 1

modeling afterslip and aftershocks following the 1992 landers earthquake one way to probe the rheology of the lithosphere and fault zones is to analyze the temporal evolution of deformation following a large earthquake in such a case the lithosphere responds to a known stress change that can be assessed from earthquake slip models constrained from seismology and geodesy here we model the postseismic response of a fault zone that is assumed to obey a rate strengthening rheology where the frictional stress varies as a ln e e being the deformation rate and a 0 a rheological parameter the model is simple enough that these parameters can be estimated by inversion of postseismic geodetic data we apply this approach to the analysis of geodetic displacements following the m w 7 3 1992 landers earthquake the model adjusts well the measured displacements and implies a 0 47 0 53 mpa in addition we show that aftershocks and afterslip follow the same temporal evolution and that the spatiotemporal distribution of aftershocks is consistent with the idea that they are driven by reloading of the seismogenic zone resulting from frictional afterslip

viscoelastic earthquake cycle models with deep stress driven creep along the san andreas fault system 1 we develop a two dimensional boundary element earthquake cycle model including deep interseismic creep on vertical strike slip faults in an elastic lithosphere coupled to a viscoelastic asthenosphere uniform slip on the upper part of the fault is prescribed periodically to represent great strike slip earthquakes below the coseismic rupture the fault creeps in response to lithospheric shear stresses within a narrow linear viscous fault zone the model is applied to the gps contemporary velocity field across the carrizo plain and northern san francisco bay segments of the san andreas fault as well as triangulation measurements of postseismic strain following the 1906 san francisco earthquake previous analysis of these data using conventional viscoelastic coupling models without stress driven creep segall 2002 shows that it is necessary to invoke different lithosphere asthenosphere rheology in northern and southern california in order to explain the data we show that with deep stress driven interseismic creep on the san andreas fault the data can be explained with the same rheology for northern and southern california we estimate elastic thickness in the range 44 100 km 95 confidence level fault zone viscosity per unit width of 0 5 8 2 1017 pa s m and asthenosphere relaxation time of 24 622 years 0 1 2 9 1020 pa s for northern and southern california we estimate a slip rate of 21 27 mm yr and recurrence time of 188 315 years for the northern san francisco bay san andreas fault and slip rate of 32 42 mm yr with recurrence time of 247 536 years for the carrizo plain

heterogeneous coupling of the sumatran megathrust constrained by geodetic and paleogeodetic measurements geodetic and paleogeodetic measurements of interseismic strain above the sumatran portion of the sunda subduction zone reveal a heterogeneous pattern of coupling annual banding in corals provides vertical rates of deformation spanning the last half of the 20th century and repeated gps surveys between 1991 and 2001 and continuous measurements at gps stations operated since 2002 provide horizontal velocities near the equator the megathrust is locked over a narrow width of only a few tens of kilometers in contrast the locked fault zone is up to about 175 km wide in areas where great interplate earthquakes have occurred in the past formal inversion of the data reveals that these strongly coupled patches are roughly coincident with asperities that ruptured during these events the correlation is most spectacular for rupture of the m w 8 7 nias simeulue earthquake of 2005 which released half of the moment deficit that had accumulated since its previous rupture in 1861 suggesting that this earthquake was overdue beneath the mentawai islands strong coupling is observed within the overlapping rupture areas of the great earthquakes of 1797 and 1833 the accumulated slip deficit since these events is slowly reaching the amount of slip that occurred during the 1833 earthquake but already exceeds the slip that occurred during the 1797 earthquake thus rerupture of part of the mentawai patch in september 2007 was not a surprise in contrast coupling is low below the batu islands near the equator and around enggano island at about 5 s where only moderate earthquakes m w 8 0 have occurred in the past two centuries the correlation of large seismic asperities with patches that are locked during the interseismic period suggests that they are persistent features this interpretation is reinforced by the fact that the large locked patches and great ruptures occur beneath persistent geomorphologic features the largest outer arc islands depth and convergence rate dependent temperature might influence the pattern of coupling through its effect on the rheology of the plate interface but other influences are required to account for the observed along strike heterogeneity of coupling in particular subduction of the investigator fracture zone could be the cause for the low coupling near the equator

numerical modeling of strike slip creeping faults and implications for the hayward fault california abstract the seismic potential of creeping faults such as the hayward fault san francisco bay area ca depends on the rate at which moment slip deficit accumulates on the fault plane thus it is important to evaluate how the creep rate observed at the surface is related to the slip on the fault plane the surface creep rate scr depends on the geometry of locked and free portions of the fault and on the interaction between the fault zone and the surrounding lithosphere using a viscoelastic finite element model we investigate how fault zone geometries and physical characteristics such as frictionless or locked patches affect the observed surface creep when the system is driven by far field plate motions these results have been applied to creep observations of the hayward fault this analysis differs from most previous fault creeping models in that the fault in our model is loaded by a distributed viscous flow induced by far field velocity boundary conditions instead of imposed slip beneath the major faults of the region the far field velocity boundary conditions simulate the relative motion of the stable pacific plate respect to the rigid sierra nevada block leaving the rheology fault geometry and mechanics locked or free to creep patches to determinate the patterns of fault creep our model results show that the fault geometry e g length and depth of creeping and the local rheology influence the surface creep rate scr and the slip on the fault plane in particular we show that the viscoelastic layer beneath the elastic seismogenic zone plays a fundamental role in loading the fault additionally the coupling with the surrounding lithosphere results in a smooth transition from regions free to creep to locked patches

transient rheology of the uppermost mantle beneath the mojave desert california abstract geodetic data indicate that the m7 1 hector mine california earthquake was followed by a brief period a few weeks of rapid deformation preceding a prolonged phase of slower deformation we find that the signal contained in continuous and campaign global positioning system data for 2 5 years after the earthquake may be explained with a transient rheology quantitative modeling of these data with allowance for transient linear biviscous rheology in the lower crust and upper mantle demonstrates that transient rheology in the upper mantle is dominant its material properties being typified by two characteristic relaxation times 0 07 and 2 years the inferred mantle rheology is a jeffreys solid in which the transient and steady state shear moduli are equal consideration of a simpler viscoelastic model with a linear univiscous rheology 2 fewer parameters than a biviscous model shows that it consistently underpredicts the amplitude of the first 3 months signal and allowance for a biviscous rheology is significant at the 99 0 confidence level another alternative model deep postseismic afterslip beneath the coseismic rupture predicts a vertical velocity pattern opposite to the observed pattern at all time periods considered despite its plausibility the advocated biviscous rheology model is non unique and should be regarded as a viable alternative to the non linear mantle rheology model for governing postseismic flow beneath the mojave desert

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

space time distribution of afterslip following the 2003 tokachi oki earthquake implications for variations in fault zone frictional properties 1 gps time series following the september 25 2003 ut tokachi oki earthquake m w 8 0 reveal significant deformation we use the network inversion filter to invert for the spatial and temporal evolution of afterslip in the 30 days following the earthquake afterslip is concentrated adjacent to the coseismic rupture zone between the 2003 rupture and the inferred source regions of the 1968 tokachi oki and the 1973 nemuro oki earthquakes the inversion shows a rapid decay of slip rate in the 2003 rupture zone with slower deceleration in the surrounding regions the stress velocity paths for the afterslip regions approximately follow d d in v 0 6 mpa suggestive of steady state velocity strengthening friction the complementary spatial pattern of coseismic rupture and afterslip may indicate along strike spatial variations of frictional properties although other interpretations can not be ruled out

frictional afterslip following the 2005 nias simeulue earthquake sumatra continuously recording global positioning system stations near the 28 march 2005 rupture of the sunda megathrust moment magnitude m w 8 7 show that the earthquake triggered aseismic frictional afterslip on the subduction megathrust with a major fraction of this slip in the up dip direction from the main rupture eleven months after the main shock afterslip continues at rates several times the average interseismic rate resulting in deformation equivalent to at least a m w 8 2 earthquake in general along strike variations in frictional behavior appear to persist over multiple earthquake cycles aftershocks cluster along the boundary between the region of coseismic slip and the up dip creeping zone we observe that the cumulative number of aftershocks increases linearly with postseismic displacements this finding suggests that the temporal evolution of aftershocks is governed by afterslip

current sierra nevada north america motion from very long baseline interferometry implications for the kinematics of the western united states we use geodetic measurements from very long baseline interferometry to estimate the motion of the sierra nevadan microplate which is composed of the sierra nevada and the great valley the motion of the sierra nevadan microplate relative to the north american plate is described by a right handed rotation of 0 61 m y about lat 32 n long 128 w this euler pole lies only 10 southwest of the sierra nevadan microplate and predicts a significant counterclockwise rotation about a local vertical axis it further predicts a velocity of the eastern edge of the sierra nevada at 38 0 n 119 3 w relative to stable north america of 11 1 mm yr toward n36 3 w quoted uncertainties are plus or minus one standard error which accounts for about one fourth of the velocity between the pacific and north american plates and is 25 clockwise of many prior estimates the velocity nearly parallels the boundary between the sierra nevada and the great basin which implies that current motion within the great basin results in a rotational noncoaxial deformation we use this velocity to estimate how motion is distributed across the broad deforming zone taking up pacific north america plate motion we find that the vector sum of strike slip along the san andreas fault and motion of the sierra nevada relative to stable north america taken up by deformation within the great basin differs little from the pacific north america plate velocity the difference can be described at 36 n along the san andreas fault by a vector of 6 mm yr directed toward n20 w this vector resolves into components of 5 mm yr parallel to the fault and 2 mm yr perpendicular to the fault with 95 confidence intervals of 0 to 10 mm yr and 1 to 5 mm yr respectively the component perpendicular to the fault is several times smaller than found in prior studies and places a small upper bound on fault perpendicular shortening we conclude that motion previously inferred to be taken up by deformation other than strike slip along the san andreas fault or deformation within the great basin is much smaller than previously thought

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

partial rupture of a locked patch of the sumatra megathrust during the 2007 earthquake sequence the great sumatra andaman earthquake and tsunami of 2004 was a dramatic reminder of the importance of understanding the seismic and tsunami hazards of subduction zones 1 2 3 4 in march 2005 the sunda megathrust ruptured again producing an event 5 of moment magnitude mw 8 6 south of the 2004 rupture area which was the site of a similar event in 1861 ref 6 concern was then focused on the mentawai area where large earthquakes had occurred in 1797 mw 8 8 and 1833 mw 9 0 6 7 two earthquakes one of mw 8 4 and twelve hours later one of mw 7 9 indeed occurred there on 12 september 2007 here we show that these earthquakes ruptured only a fraction of the area ruptured in 1833 and consist of distinct asperities within a patch of the megathrust that had remained locked in the interseismic period this indicates that the same portion of a megathrust can rupture in different patterns depending on whether asperities break as isolated seismic events or cooperate to produce a larger rupture this variability probably arises from the influence of non permanent barriers zones with locally lower pre stress due to the past earthquakes the stress state of the portion of the sunda megathrust that had ruptured in 1833 and 1797 was probably not adequate for the development of a single large rupture in 2007 the moment released in 2007 amounts to only a fraction both of that released in 1833 and of the deficit of moment that had accumulated as a result of interseismic strain since 1833 the potential for a large megathrust event in the mentawai area thus remains large

postseismic deformation following the 1906 san francisco earthquake we have reevaluated triangulation data from northern california following the 1906 san francisco earthquake thereby increasing the temporal and spatial resolution of postseismic deformation following that event we have calculated uniform shear strain rates and average station velocities at point arena using data from 1906 1907 1929 1930 and 1973 1975 and for the point reyes petaluma arc using data from 1929 1930 1938 1939 and 1960 1961 with the addition of recent geodetic data we infer an effective relaxation time for long term postseismic deformation following the 1906 earthquake of 36 16 years the point arena data are satisfactorily fit with accelerated afterslip at depth along the san andreas fault plane for a 10 km deep 25 km wide afterslip zone the average slip rate between 1906 and 1930 is 11 2 cm yr between 1929 and 1975 it is 4 6 cm yr deformation in the point reyes petaluma arc is clearly asymmetric with respect to the trace of the san andreas fault especially between 1929 and 1939 after inverting for the range of acceptable accelerated deep afterslip and horizontal detachment models a detailed analysis using geologically reasonable geometries revealed that both model types have trouble explaining the spatial variations in the deformation field through time in particular accelerated deep afterslip models cannot reproduce the breadth of the observed deformation field to the northeast of the san andreas fault as a result more complex time varying deformation mechanisms are required to explain the point reyes petaluma arc observations

evidence of power law flow in the mojave desert mantle studies of the earth s response to large earthquakes can be viewed as large rock deformation experiments in which sudden stress changes induce viscous flow in the lower crust and upper mantle that lead to observable postseismic surface deformation laboratory experiments suggest that viscous flow of deforming hot lithospheric rocks is characterized by a power law in which strain rate is proportional to stress raised to a power n refs 2 3 most geodynamic models of flow in the lower crust and upper mantle however resort to newtonian linear stress strain rate relations here we show that a power law model of viscous flow in the mantle with n 3 5 successfully explains the spatial and temporal evolution of transient surface deformation following the 1992 landers and 1999 hector mine earthquakes in southern california a power law rheology implies that viscosity varies spatially with stress causing localization of strain and varies temporally as stress evolves rendering newtonian models untenable our findings are consistent with laboratory derived flow law parameters for hot and wet olivine the most abundant mineral in the upper mantle and support the contention that at least beneath the mojave desert the upper mantle is weaker than the lower crust

spatial transition from compression to extension in the western mediterranean ridge accretionary complex the mediterranean ridge has been described since 1982 as an accretionary prism related to the hellenic subduction zone however little attention has been paid to the actual mechanical boundary between the sedimentary wedge and the crustal backstop of the outer hellenic arc using seismic velocity structures from recent esp s pasiphae cruise we propose a new interpretation of existing geological and geophysical data around the western hellenic trenches the velocity structure of the inner unit of the mediterranean ridge suggests that the late neogene to quaternary sequences were deposited above a high velocity rigid body we propose to correlate the boundary of this rigid body backstop of the accretionary wedge with a series of oblique reflectors dipping to the southwest near dsdp sites 126 and 377 the backstop extends further south than previously thought and decreases by one third the total width of the compressional wedge it has thus major implications on the volume of accreted material the short wavelength folding of plio quaternary sediments observed on the outer wall of the south matapan trench is probably a consequence of gravity gliding layers above the high velocity body gently dipping 2 to the northeast using the messinian evaporite as a decollement on the other hand the hellenic trenches appear to be narrow half grabens affected by the widespread extensional deformation active on the outer hellenic arc they are situated on the landward boundary of a wider and poorly sedimented fore arc basin we conclude that extensional deformation extends at least over the width of the hellenic trenches on the continental side of the backstop whereas compressional deformation stops near the edge of the backstop itself 100 km to the southwest

a dislocation model of strain accumulation and release at a subduction zone strain accumulation and release at a subduction zone are attributed to stick slip on the main thrust zone and steady aseismic slip on the remainder of the plate interface this process can be described as a superposition of steady state subduction and a repetitive cycle of slip on the main thrust zone consisting of steady normal slip at the plate convergence rate plus occasional thrust events that recover the accumulated normal slip because steady state subduction does not contribute to the deformation at the free surface deformation observed there is completely equivalent to that produced by the slip cycle alone the response to that slip is simply the response of a particular earth model to embedded dislocations for a purely elastic earth model the deformation cycle consists of a coseismic offset followed by a linear in time recovery to the initial value during the interval between earthquakes for an elastic viscoelastic earth model elastic lithosphere over a viscoelastic asthenosphere the postearthquake recovery is not linear in time records of local uplift as a function of time indicate that the long term postseimic recovery is approximately linear suggesting that elastic earth models are adequate to describe the deformation cycle however the deformation predicted for amore simple elastic half space earth does not reproduce the deformation observed along the subduction zones in japna at all well if stick slip is restricted to the main thrust zone as recognized earlier by shimazaki seno and kato the uplift profiles could be explained if stick slips were postulated to extend along the plate interface beyond the main thrust zone to a depth of perhaps 100 km but independent evidence suggests that stick slip at such depths if unlikely less

deformation across the pacific north america plate boundary near san francisco california we have detected a narrow zone of compression between the coast ranges and the great valley and we have estimated slip rates for the san andreas rodgers creek and green valley faults just north of san francisco these results are based on an analysis of campaign and continuous global positioning system gps data collected between 1992 and 2000 in central california the zone of compression between the coast ranges and the great valley is 25 km wide the observations clearly show 3 8 1 5 mm yr 1 of shortening over this narrow zone the strike slip components are best fit by a model with 20 8 1 9 mm yr 1 slip on the san andreas fault 10 3 2 6 mm yr 1 on the rodgers creek fault and 8 1 2 1 mm yr 1 on the green valley fault the pacific sierra nevada great valley motion totals 39 2 3 8 mm yr 1 across a zone that is 120 km wide at the latitude of san francisco standard deviations are one the geodetic results suggest a higher than geologic rate for the green valley fault the geodetic results also suggest an inconsistency between geologic estimates of the san andreas rate and seismologic estimates of the depth of locking on the san andreas fault the only convergence observed is in the narrow zone along the border between the great valley and the coast ranges

geodetic estimates of fault slip rates in the san francisco bay area bourne et al 1998 have suggested that the interseismic velocity profile at the surface across a transform plate boundary is a replica of the secular velocity profile at depth in the plastosphere on the other hand in the viscoelastic coupling model the shape of the interseismic surface velocity profile is a consequence of plastosphere relaxation following the previous rupture of the faults that make up the plate boundary and is not directly related to the secular flow in the plastosphere the two models appear to be incompatible if the plate boundary is composed of several subparallel faults and the interseismic surface velocity profile across the boundary known each model predicts the secular slip rates on the faults which make up the boundary as suggested by bourne et al the models can then be tested by comparing the predicted secular slip rates to those estimated from long term offsets inferred from geology here we apply that test to the secular slip rates predicted for the principal faults san andreas san gregorio hayward calaveras rodgers creek green valley and greenville faults in the san andreas fault system in the san francisco bay area the estimates from the two models generally agree with one another and to a lesser extent with the geologic estimate because the viscoelastic coupling model has been equally successful in estimating secular slip rates on the various fault strands at a diffuse plate boundary the success of the model of bourne et al 1998 in doing the same thing should not be taken as proof that the interseismic velocity profile across the plate boundary at the surface is a replica of the velocity profile at depth in the plastosphere

kinematics of the pacific north america plate boundary zone northern california we measured motions of 54 sites in an east west transect across northern california at 38 40 north by global positioning system gps observations over a 4 year we estimate the total slip rate on the san andreas fault system to be 39 6 0 6 1 5 mm yr 68 6 upper and lower confidence intervals from a nonlinear inversion are indicated by superscripts and subscripts slip rates on the individual faults are determined less precisely due to the high correlations between the estimated parameters our best fitting model fits the fault parallel velocities with a mean square error of 1 04 and the following estimated fault slip rates all in mm yr san andreas 17 4 3 1 2 5 ma acama 13 9 2 8 4 1 and bartlett springs 8 2 1 9 2 1 the data are fit best by models in which the san andreas fault is locked to 14 9 7 1 12 5 km the ma acama fault locked to 13 4 4 8 7 4 km except for shallow creep in the upper 5 km and the bartlett springs fault creeping at all depths the ma acama fault most likely poses a significant seismic hazard as it has a high slip rate and has accumulated a slip deficit large enough to generate a magnitude 7 earthquake we find little evidence for contraction across coast ranges except at western edge of great valley where 1 3 mm yr of shortening is permitted by the data no strain is observed within the great valley or sierra nevada except that associated with right lateral strike slip on the san andreas fault system this is consistent with models of the pacific north america plate boundary zone in which the relative plate motion is partitioned into two domains one strike slip and one dominantly extensional separated by the elastically deforming sierra nevada great valley block

scaling relations of strike slip earthquakes with different slip rate dependent properties at depth abstract empirical observations suggest that earthquake stress drop is generally constant to investigate the effect of rupture width on earthquake scaling relations we analyze synthetic seismicity produced by a 3d vertical strike slip fault model using two different profiles of frictional slip rate behavior below the seismogenic zone within the rate and state framework a relatively abrupt transition of the a b profile from velocity weakening to strengthening at the base of the seismogenic crust produces increasing slip and stress drop with increasing event size choosing a smoother transition allows large earthquakes to propagate deeper leading to similar slip length scaling but constant stress drop scaling our numerical experiments support the idea that the maintenance of constant stress drop across the entire range of observed earthquake magnitudes may be achieved by allowing coseismic slip to rupture to depths below the seismogenic layer

slow slip and frictional transition at low temperature at the hikurangi subduction zone temperature changes with depth do not appear to be a primary control for either slow slip or fault locking processes at the hikurangi margin north island new zealand both slow slip events and the geodetically observed transition from fault locking to free slip at depth occur at temperatures as low as 100 c shallow portions of faults exhibit brittle stick slip behaviour that gives way to more stable sliding with increasing depth limiting the depths to which earthquake inducing slip can occur the increase of temperature with depth is often assumed to transform friction in the fault from velocity weakening unstable to velocity strengthening stable and to change conditions from brittle to ductile1 2 3 4 5 a temperature of 350 c has been suggested to mark the base of the frictionally unstable portion of the fault which becomes free slipping at depth where temperatures rise above 450 c refs 2 4 6 here we show that both slow slip events and the geodetically observed transition from fault locking to free slip at the hikurangi subduction zone east of the north island new zealand occur at temperatures as low as 100 c suggesting that temperature is not a primary control on either slow slip or fault locking processes at the hikurangi margin although globally shallow slow slip events are rare five out of seven events observed so far at the hikurangi margin are less than 15 km deep

constraints on magma chamber geometry at sierra negra volcano galapagos islands based on insar observations abstract we investigate the problem of estimating magma chamber geometry using insar observations of sierra negra volcano galapagos ascending and descending interferograms are combined to determine vertical and one horizontal component of displacement the ratio of maximum horizontal to vertical displacement suggests a sill like source spherical or stock like bodies are inconsistent with the data we estimate the geometry of the sill assuming a horizontal uniformly pressurized crack with unknown periphery and depth the sill is discretized into small elements that are either open and are subjected to the pressure boundary condition or remain closed we find the best fitting sill to be located beneath sierra negra s inner caldera at a depth of about 2 km using boundary element calculations we show that any magma chamber with a flat top coincident with the sill model fits the data equally well the data are insensitive to the sides and bottom of the magma chamber

a unified source model for the 1906 san francisco earthquake abstract we reconcile two previously discordant source models of the 1906 san francisco earthquake and obtain a model that satisfies both triangulation and seismic data by allowing the rupture velocity to exceed the shear wave velocity employing a projection method to remove the dependence on initial station positions allowed us to make use of a more stable triangulation network including nonrepeated angle observations along the northern san andreas fault this strengthens the case for significant slip over the entire northern segment of the san andreas fault from san juan bautista to cape mendocino during the 1906 earthquake we also found that the teleseismic body wave data can be reconciled with the geodetically derived slip model by allowing supershear rupture this resolves a longstanding conflict between the two previous slip models geodetic and seismic of this earthquake supershear rupture has long been recognized as a theoretical possibility for strike slip faulting and it has been observed in several recent large strike slip earthquakes which raises the prospect that it might be typical for such events supershear rupture leads to substantially different strong ground motion and as a result may need to be taken into account when developing ground motion prediction relations for large strike slip earthquakes our final slip model has a seismic moment of 7 9 10 20 n m which corresponds to a moment magnitude of m w 7 9

patterns and mechanisms of coseismic and postseismic slips of the 2011 mw 7 1 van turkey earthquake revealed by multi platform synthetic aperture radar interferometry on 23rd october 2011 a mw 7 1 reverse slip earthquake occurred in the bardakci saray thrust fault zone in the van region eastern turkey earlier geodetic studies have found different slip distributions in terms of both magnitude and pattern in this paper we present several cosmo skymed csk envisat asar and radarsat 2 interferograms spanning different time intervals showing that significant postseismic signals can be observed in the first three days after the mainshock using observations that combine coseismic and postseismic signals is shown to significantly underestimate coseismic slip we hence employed the csk pair with the minimum postseismic signals to generate one conventional interferogram and one along track interferogram for further coseismic modelling our best fit coseismic slip model suggests that 1 this event is associated with a buried nnw dipping fault with a preferable dip angle of 49 and a maximum slip of 6 5 m at a depth of 12 km and 2 two unequal asperities can be observed consistent with previous seismic solutions significant oblique aseismic slip with predominant left lateral slip components above the coseismic rupture zone within the first 3 days after the mainshock is also revealed by a postseismic csk interferogram indicating that the greatest principal stress axis might have rotated due to a significant stress drop during the coseismic rupture

new methods for estimating the spatial distribution of locked asperities and stress driven interseismic creep on faults with application to the san francisco bay area california 1 we introduce new forward and inverse methods for inferring long term fault slip rates interseismic fault creep rates and distribution of locked and creeping patches on faults using geodetic and geologic data the forward model consists of fault bounded blocks in an elastic crust overlying a maxwell viscoelastic mantle interseismic elastic distortion of the blocks is modeled due to periodic locking and unlocking of faults throughout the earthquake cycle patches on the fault are assumed to be either locked during the interseismic period or creeping at constant shear stress we utilize a bayesian probabilistic inversion method to infer the posterior probability distribution of long term interseismic fault slip rates distribution of locked and creeping patches and relative weighting of multiple data sets we illustrate the method with an inversion of a synthetic data set we apply the method to estimate fault slip rates and the distribution of interseismic creep on faults in the san francisco bay area ca using gps derived velocities and geologic measurements of fault slip rates we show that the inferred fault slip rates and areas of the locked regions of faults are sensitive to the assumed viscosity of the upper mantle and the timing of past earthquakes and can be significantly different from values inferred from elastic models that do not include viscous flow considering models with different viscosities inferred fault slip rates on major bay area faults can differ by factors of 1 5 4 0 and the inferred moment accumulation rate can differ by factors of 2 13

temporal change of interplate coupling in northeastern japan during 1995 2002 estimated from continuous gps observations summary temporal change of deformation in northeastern japan is clarified by continuous global positioning system gps observations from 1995 april to 2002 march the observed gps velocity is approximately parallel to the direction of plate convergence on east and west plate boundaries of northeastern japan and shows post seismic transient deformation around source regions of the mw 7 8 1993 hokkaido nansei oki and the mw 7 7 1994 sanriku haruka oki earthquakes we interpret the source of the observed deformation as contemporary interplate coupling on the east subducting boundary to the pacific plate and the west collision boundary to the amurian plate using elastic dislocation theory we inverted horizontal and vertical velocities of 212 gps stations to estimate interplate coupling on both boundaries the estimated coupling during 1995 2002 is spatially heterogeneous however it is temporally almost constant except for the region around the 1993 and 1994 earthquakes after slip of the 1994 earthquake occurred over the coseismic rupture area and its downdip extension on the plate boundary for 0 3 1 3 yr after the earthquake after slip continued only in the downdip extension for later periods and decayed with time weak coupling was recovered in the eastern part of the coseismic rupture area 3 3 yr after the earthquake interplate coupling on the pacific plate was strong in two regions miyagi oki and tokachi oki the west plate boundary is tightly coupled except for the source areas of three large earthquakes that occurred in 1964 1983 and 1993 the apparent decoupling of the source areas of these earthquakes implies long term post seismic deformation as a result of viscoelastic relaxation in the subseismogenic lithosphere

fault coupling and potential for earthquakes on the creeping section of the central san andreas fault the 150 km long central section of the san andreas fault csaf in central california creeps at the surface and has not produced a large earthquake historically however sections of the san andreas fault to the north and south are known to have ruptured repeatedly in m 7 8 earthquakes it is currently unclear whether the creeping csaf could rupture in large earthquakes either individually or along with earthquakes on the locked sections to the north and south we invert global positioning system and interferometric synthetic aperture radar data with elastic block models to estimate the degree of locking on the csaf and place bounds on the moment accumulation rate on the fault we find that the inferred moment accumulation rate is highly dependent on the long term fault slip rate which is poorly constrained along the csaf the inferred moment accumulation rate normalized by shear modulus ranges from 3 28 104 to 5 85 107 m3 yr which is equivalent to a mw 5 5 7 2 earthquake every 150 years for a long term slip rate of 26 mm yr and mw 7 3 7 65 for a long term slip rate of 34 mm yr the comparisons of slip distributions with microseismicity and repeating earthquakes indicate a possible locked patch between 10 and 20 km depth on the csaf that could potentially rupture with mw 6 5

crustal deformation across the sierra nevada northern walker lane basin and range transition western united states measured with gps 2000 2004 1 global positioning system gps data collected in campaigns in 2000 and 2004 were processed and interpreted with other gps data in the western basin and range province to provide new constraints on the rate style and pattern of deformation of the central and northern walker lane wl which lies near the western boundary of the basin and range across the central wl near 38n latitude the velocities with respect to north america increase westward by 10 mm yr inducing dextral shear farther north between 40 and 41n latitude a western zone of 7 mm yr relative motion undergoes dextral shear and an eastern zone of 3 mm yr relative motion undergoes extension and shear these data show that the northern wl is essentially a dextral shear zone experiencing minor net dilatation ed 2 6 0 8 nstrain yr near most holocene normal faults dilatation inferred from the velocity field is not greater than the uncertainties however near the central nevada seismic belt we detect significant dilatation expressed as extension in a direction approximately normal to the range fronts ed 23 0 3 9 nstrain yr some of which is attributable to transient postseismic deformation following large historic earthquakes a block model constrained by velocities corrected for transient effects shows that the sum of dextral slip rates across the honey lake warm springs east pyramid fault system and mohawk valley faults is 7 mm yr the wl is a zone whose width and dilatation rate increase northwestward consistent with counterclockwise rotation of the sierra nevada microplate and transfer of deformation into the pacific northwest

slicing up the san francisco bay area block kinematics and fault slip rates from gps derived surface velocities received 26 october 2004 revised 11 february 2005 accepted 10 march 2005 published 16 june 2005 i observations of surface deformation allow us to determine the kinematics of faults in the san francisco bay area we present the bay area velocity unification bavu bay view a compilation of over 200 horizontal surface velocities computed from campaign style and continuous global positioning system gps observations from 1993 to 2003 we interpret this interseismic velocity field using a three dimensional block model to determine the relative contributions of block motion elastic strain accumulation and shallow aseismic creep the total relative motion between the pacific plate and the rigid sierra nevada great valley sngv microplate is 37 9 0 6 mm yr 1 directed toward n30 4 w 0 8 at san francisco 2 fault slip rates from our preferred model are typically within the error bounds of geologic estimates but provide a better fit to geodetic data notable right lateral slip rates in mm yr 1 san gregorio fault 2 4 1 0 west napa fault 4 0 3 0 zone of faulting along the eastern margin of the coast range 5 4 1 0 and mount diablo thrust 3 9 1 0 of reverse slip and 4 0 0 2 of right lateral strike slip slip on the northern calaveras is partitioned between both the west napa and concord green valley fault systems the total convergence across the bay area is negligible poles of rotation for bay area blocks progress systematically from the north america pacific to north america sngv poles the resulting present day relative motion cannot explain the strike of most bay area faults but fault strike does loosely correlate with inferred plate motions at the time each fault initiated