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

southern san andreas fault seismicity is consistent with the gutenberg richter magnitude frequency distribution the magnitudes of any collection of earthquakes nucleating in a region are generally observed to follow the gutenberg richter gr distribution on some major faults however paleoseismic rates are higher than a gr extrapolation from the modern rate of small earthquakes would predict this along with other observations led to the formulation of the characteristic earthquake hypothesis which holds that the rate of small to moderate earthquakes is permanently low on large faults relative to the large earthquake rate wesnousky et al 1983 schwartz and coppersmith 1984 we examine the rate difference between recent small to moderate earthquakes on the southern san andreas fault ssaf and the paleoseismic record hypothesizing that the discrepancy can be explained as a rate change in time rather than a deviation from gr statistics we find that with reasonable assumptions the rate changes necessary to bring the small and large earthquake rates into alignment agree with the size of rate changes seen in epidemic type aftershock sequence modeling where aftershock triggering of large earthquakes drives strong fluctuations in the seismicity rates for earthquakes of all magnitudes the necessary rate changes are also comparable to rate changes observed for other faults worldwide these results are consistent with paleoseismic observations of temporally clustered bursts of large earthquakes on the ssaf and the absence of m 7 earthquakes on the ssaf since 1857

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

convergence rate across the nepal himalaya and interseismic coupling on the main himalayan thrust implications for seismic hazard we document geodetic strain across the nepal himalaya using gps times series from 30 stations in nepal and southern tibet in addition to previously published campaign gps points and leveling data and determine the pattern of interseismic coupling on the main himalayan thrust fault mht the noise on the daily gps positions is modeled as a combination of white and colored noise in order to infer secular velocities at the stations with consistent uncertainties we then locate the pole of rotation of the indian plate in the itrf 2005 reference frame at longitude 1 34 3 31 latitude 51 4 0 3 with an angular velocity of 0 5029 0 0072 myr the pattern of coupling on the mht is computed on a fault dipping 10 to the north and whose strike roughly follows the arcuate shape of the himalaya the model indicates that the mht is locked from the surface to a distance of approximately 100 km down dip corresponding to a depth of 15 to 20 km in map view the transition zone between the locked portion of the mht and the portion which is creeping at the long term slip rate seems to be at the most a few tens of kilometers wide and coincides with the belt of midcrustal microseismicity underneath the himalaya according to a previous study based on thermokinematic modeling of thermochronological and thermobarometric data this transition seems to happen in a zone where the temperature reaches 350 c the convergence between india and south tibet proceeds at a rate of 17 8 0 5 mm yr in central and eastern nepal and 20 5 1 mm yr in western nepal the moment deficit due to locking of the mht in the interseismic period accrues at a rate of 6 6 0 4 10 19 nm yr on the mht underneath nepal for comparison the moment released by the seismicity over the past 500 years including 14 m w 7 earthquakes with moment magnitudes up to 8 5 amounts to only 0 9 10 19 nm yr indicating a large deficit of seismic slip over that period or very infrequent large slow slip events no large slow slip event has been observed however over the 20 years covered by geodetic measurements in the nepal himalaya we discuss the magnitude and return period of m 8 earthquakes required to balance the long term slip budget on the mht

simulated variability of the atlantic meridional overturning circulation to examine the multi annual to decadal scale variability of the atlantic meridional overturning circulation amoc we conducted a four member ensemble with a daily reanalysis forced medium resolution global version of the isopycnic coordinate ocean model micom and a 300 years integration with the fully coupled bergen climate model bcm the simulations of the amoc with both model systems yield a long term mean value of 18 sv and decadal variability with an amplitude of 1 3 sv the power spectrum of the inter annual to decadal scale variability of the amoc in bcm generally follows the theoretical red noise spectrum with indications of increased power near the 20 years period comparison with observational proxy indices for the amoc e g the thickness of the labrador sea water the strength of the baroclinic gyre circulation in the north atlantic ocean and the surface temperature anomalies along the mean path of the gulf stream shows similar trends and phasing of the variability indicating that the simulated amoc variability is robust and real mixing indices have been constructed for the labrador the irminger and the greenland iceland norwegian gin seas while convective mixing in the labrador and the gin seas are in opposite phase and linked to the nao as observations suggest the convective mixing in the irminger sea is in phase with or leads the labrador sea newly formed deep water is seen as a slow anomalous cold and fresh plume flowing southward along the western continental slope of the atlantic ocean with a return flow of warm and saline water on the surface in addition fast travelling topographically trapped waves propagate southward along the continental slope towards equator where they go east and continue along the eastern rim of the atlantic for both types of experiments the northern hemisphere sea level pressure and 2 m temperature anomaly patterns computed based on the difference between climate states with strong and weak amoc yields a nao like pattern with intensified icelandic low and azores high and a warming of 0 25 0 5 c of the central north atlantic sea surface temperature sst the reanalysis forced simulations indicate a coupling between the labrador sea water production rate and an equatorial atlantic sst index in accordance with observations this coupling is not identified in the coupled simulation

recent slowing of atlantic overturning circulation as a recovery from earlier strengthening the atlantic meridional overturning circulation has weakened over the past decade examination of a global reanalysis that matches independent observations shows that the decline is consistent with recovery from an earlier invigoration

bath s law derived from the gutenberg richter law and from aftershock properties 1 the empirical bath s law states that the average difference in magnitude between a mainshock and its largest aftershock is 1 2 regardless of the mainshock magnitude following vere jones 1969 and console et al 2003 we show that the origin of bath s law is to be found in the selection procedure used to define mainshocks and aftershocks rather than in any difference in the mechanisms controlling the magnitude of the mainshock and of the aftershocks we use the etas model of seismicity which provides a more realistic model of aftershocks based on i a universal gutenberg richter gr law for all earthquakes and on ii the increase of the number of aftershocks with the mainshock magnitude using numerical simulations of the etas model we show that this model is in good agreement with bath s law in a certain range of the model parameters

aseismic slip and seismogenic coupling along the central san andreas fault we use high resolution synthetic aperture radar and gps derived observations of surface displacements to derive the first probabilistic estimates of fault coupling along the creeping section of the san andreas fault in between the terminations of the 1857 and 1906 magnitude 7 9 earthquakes using a fully bayesian approach enables unequaled resolution and allows us to infer a high probability of significant fault locking along the creeping section the inferred discreet locked asperities are consistent with evidence for magnitude 6 earthquakes over the past century in this area and may be associated with the initiation phase of the 1857 earthquake as creeping segments may be related to the initiation and termination of seismic ruptures such distribution of locked and creeping asperities highlights the central role of the creeping section on the occurrence of major earthquakes along the san andreas fault

time varying interseismic strain rates and similar seismic ruptures on the nias simeulue patch of the sunda megathrust fossil coral microatolls from fringing reefs above the great m w 8 6 megathrust rupture of 2005 record uplift during the historically reported great earthquake of 1861 such evidence spans nearly the entire 400 km strike length of the 2005 rupture which was previously shown to be bounded by two persistent barriers to seismic rupture moreover at sites where we have constrained the 1861 uplift amplitude it is comparable to uplift in 2005 thus the 1861 and 2005 ruptures appear to be similar in both extent and magnitude at one site an uplift around ad 1422 also appears to mimic the amount of uplift in 2005 the high degree of similarity among certain ruptures of this nias simeulue section of the sunda megathrust contrasts with the substantial disparities amongst ruptures along other sections of the sumatran portion of the sunda megathrust at a site on the northwestern tip of nias reefs also rose during an earthquake in ad 1843 known historically for its damaging tsunami along the eastern coast of the island the coral microatolls also record interseismic vertical deformation at annual to decadal resolution spanning decades to more than a century before each earthquake the corals demonstrate significant changes over time in the rates of interseismic deformation on southern simeulue interseismic subsidence rates were low between 1740 and 1820 but abruptly increased by a factor of 4 10 two to four decades before the 1861 rupture this may indicate that full coupling or deep locking of the megathrust began only a few decades before the great earthquake in the banyak islands near the pivot line separating coseismic uplift from subsidence in 2005 ongoing interseismic subsidence switched to steady uplift from 1966 until 1981 suggesting a 15 year long slow slip event with slip velocities at more than 120 of the plate convergence rate

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

towards inferring earthquake patterns from geodetic observations of interseismic coupling ultimately seismotectonic studies seek to provide ways of assessing the timing magnitude and spatial extent of future earthquakes ample observations document the spatial variability in interseismic coupling defined as a degree of locking of a fault during the period of stress build up between seismic events fully or nearly locked fault patches are often surrounded by aseismically creeping areas however it is unclear how these observations could help assess future earthquakes here we simulate spontaneous seismic and aseismic fault slip with a fully dynamic numerical model our simulations establish the dependence of earthquake rupture patterns and interseismic coupling on spatial variations of fault friction we consider the long term evolution of slip on a model fault where two seismogenic locked segments are separated by an aseismically slipping patch where rupture is impeded we find that the probability for a large earthquake to break through the rupture impeding patch is correlated with the interseismic coupling averaged over this patch in addition the probability that an earthquake breaks through the rupture impeding patch and interseismic coupling are both related to fault friction properties through a single non dimensional parameter our study opens the possibility of predicting seismic rupture patterns that a fault system can produce on the basis of observations of its interseismic coupling and suggests that regions of low interseismic coupling may reveal permanent barriers to large earthquakes

late holocene slip rate of the san andreas fault and its accommodation by creep and moderate magnitude earthquakes at parkfield california investigation of a right laterally offset channel at the miller9s field paleoseismic site yields a late holocene slip rate of 26 2 6 4 4 3 mm yr 1 for the main trace of the san andreas fault at parkfield california this is the first well documented geologic slip rate between the carrizo and creeping sections of the san andreas fault this rate is lower than holocene measurements along the carrizo plain and rates implied by far field geodetic measurements 35 mm yr however the rate is consistent with historical slip rates measured to the northwest along the creeping section of the san andreas fault

san andreas fault zone california m 5 5 earthquake history the san andreas fault zone has been a very significant source of major california earthquakes from 1812 to 1906 it generated four major earthquakes of m 7 or larger in two pairs on two major portions of the fault a pair of major earthquakes occurred on the central to southern region where the 1857 faulting overlapped the 1812 earthquake faulting a pair of major earthquakes occurred on the northern region where the 1906 faulting overlapped the 1838 earthquake faulting also earthquakes of m 7 occurred in the san francisco bay area on the hayward fault in 1868 and the santa cruz mountains near loma prieta in 1989 and on the imperial fault near the border with mexico in 1940 the 1838 earthquake s damage effects throughout the bay area from san francisco to santa clara valley and monterey were unequalled by any historical earthquake other than the 1906 event this and numerous strong possible aftershocks during the following 3 years in the san juan bautista vicinity suggest 1838 faulting from san francisco to san juan bautista cycles of seismicity and quiescence were associated with the bay area earthquakes of 1868 1906 and 1989 the 1868 earthquake on the hayward fault was preceded by 12 earthquakes of m 5 5 from 1855 to 1866 within 60 km of the hayward fault and was followed by 13 quiet years the 1906 san andreas fault event was preceded from 1881 to 1903 by 18 earthquakes of m 5 5 and was followed by quiescence with only three earthquakes of m 5 5 until 1954 the bay area has been seismically quiet at the m 5 5 level since the 1989 loma prieta earthquake and its 1990 aftershocks which contrasts with the 10 years before 1989 when five m 5 5 6 2 events occurred the loma prieta earthquake is of similar magnitude to the 1868 hayward event and could be followed by a similarly short quiet period the 1857 earthquake had immediate foreshocks in the lonoak bitterwater region 50 km northwest of parkfield in the northern end zone of the 1857 rupture extending southeast from bitterwater 70 km to parkfield the rate of seismic moment release has decreased with time since 1857 this may reflect the decay with time of the stress loading due to the 9 m 1857 fault displacements 80 km southeast of parkfield and explain why the predicted earthquake which was based on the assumption of regular recurrence of parkfield earthquakes has not yet occurred the extent of the 1812 earthquake fault rupture is not well defined jacoby et al 1988 estimated that it extended 170 km from cajon pass to tejon pass based on this estimate we present the hypothesis that the rupture occurred in two segments in december 1812 the eastern segment generated the 8 december earthquake that damaged san juan capistrano san gabriel san fernando and san buenaventura thirteen days later the western segment ruptured generating the earthquake that damaged san fernando and san buenaventura again as well as santa barbara santa ynez and purisima concepcion

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

slip rate increase at parkfield in 1993 detected by high precision edm and borehole tensor strainmeters on two of the instrument networks at parkfield california the two color electronic distance meter edm network and borehole tensor strainmeter btsm network we have detected a rate change starting in 1993 that has persisted at least 5 years these and other instruments capable of measuring crustal deformation were installed at parkfield in anticipation of a moderate m6 earthquake on the san andreas fault many of these instruments have been in operation since the mid 1980s and have established an excellent baseline to judge changes in rate of deformation and the coherence of such changes between instruments the onset of the observed rate change corresponds in time to two other changes at parkfield from late 1992 through late 1994 the parkfield region had an increase in number of m4 to m5 earthquakes relative to the preceding 6 years the deformation rate change also coincides with the end of a 7 year period of sub normal rainfall both the spatial coherence of the rate change and hydrological modeling suggest a tectonic explanation for the rate change from these observations we infer that the rate of slip increased over the period 1993 1998

a high frequency secondary event during the 2004 parkfield earthquake by using seismic records of the 2004 magnitude 6 0 parkfield earthquake we identified a burst of high frequency seismic radiation that occurred about 13 kilometers northwest of the hypocenter and 5 seconds after rupture initiation we imaged this event in three dimensions by using a waveform back projection method as well as by timing distinct arrivals visible on many of the seismograms the high frequency event is located near the south edge of a large slip patch seen in most seismic and geodetic inversions indicating that slip may have grown abruptly at this point the time history obtained from full waveform back projection suggests a rupture velocity of 2 5 kilometers per second energy estimates for the subevent together with long period slip inversions indicate a lower average stress drop for the northern part of the parkfield earthquake compared with that for the region near its hypocenter which is in agreement with stress drop estimates obtained from small magnitude aftershocks

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

change of apparent segmentation of the san andreas fault around parkfield from space geodetic observations across multiple periods sequences of earthquakes are commonly represented as a succession of periods of interseismic stress accumulation followed by coseismic and postseismic phases of stress release because the recurrence time of large earthquakes is often greater than the available span of space geodetic data it has been challenging to monitor the evolution of interseismic loading in its entire duration here we analyze large data sets of surface deformation at different key episodes around the cholame parkfield and creeping segments of the san andreas fault that show evidence of significant deceleration of fault slip during the interseismic period we compare the average fault slip rates before and after the 2004 mw6 parkfield earthquake in the 1986 2004 and 2006 2012 periods respectively avoiding 2 years of postseismic deformation after 2004 using a combination of gps data from the plate boundary observatory the southern california earthquake center crustal motion map and the bay area velocity unification networks and interferometric synthetic aperture radar from the advanced land observing satellite alos and envisat satellites we show that the area of coupling at the transition between the parkfield and cholame segments appears larger later in the interseismic period than it does earlier on while strong plate coupling is uniform across the parkfield and cholame segments in the 1986 2004 period creep occurs south of the 2004 epicenter after 2006 making segmentation of the san andreas fault south of parkfield more clearly apparent these observations indicate that analyses of surface deformation late in the earthquake cycle may overestimate the area of plate coupling a fault surface creeping much below plate rate may in some case be a region that does not promote earthquake nucleation but rather just be at a slower stage of its evolution our analysis also shows signs of large variation of slip velocity above and below plate rate in the creeping segment indicating that cycles of weakening and hardening can also be at play in dominantly aseismic areas

sedimentology of fault scarp derived colluvium from the 1983 borah peak rupture central idaho abstract ten undisturbed samples of scarp derived colluvium from the 1983 borah peak idaho fault scarp were subjected to laboratory grain size and fabric measurements to characterize typical colluvium from a basin and range fault scarp colluvial deposits consisted of poorly sorted pebble gravels mean diameter 0 3 to 3 75 1 2 to 13 5 mm with 25 79 matrix 4 mm stereograms of long axis orientations of 115 clasts from each colluvial wedge yielded girdle type distributions with typical eigenvalue ratios of in s1 s2 0 05 0 50 and in s2 s3 0 3 1 0 these girdle distributions indicate preferred orientation in angle of repose planes coincident with colluvial wedge depositional planes short axis stereograms display single or du l maxima with mean bearing parallel to transport direction and plunge perpendicular to the colluvial wedge surface clast fabric strength is not strongly correlated with scarp aspect corr coeff 0 03 to 0 68 or with the slope of the faulted geomorphic surface corr coeff 0 16 to 0 57 but it improves with increasing matrix content corr coeff 0 04 to 0 42 fabrics in measured wedges are weaker than those reported for other colluviums and talus and resemble fabrics in debris flows however the stronger girdle tendencies and distinct orientation subgroups in scarp derived colluvium should distinguish it from suspected debris flow deposits in fault zone exposures

kinematic inversion of the 2004 m 6 0 parkfield earthquake including an approximation to site effects the 2004 m 6 0 parkfield earthquake yielded one of the largest amounts of near source strong ground motion seismic data ever we invert strong motion seismograms to obtain a model for the space time distribution of coseismic slip on the fault to reduce noise in the inversion we take into account local amplifications that affect each station by using records of the 1983 m 6 5 coalinga earthquake site amplification correlates well with large peak ground velocities registered during the 2004 parkfield mainshock the inversion for a kinematic rupture model yields a nonunique solution we therefore analyze various rupture models that explain the data equally well our preferred rupture model identifies a primary zone of high slip surrounding the hypocenter where the maximum slip is 57 cm a secondary slip area over which contours are not well resolved is located northwest of the hypo center the rupture speed is highly heterogeneous we infer an average rupture ve locity of 2 8 km sec close to the hypocenter and of 3 3 km sec in the secondary region of large slip to the northwest of the hypocenter by correlation of our rupture model with both microseismicity and velocity structure we identify six patches on the fault plane that behave in seismically distinct ways online material kinematic rupture model parameters

coseismic and initial postseismic deformation from the 2004 parkfield california earthquake observed by global positioning system electronic distance meter creepmeters and borehole strainmeters global positioning system gps electronic distance meter creepmeter and strainmeter measurements spanning the m 6 0 parkfield california earthquake are examined using these data from 100 sec through 9 months following the mainshock the omori s law with rate inversely related to time 1 t p and p ranging between 0 7 and 1 3 characterizes the time dependent deformation during the postseismic period these results are consistent with creep models for elastic solids with an accurate function of postseismic response the coseismic displacements can be estimated from the high rate 1 min sampling gps and the coseismic displacements are approximately 75 of those estimated from the daily solutions consequently fault slip models using daily solutions overestimate coseismic slip in addition at 2 months and at 8 months following the mainshock postseismic displacements are modeled as slip on the san andreas fault with a lower bound on the moment exceeding that of the coseismic moment online material data description and supplementary figures tables and data used in models and time series analysis

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

a geodesy and seismicity based local earthquake likelihood model for central los angeles we estimate time independent earthquake likelihoods in central los angeles using a model of interseismic strain accumulation and the 1932 2017 seismic catalog we assume that on the long term average earthquakes and aseismic deformation collectively release seismic moment at a rate balancing interseismic loading mainshocks obey the gutenberg richter law a log linear magnitude frequency distribution mfd up to a maximum magnitude and a poisson process and aftershock sequences obey the gutenberg richter and bath laws we model a comprehensive suite of these long term systems assess how likely each system would be to have produced the mfd of the instrumental catalog and use these likelihoods to probabilistically estimate the long term mfd we estimate m max 6 8 1 05 0 4 every 300 years or m max 7 05 0 95 0 4 assuming a truncated or tapered gutenberg richter mfd respectively our results imply that for example the median likelihood of one or more m w 6 5 mainshocks is 0 2 in 1 year 2 in 10 years and 18 21 in 100 years

minimum magnitude of completeness in earthquake catalogs examples from alaska the western united states and japan we mapped the minimum magnitude of complete reporting m c for alaska the western united states and for the junec earthquake catalog of japan mc was estimated based on its departure from the linear frequency magnitude relation of the 250 closest earthquakes to grid nodes spaced 10 km apart in all catalogs studied mc was strongly heterogeneous in offshore areas the mc was typically one unit of magnitude higher than onshore on land also mc can vary by one order of magnitude over distance less than 50 km we recommend that seismicity studies that depend on complete sets of small earthquakes should be limited to areas with similar mc or the minimum magnitude for the analysis has to be raised to the highest com mon value of mc we believe that the data quality as reflected by the mc level should be used to define the spatial extent of seismicity studies where mc plays a role the method we use calculates the goodness of fit between a power law fit to the data and the observed frequency magnitude distribution as a function of a lower cutoff of the magnitude data mc is defined as the magnitude at which 90 of the data can be modeled by a power law fit mc in the 1990s is approximately 1 2 0 4 in most parts of california 1 8 0 4 in most of alaska aleutians and panhandle excluded and at a higher level in the junec catalog for japan various sources such as ex plosions and earthquake families beneath volcanoes can lead to distributions that cannot be fit well by power laws for the hokkaido region we demonstrate how neglecting the spatial variability of m c can lead to erroneous assumptions about deviations from self similarity of earthquake scaling

slip in the 1857 and earlier large earthquakes along the carrizo plain san andreas fault the moment magnitude mw 7 9 fort tejon earthquake of 1857 with a 350 kilometer long surface rupture was the most recent major earthquake along the south central san andreas fault california based on previous measurements of its surface slip distribution rupture along the 60 kilometer long carrizo segment was thought to control the recurrence of 1857 like earthquakes new high resolution topographic data show that the average slip along the carrizo segment during the 1857 event was 5 3 1 4 meters eliminating the core assumption for a linkage between carrizo segment rupture and recurrence of major earthquakes along the south central san andreas fault earthquake slip along the carrizo segment may recur in earthquake clusters with cumulative slip of 5 meters

the arrival of recently formed labrador sea water in the deep western boundary current at 26 5 n the deep western boundary current dwbc of the north atlantic is a principal conduit between the formation region for labrador sea water lsw and the oceanic interior to the south time series 1985 1997 of hydrographic properties obtained in the dwbc at 26 5 n show that prior to 1994 temperature salinity and transient tracer properties within the lsw density range showed little indication of recently formed parcels properties characteristic of a newer version of lsw cooler fresher and higher tracer concentrations were observed beginning in 1994 and continuing through 1997 longer time series of temperature and salinity developed from a regional data base show both the 1994 and a 1980 1981 event in the abaco region both events are consistent with anomalies in the labrador sea that occurred some 10 years earlier the 10 year transit time from the labrador sea to 26 5 n is less than the 18 year transit time inferred from earlier studies

a multimodel study of sea surface temperature and subsurface density fingerprints of the atlantic meridional overturning circulation abstractthe atlantic meridional overturning circulation amoc is an important component of the north atlantic climate system here simulations from 10 coupled climate models are used to calculate patterns of sea surface temperature sst and subsurface density change associated with decadal amoc variability the models are evaluated using observational constraints and it is shown that all 10 models suffer from north atlantic deep water transports that are too shallow although the biases are least severe in the community climate system model version 4 ccsm4 in the models that best compare with observations positive amoc anomalies are associated with reduced labrador sea stratification and increased midocean 800 1800 m densities in the subpolar gyre maximum correlations occur when amoc anomalies lag labrador sea stratification and subsurface density anomalies by 2 6 yr and 0 3 yr respectively in all 10 models north atlantic warming follows positive amoc anomalies but the patterns and magnitud

high resolution topography derived offsets along the 1857 fort tejon earthquake rupture trace san andreas fault the great fort tejon earthquake of 1857 with an 350 km long surface rupture was the most recent major earthquake along the south central san andreas fault saf prior reconstruction of its surface slip distribution and reconstruction of preceding earthquakes along the 1857 rupture trace have contributed to formulation of the characteristic earthquake cem and uniform slip models usm for earthquake recurrence that find wide application in seismic hazard assessment and earthquake forecasting we used the high resolution b4 light detection and ranging lidar topographic data set sufficient for depiction of meter scale tectonic landforms to reevaluate the distribution of surface displacement along the 1857 rupture trace we present 450 offset measurements with displacements below 60 m increasing observation density relative to previous studies by a factor of 2 our results show that the 1857 earthquake had overall an average displacement below 3 5 m with 4 6 m released along the northwestern half of the rupture its along fault slip distribution is smooth at 10 km length scales at 28 less than prior estimates assuming a 10 km rupture depth and a 30 gpa shear modulus reconstruction of pre 1857 earthquakes is impeded by an exponential decrease in observation density with increasing displacement amount offset observation density soon reaches a level where only tentative and nonunique reconstructions are permitted the results of this study question prior surface slipreconstructions of pre 1857 rupture s that were based on a distinctly lower number of offset observations challenging the applicability of the aforementioned earthquake recurrence models to explain saf rupture behavior online material catalog of offset measurements along the 1857 surface rupture trace as well as an annotated map 1 embed inline graphic 1 gif

the origins of late twentieth century variations in the large scale north atlantic circulation abstractsurface forcing perturbation experiments are examined to identify the key forcing elements associated with late twentieth century interannual to decadal atlantic circulation variability as simulated in an ocean sea ice hindcast configuration of the community earth system model version 1 cesm1 buoyancy forcing accounts for most of the decadal variability in both the atlantic meridional overturning circulation amoc and the subpolar gyre circulation and the key drivers of these basin scale circulation changes are found to be the turbulent buoyancy fluxes evaporation as well as the latent and sensible heat fluxes these three fluxes account for almost all of the decadal amoc variability in the north atlantic even when applied only over the labrador sea region year to year changes in surface momentum forcing explain most of the interannual amoc variability at all latitudes as well as most of the decadal variability south of the equator the observed strengthening of southern ocean westerly wi

stable creeping fault segments can become destructive as a result of dynamic weakening faults in earth s crust accommodate slow relative motion between tectonic plates through either similarly slow slip or fast seismic wave producing rupture events perceived as earthquakes these types of behaviour are often assumed to be separated in space and to occur on two different types of fault segment one with stable rate strengthening friction and the other with rate weakening friction that leads to stick slip the 2011 tohoku oki earthquake with moment magnitude m w 9 0 challenged such assumptions by accumulating its largest seismic slip in the area that had been assumed to be creeping here we propose a model in which stable rate strengthening behaviour at low slip rates is combined with coseismic weakening due to rapid shear heating of pore fluids allowing unstable slip to occur in segments that can creep between events the model parameters are based on laboratory measurements on samples from the fault of the m w 7 6 1999 chi chi earthquake the long term slip behaviour of the model which we examine using a unique numerical approach that includes all wave effects reproduces and explains a number of both long term and coseismic observations some of them seemingly contradictory about the faults at which the tohoku oki and chi chi earthquakes occurred including there being more high frequency radiation from areas of lower slip the largest seismic slip in the tohoku oki earthquake having occurred in a potentially creeping segment the overall pattern of previous events in the area and the complexity of the tohoku oki rupture the implication that earthquake rupture may break through large portions of creeping segments which are at present considered to be barriers requires a re evaluation of seismic hazard in many areas

millenary mw 9 0 earthquakes required by geodetic strain in the himalaya the himalayan arc produced the largest known continental earthquake the m w 8 7 assam earthquake of 1950 but how frequently and where else in the himalaya such large magnitude earthquakes occur is not known paleoseismic evidence for coseismic ruptures at the front of the himalaya with 15 to 30 m of slip suggests even larger events in medieval times but this inference is debated here we estimate the frequency and magnitude of the largest earthquake in the himalaya needed so that the moment released by seismicity balances the deficit of moment derived from measurements of geodetic strain assuming one third of the moment buildup is released aseismically and the earthquakes roughly follow a gutenberg richter distribution we find that m w 9 0 events are needed with a confidence level of at least 60 and must return approximately once per 800 years on average

is there a discrepancy between geological and geodetic slip rates along the san andreas fault system previous inversions for slip rate along the san andreas fault system safs based on elastic half space models show a discrepancy between the geologic and geodetic slip rates along a few major fault segments in this study we use an earthquake cycle model representing an elastic plate over a viscoelastic half space to demonstrate that there is no significant discrepancy between long term geologic and geodetic slip rates the california statewide model includes 41 major fault segments having steady slip from the base of the locked zone to the base of the elastic plate and episodic shallow slip based on known historical ruptures and geologic recurrence intervals the slip rates are constrained by 1981 secular velocity measurements from gps and l band intereferometric synthetic aperture radar a model with a thick elastic layer 60 km and half space viscosity of 1019pa s is preferred because it produces the smallest misfit to both the geologic and the geodetic data we find that the geodetic slip rates from the thick plate model agrees to within the bounds of the geologic slip rates while the rates from the elastic half space model disagree on specific important fault segments such as the mojave and the north coast segment of the san andreas fault the viscoelastic earthquake cycle models have generally higher slip rates than the half space model because most of the faults along the safs are late in the earthquake cycle so today they are moving slower than the long term cycle averaged velocity as governed by the viscoelastic relaxation process

analysis of deformation data at parkfield california detection of a long term strain transient analysis of more than a decade of high quality data particularly those from the two color electronic distance meter edm in the parkfield california area reveals a significant transient in slip rate along the san andreas fault this transient consists of an increase in fault slip rate of 3 3 0 9 mm yr during 1993 0 to 1998 0 the most reliable fault creep instruments show a comparable increase in slip rate suggesting that the deformation is localized to the fault which breaks the surface there was also an increase in precipitation around 1993 it is unlikely however that this anomaly is due directly to hydrology as its spatial distribution is what would be expected for increased slip on the san andreas fault the increase in slip rate corresponds temporally to a dramatic increase in seismicity including the four largest earthquakes in the period 1984 1999 that occurred along a 6 km segment of the fault just to the north of the edm network there was also a previously reported anomaly in borehole shear strain gwyther et al 1996 that closely corresponds temporally to the transient in edm data solely on the basis of edm data the transient can be modeled as a slip event on a 10 km long segment of the fault the calculated shear strains from this model however are not consistent with the observed ones a compatible model can be found if there is increased aseismic slip to the northwest in conjunction with the four earthquakes support for this northwestern slip is provided by a recent study of slip rate based on microearthquake activity we speculate that this northwestern event served to load the fault to the southeast with the stress being partially released by the observed slip

1857 slip on the san andreas fault southeast of cholame california sieh and jahns 1984 forecasted that the next moderate parkfield earthquake might trigger a major earthquake along a fault segment greater than 30 km long southeast of cholame their forecast assumed 1 the slip was 3 4 m in 1857 and characteristic of the segment 2 a slip rate of 3 4 cm yr and 3 full strain release in earthquakes this study represents an independent measurement of channel offsets on 1 2400 scale low sun aerial photographs and by field investigation to estimate the amount of 1857 slip although rainfall is only moderate 30 cm yr few reliable offsets of less than 20 m persist here because cattle grazing and agricultural disking of soft sediments on the steep terrain greatly aggravate erosion reconstruction of offset geometry and size depends heavily on assumptions made about the post 1857 erosion most of the apparent 3 to 4 m offsets of sieh and jahns 1984 can also be measured as 2 to 3 m larger with equal or lower uncertainty the four offsets judged as most reliable range between 5 4 and 6 7 m and the 11 offsets of medium high reliability average 5 8 0 3 m data are too sparse and ambiguous to resolve details of the 1857 slip for this segment but it is distinctly less than the 9 m of the carrizo plain and more than the 3 4 m previously estimated further trenching may refine some measurements but probability calculations for a cholame segment earthquake must allow for large observer dependent uncertainty in the 1857 slip although the probability of an m 7 cholame event seems less than that suggested by a 3 5 m characteristic earthquake model it remains among the highest in the state

from geodetic imaging of seismic and aseismic fault slip to dynamic modeling of the seismic cycle understanding the partitioning of seismic and aseismic fault slip is central to seismotectonics as it ultimately determines the seismic potential of faults thanks to advances in tectonic geodesy it is now possible to develop kinematic models of the spatiotemporal evolution of slip over the seismic cycle and to determine the budget of seismic and aseismic slip studies of subduction zones and continental faults have shown that aseismic creep is common and sometimes prevalent within the seismogenic depth range interseismic coupling is generally observed to be spatially heterogeneous defining locked patches of stress accumulation to be released in future earthquakes or aseismic transients surrounded by creeping areas clay rich tectonites high temperature and elevated pore fluid pressure seem to be key factors promoting aseismic creep the generally logarithmic time evolution of afterslip is a distinctive feature of creeping faults that suggests a logarithmic dependency of fault friction on slip rate

how much has the north atlantic ocean overturning circulation changed in the last 50 years abstractvolume transports from six ocean reanalyses are compared with four sets of in situ observations across the greenland scotland ridge gsr in the labrador sea boundary current in the deep western boundary current at 43 n and in the atlantic meridional overturning circulation amoc at 26 n in the north atlantic the higher resolution reanalyses on the order of are better at reproducing the circulation pattern in the subpolar gyre than those with lower resolution on the order of 1 simple ocean data assimilation soda and estimating the circulation and climate of the ocean ecco jet propulsion laboratory jpl produce transports at 26 n that are close to those observed 17 sv 1 sv 106 m3 s 1 ecco version 2 and soda produce northward transports across the gsr observed transport of 8 2 sv that are 22 and 29 too big respectively by contrast the low resolution reanalyses have transports that are either too small by 31 for ecco jpl and 49 for ocean reanalysis system

elevated shear zone loading rate during an earthquake cluster in eastern california we compare geodetic velocity to geologic fault slip rates to show that tectonic loading was doubled across the eastern california shear zone ecsz during a cluster of major earthquake activity new slip rates are presented for six dextral faults that compose the ecsz in the central mojave desert these rates were determined from displaced alluvial fans dated with cosmogenic 10 be and from a displaced lava flow dated with 40 ar 39 ar we find that the sum geologic mojave ecsz slip rate 6 2 1 9 mm yr is only half the present day geodetically measured velocity of 12 2 mm yr these rates account for cumulative fault slip and geodetic observations that span the 60 km wide shear zone therefore this difference cannot be attributed to postseismic relaxation redistribution of tectonic loading over the earthquake cycle at a regional scale suggests that earthquake clustering may be enhanced via feedback with weakening of ductile shear zones

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

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

a paleogeodetic record of variable interseismic rates and megathrust coupling at simeulue island sumatra an 1100 year long paleogeodetic record of land height change along the simeulue section of the sumatran subduction zone reveals significant variations in vertical motion rates from an 267 year long record we develop models to explain rate variations in the decades before the 1861 2004 and 2005 great earthquakes the record shows that rates accelerated by a factor of 4 to 10 in the decades before the 1861 earthquake one plausible explanation is a significant increase in the depth of interseismic coupling on the sunda megathrust under simeulue despite similarity of the 1861 and 2005 coseismic rupture patterns the pattern of coupling during the decades before the two earthquakes may have been different most gps observations of interseismic deformation at subduction zones span only a decade or two our results highlight the need to treat gps derived coupling maps as only a snapshot of fault conditions that are temporally variable

the impact of resolution on the adjustment and decadal variability of the atlantic meridional overturning circulation in a coupled climate model variations in the atlantic meridional overturning circulation moc exert an important influence on climate particularly on decadal time scales simulation of the moc in coupled climate models is compromised to a degree that is unknown by their lack of fidelity in resolving some of the key processes involved there is an overarching need to increase the resolution and fidelity of climate models but also to assess how increases in resolution influence the simulation of key phenomena such as the moc in this study we investigate the impact of significantly increasing the ocean and atmosphere resolution of a coupled climate model on the simulation of moc variability by comparing high and low resolution versions of the same model in both versions decadal variability of the moc is closely linked to density anomalies that propagate from the labrador sea southward along the deep western boundary we demonstrate that the moc adjustment proceeds more rapidly in the higher resolution model due the increased speed of western boundary waves however the response of the atlantic sea surface temperatures to moc variations is relatively robust in pattern if not in magnitude across the two resolutions the moc also excites a coupled ocean atmosphere response in the tropical atlantic in both model versions in the higher resolution model but not the lower resolution model there is evidence of a significant response in the extratropical atmosphere over the north atlantic 6 years after a maximum in the moc in both models there is evidence of a weak negative feedback on deep density anomalies in the labrador sea and hence on the moc with a time scale of approximately ten years our results highlight the need for further work to understand the decadal variability of the moc and its simulation in climate models

fault behavior and characteristic earthquakes examples from the wasatch and san andreas fault zones paleoseismological data for the wasatch and san andreas fault zones have led to the formulation of the characteristic earthquake model which postulates that individual faults and fault segments tend to generate essentially same size or characteristic earthquakes having a relatively narrow range of magnitudes near the maximum analysis of scarp derived colluvium in trench exposures across the wasatch fault provides estimates of the timing and displacement associated with individual surface faulting earthquakes at all of the sites studied the displacement per event has been consistently large measured values range from 1 6 to 2 6 m and the average is about 2 m on the basis of variability in the timing of individual events as well as changes in scarp morphology and fault geometry six major segments are recognized along the wasatch fault on the basis of the most likely number of surface faulting events 18 that have occurred on segments of the wasatch fault zone during the past 8000 years an average recurrence interval of 400 666 years with a preferred average of 444 years is calculated for the entire zone geologic data on the distribution of slip associated with prehistoric earthquakes and slip rates along the south central segment of the san andreas fault suggest that the m 8 1857 earthquake is a characteristic earthquake for this segment comparisons of earthquake recurrence relationships on both the wasatch and san andreas faults based on historical seismicity data and geologic data show that a linear constant b value extrapolation of the cumulative recurrence curve from the smaller magnitudes leads to gross underestimates of the frequency of occurrence of the large or characteristic earthquakes only by assuming a low b value in the moderate magnitude range can the seismicity data on small earthquakes be reconciled with geologic data on large earthquakes the characteristic earthquake appears to be a fundamental aspect of the behavior of the wasatch and san andreas faults and may apply to many other faults as well

is stress accumulating on the creeping section of the san andreas fault 1 the creeping section of the san andreas fault csaf in central california is a proposed barrier to propagation of large earthquakes yet recent studies show that the creeping section is not entirely uncoupled but is accumulating slip deficit at a rate equivalent to a mw 7 2 7 4 earthquake every 150years a critical piece to understanding earthquake potential on the csaf is determining whether slip deficit is occurring with stress accumulation on stick slip regions or without stress accumulation on stable sliding regions shadowed by surrounding locked areas we use a physical model to estimate the spatial distribution of locked stress accumulating areas of the fault constrained by surface creep rate measurements and gps derived velocities we find that the area of the fault accumulating stress if ruptured every 150years would release slip equivalent to at most a mw 6 75 earthquake significantly less than the mw 7 2 7 4 150year equivalent total slip deficit rate

the relationship between seismic and aseismic slip on the philippine fault on leyte island bayesian modeling of fault slip and geothermal subsidence delineating seismic and aseismic slip on faults allows the exploration of the complex relationship between these different modes of slip further quantifying them helps in the assessment of seismogenic potential we present a distributed slip model of the rate of aseismic slip along the leyte island section of the philippine fault and make comparisons with the extent of seismic slip from the latest significant earthquakes in july 2017 we derived both coseismic and aseismic slip distributions from kinematic inversions of synthetic aperture radar interferometric insar observations using a probabilistic bayesian framework velocity maps from stacking and time series analysis of alos interferograms spanning 4 years 2007 2011 show a step change in ground deformation right on the fault inverting for slip at depth reveals along strike variations of aseismic slip rate over 100 km aseismic slip on the surface reaches rates of more than 3 cm yr equivalent to the long term slip rate 3 3 0 2 cm yr over the same period a 20 km segment in tongonan appears to be locked this segment ruptured in mw 6 5 and mw 5 8 earthquakes on 6 and 10 july 2017 respectively as constrained by sentinel 1 and alos 2 insar data seismic slip appears to be restricted within the tongonan segment with up to 152 21 cm of left lateral displacement the slip budget and complementarity between the extents of interseismic and coseismic slip suggest that a seismogenic asperity exists in tongonan the presence of active hydrothermal systems and rate strengthening materials provide physical conditions that can promote aseismic slip

slip along the san andreas fault associated with the great 1857 earthquake historical records indicate that several meters of lateral slip along the san andreas fault accompanied the great 1857 earthquake in central and southern california these records together with dendrochronological evidence suggest that the rupture occurred along 360 to 400 km of the fault including several tens of kilometers of the currently creeping reach in central california geomorphic expressions of late holocene right lateral offsets are abundant along the 1857 rupture along 300 kilometers of the 1857 rupture between cholame and wrightwood the youngest discernible offset ranges from 3 to 9 1 2 meters dormancy of the fault since 1857 almost certainly indicates that this latest offset was created in 1857 fault slip apparently associated with the 1857 earthquake varies in a broadly systematic way along the trace of the fault it is relatively uniform along each of several long segments but changes rather abruptly in value between these segments this nonuniform displacement pattern may imply that some segments of the fault rupture more frequently or experience a slower long term slip rate than others the 1857 offsets indicate a seismic moment m o between 5 3 and 8 7 10 27 dyne cm assuming a 10 to 15 km depth of rupture and relatively uniform slip as a function of depth a comparison with the rupture length average slip value and tectonic setting of the california earthquake of 1906 m s 8 1 4 indicates a value of m 8 1 4 for the 1857 event

fault slip rates at depth from recurrence intervals of repeating microearthquakes unique attributes in sequences of recurring similar microearthquakes at parkfield california provide a means for inferring slip rate at depth throughout the active fault surface from the time intervals between sequence events application of the method using an 11 year microseismicity record revealed systematic spatial and temporal changes in the slip rate that were synchronous with earthquake activity and other independent measures of fault zone slip if this phenomenon is found to be generally common behavior in active faults it forms the basis for a method to monitor the changing strain field throughout a seismogenic fault zone

earthquake deformation cycle on the san andreas fault near parkfield california six moderate earthquakes are thought to have ruptured the parkfield segment of the san andreas fault since 1857 the similar characteristics of the three seismically recorded events together with the quasi regular 22 year recurrence interval have led to the forecast of a similar event in 1988 5 years in this study the potential for the hypothesized earthquake is assessed by estimating the time required for interseismic straining to recover the strain energy released by the most recent june 1966 parkfield earthquake for a simple model of the earthquake cycle this interval is proportional to the ratio of the 1966 seismic moment to the interseismic moment deficit rate baseline lengths measured before and after the 1966 earthquake are inverted to estimate the magnitude and distribution of the combined coseismic and transient postseismic slip although the geodetic data determine only broad spatial averages of the fault slip they do require that slip at depth exceeded the surface offsets measured in 1966 inversions with extreme prior models are calculated to assess the range of seismic moment and moment deficit rates consistent with the available geodetic data inversions assuming only that the slip distributions are to some degree smooth yield strain energy recovery intervals of 14 25 years extreme values range from as little as 6 years to as much as 29 years in comparison historic recurrence intervals of parkfield earthquakes range from 12 to 32 years these results are consistent with the expectation of a magnitude 5 6 earthquake near parkfield by 1993

anomalous shear strain at parkfield during 1993 94 three borehole tensor strainmeters btsm installed near parkfield and separated by more than 5km have established a good baseline of data spanning the past eight years a significant change in the accumulation rate of shear strain 0 5 and 1 0 microstrain per year at two of the sites commencing approximately in mid 1993 and continuing to 1995 is evident in these data some supporting evidence for a change in the strain rate at that time is seen in dilatometer data geodetic measurements fault zone properties and microearthquake locations there was also an increase in medium level seismic activity m 4 7 on 10 20 92 m 3 9 on 10 26 92 m 3 5 on 3 13 93 m 4 4 on 4 3 93 m 4 8 on 11 14 93 in the middle mountain area while a rainfall induced strain may have caused the observed strain anomaly we propose a more likely explanation is that aseismic slip at depth on a section of the fault south of middle mountain produced the observed strain anomaly this anomaly is unique in the current data set

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

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

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

reassessment of a slip budget along the parkfield segment of the san andreas fault historically the parkfield segment has represented a transition in fault behavior along the san andreas fault saf despite a 33 mm yr long term slip rate along the saf slip has not been observed on the cholame segment since the great 1857 fort tejon earthquake during that time the parkfield segment has experienced slip from at least six m 6 0 earthquakes aseismic fault creep and from minor earthquakes data from aseismic slip rate studies and historical earthquake studies allow us to estimate the total slip released along this portion of the saf since 1857 assuming the saf should slip at the long term slip rate a slip deficit of 5 m exists along the cholame segment since 1857 the slip deficit is approximately equivalent to 1857 offsets measured on the cholame and the southeast portion of the parkfield segment thus the slip deficit in southeast parkfield and cholame may be as great as the slip accommodated along these segments in 1857 the slip deficit abruptly decreases to the northwest across the parkfield segment it is 2 m near the town of parkfield and 0 m northwest of middle mountain an m 7 event rupturing all or part of the cholame segment and the southeastern parkfield segment slip decreasing to the northwest would release the accumulated slip and is plausible importantly this study also shows that the change in the pattern of strain release occurs in the middle of the parkfield segment rather than at its ends online material tables showing aseismic and coseismic slip estimations and calculations

evidence for postseismic deformation of the lower crust following the 2004 mw6 0 parkfield earthquake previous studies have shown that postseismic relaxation following the 2004 mw6 0 parkfield ca earthquake is dominated by afterslip however we show that some fraction of the afterslip inferred from kinematic inversion to have occurred immediately below the seismically ruptured area may in fact be a substitute for viscous postseismic deformation of the lower crust using continuous gps and synthetic aperture radar interferometry we estimate the relative contribution of shallow afterslip at depth less than 20km and deeper seated deformation required to account for observed postseismic surface displacements exploiting the possible separation in space and time of the time series of displacements predicted from viscoelastic relaxation we devise a linear inversion scheme that allows inverting jointly for the contribution of afterslip and viscoelastic flow as a function of time we find that a wide range of models involving variable amounts of viscoelastic deformation can fit the observations equally well provided that they allow some fraction of deep seated deformation at depth larger than 20 km these models require that the moment released by postseismic relaxation over 5 years following the earthquake reached nearly as much as 200 of the coseismic moment all the models show a remarkable complementarity of coseismic and shallow afterslip distributions some significant deformation at lower crustal depth 20 26 km is required to fit the geodetic data the condition that postseismic deformation cannot exceed complete relaxation places a constraint on the amount of deep seated deformation the analysis requires an effective viscosity of at least 10 18 pa s of the lower crust assuming a semi infinite homogeneous viscous domain this deep seated deformation is consistent with the depth range of tremors which also show a transient postseismic response and could explain as much as 50 of the total postseismic geodetic moment the remaining fraction being due to afterslip at depth shallower than 20 km lower crustal postseismic deformation could reflect a combination of localized ductile deformation and aseismic frictional sliding

extending earthquakes reach through cascading earthquakes whatever their size can trigger other earthquakes mainshocks cause aftershocks to occur which in turn activate their own local aftershock sequences resulting in a cascade of triggering that extends the reach of the initial mainshock a long lasting difficulty is to determine which earthquakes are connected either directly or indirectly here we show that this causal structure can be found probabilistically with no a priori model nor parameterization large regional earthquakes are found to have a short direct influence in comparison to the overall aftershock sequence duration relative to these large mainshocks small earthquakes collectively have a greater effect on triggering hence cascade triggering is a key component in earthquake interactions

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