the 2006 2007 kuril islands great earthquake sequence the southwestern half of a 500 km long seismic gap in the central kuril island arc subduction zone experienced two great earthquakes with extensive preshock and aftershock sequences in late 2006 to early 2007 the nature of seismic coupling in the gap had been uncertain due to the limited historical record of prior large events and the presence of distinctive upper plate trench and outer rise structures relative to adjacent regions along the arc that have experienced repeated great interplate earthquakes in the last few centuries the intraplate region seaward of the seismic gap had several shallow compressional events during the preceding decades notably an m s 7 2 event on 16 march 1963 leading to speculation that the interplate fault was seismically coupled this issue was partly resolved by failure of the shallow portion of the interplate megathrust in an m w 8 3 thrust event on 15 november 2006 this event ruptured 250 km along the seismic gap just northeast of the great 1963 kuril island m w 8 5 earthquake rupture zone within minutes of the thrust event intense earthquake activity commenced beneath the outer wall of the trench seaward of the interplate rupture with the larger events having normal faulting mechanisms an unusual double band of interplate and intraplate aftershocks developed on 13 january 2007 an m w 8 1 extensional earthquake ruptured within the pacific plate beneath the seaward edge of the kuril trench this event is the third largest normal faulting earthquake seaward of a subduction zone on record and its rupture zone extended to at least 33 km depth and paralleled most of the length of the 2006 rupture the 13 january 2007 event produced stronger shaking in japan than the larger thrust event as a consequence of higher short period energy radiation from the source the great event aftershock sequences were dominated by the expected faulting geometries thrust faulting for the 2006 rupture zone and normal faulting for the 2007 rupture zone a large intraplate compressional event occurred on 15 january 2009 m w 7 4 near 45 km depth below the rupture zone of the 2007 event and in the vicinity of the 16 march 1963 compressional event the fault geometry rupture process and slip distributions of the two great events are estimated using very broadband teleseismic body and surface wave observations the occurrence of the thrust event in the shallowest portion of the interplate fault in a region with a paucity of large thrust events at greater depths suggests that the event removed most of the slip deficit on this portion of the interplate fault this great earthquake doublet demonstrates the heightened seismic hazard posed by induced intraplate faulting following large interplate thrust events future seismic failure of the remainder of the seismic gap appears viable with the northeastern region that has also experienced compressional activity seaward of the megathrust warranting particular attention

quantitative relations of seismic source parameters and a classification of earthquakes abstract relations between earthquake parameters moment m0 fault area s fault length l and width w stress drop time characteristics and magnitudes and faulting type dip slip ds and strike slip ss are quantitatively analyzed using a dataset of 240 events m 5 the analysis is carried further toward an earthquake systematization by introducing earthquake classes the results are 1 1 l w 2 1 for ds l w 2 30 for ss and l w 3 7 for giant m0 1029 dyne cm earthquakes respectively 2 2 log m0 1 5 log s 22 2 s in km2 and tentatively log m0 2 45 log s 17 49 for ds and ss and giant earthquakes respectively 3 3 the large scatter of data in m0 s dependences is the result of the combined effect of the variation in and l w 4 4 the concept of constant is replaced by variable to explain the large variations in relations between m0 s l and w for both ds and ss earthquakes and partly between body and surface wave magnitudes low intermediate and high stress drop gd 30 30 60 and 60 bar respectively earthquakes are defined 5 5 a relation of reciprocity exists between seismic slip fault length and width and stress drop 6 6 a saturation of s for some very large earthquakes is suggested from the interpretation of actual data on m0 s l w etc 7 7 the total source duration tsd increases with m0 in relation with earthquake type and tentatively log m0 2 16 log tsd 24 50 holds for ds earthquakes 8 8 log m0 1 5 mm 16 1 holds for mm brune engen mantle wave magnitude 8 5 8 75 9 9 more magnitudes of shorter or longer period on both body and surface wave basis are useful in constraining significant earthquake features 10 10 low and high frequency earthquakes can be distinguished using the gutenberg richter relation ms mb as a reference relation or a relation between ms and mmaxb 11 11 aki s similarity conditions are extended by adding two more conditions as to express more specifically four basic features geometry deformation frequency and time of the earthquake source 12 12 a reference earthquake is defined by criteria consistent with the similarity conditions 13 13 on this basis and in view of nonsimilarity of earthquakes in their totality a scheme for earthquake classification is proposed

fault slip and seismic moment of the 1700 cascadia earthquake inferred from japanese tsunami descriptions 1 the 1700 cascadia earthquake attained moment magnitude 9 according to new estimates based on effects of its tsunami in japan computed coseismic seafloor deformation for hypothetical ruptures in cascadia and tsunami modeling in the pacific ocean reports of damage and flooding show that the 1700 cascadia tsunami reached 1 5 m heights at seven shoreline sites in japan three sets of estimated heights express uncertainty about location and depth of reported flooding landward decline in tsunami heights from shorelines and post 1700 land level changes we compare each set with tsunami heights computed from six cascadia sources each source is vertical seafloor displacement calculated with a three dimensional elastic dislocation model for three sources the rupture extends the 1100 km length of the subduction zone and differs in width and shallow dip for the other sources ruptures of ordinary width extend 360 670 km to compute tsunami waveforms we use a linear long wave approximation with a finite difference method and we employ modern bathymetry with nearshore grid spacing as small as 0 4 km the various combinations of japanese tsunami heights and cascadia sources give seismic moment of 1 9 1022 n m equivalent to moment magnitude 8 7 9 2 this range excludes several unquantified uncertainties the most likely earthquake of moment magnitude 9 0 has 19 m of coseismic slip on an offshore full slip zone 1100 km long with linearly decreasing slip on a downdip partial slip zone the shorter rupture models require up to 40 m offshore slip and predict land level changes inconsistent with coastal paleoseismological evidence

importance of model parameterization in finite fault inversions application to the 1974 mw 8 0 peru earthquake the spatial and temporal slip distributions for the october 3 1974 mw 8 0 peru subduction zone earthquake and its largest aftershock on november 9 ms 7 1 are calculated and analyzed in terms of the inversion parameterization and tectonic significance teleseismic long period world wide standard seismograph network p and sh waveforms are inverted to obtain the rupture histories we demonstrate that erroneous results are obtained if a parameterization is used that does not allow for a sufficiently complex source involving spatial variation in slip amplitude risetime and rupture time the inversion method utilizes a parameterization of the fault that allows for a discretized source risetime and rupture time well located aftershocks recorded on a local network have the same general pattern as teleseismically determined hypocenters and help to constrain the geometry of the subduction zone for the main shock a hinged fault is preferred having a shallow plane with a dip of 11 and a deeper landward plane with a dip of 30 the preferred nucleation depth lies between 11 and 15 km a bilateral rupture is obtained with two major concentrations of slip one 60 to 70 km to the northwest of the epicenter and a second 80 to 100 km to the south and southeast of the epicenter for these source regions risetimes vary from 6 to 18 s our estimates of risetimes are consistent with the time for the rupture to traverse the dominant local asperity the slip distribution for the november 9 aftershock falls within a conspicuous hole in the main shock rupture pattern near the hypocenter of the main shock the november 9 event has a simple risetime function with a duration of 2 s aftershocks recorded by the local network are shown to cluster near the hypocenter of the impending november 9 event and downdip from the largest main shock source region slip during the main shock is concentrated at shallow depths above 15 km and extends updip from the hypocenter to near the plate boundary at the trench axis the large amount of slip at shallow depths is attributed to the absence of any significant accretionary wedge of sediments and the relatively young age and high convergence rate of the subducted plate which results in good seismic coupling near the trench axis

global frequency of magnitude 9 earthquakes for decades seismologists have sought causal relationships between maximum earthquake sizes and other properties of subduction zones with the underlying notion that some subduction zones may never produce a magnitude 9 or larger event the 2004 andaman m w 9 2 earthquake called into question such ideas given multicentury return times of the greatest earthquakes ignorance of those return times and our very limited observation span i suggest that we cannot yet make such determinations present evidence cannot rule out that any subduction zone may produce a magnitude 9 or larger earthquake based on theoretical recurrence times i estimate that one to three m9 earthquakes should occur globally per century and the past half century with five m9 events reflects temporal clustering and not the long term average

inversion of long period p waves from great earthquakes along subduction zones abstract long period p waves from subduction zone earthquakes in the moment range from 7 1027to 8 1029dyn cm are analyzed using an iterative deconvolution method in addition to discrete subevents which effectively contribute to the observed seismograms the long period component of the moment rate function is derived with the constraint that the total seismic moment is equal to the moment determined from long period surface waves it is shown that great earthquakes can be described by several subevents with a duration of about 10 s which changes little from earthquake to earthquake in the above moment range the long period component of the moment rate function becomes larger for a greater earthquake the greatest earthquakes of mw 9 additionally involve subevents with another duration scale much longer than 10 s it is also shown that the local stress drop is 1 order of magnitude larger than the stress drop averaged over the entire fault plane the constancy of the local stress drop as well as the average stress drop holds among various magnitudes of earthquakes these observations suggest an essential similarity in the mode of dislocation distribution

the 2007 m7 7 tocopilla northern chile earthquake sequence implications for along strike and downdip rupture segmentation and megathrust frictional behavior 1 in 2007 a m7 7 earthquake occurred near the town of tocopilla within the northern chile seismic gap main shock slip derived from coseismic surface deformation was confined to the depth range between 30 and 55 km we relocated 1100 events during six months before and one week after the main shock aftershock seismicity is first congruent to the main shock slip and then it spreads offshore west and northwest of mejillones peninsula mp waveform modeling for 38 aftershocks reveals source mechanisms that are in the majority similar to the main shock however a few events appear to occur in the upper plate some with extensional mechanisms juxtaposing the tocopilla aftershocks with those following the neighboring 1995 antofagasta earthquake produces a striking symmetry across an ew axis in the center of mp events seem to skirt around mp probably due to a shallower moho there we suggest that the seismogenic coupling zone in northern chile changes its frictional behavior in the downdip direction from unstable to mostly conditionally stable for both earthquake sequences aftershocks agglomerate in the conditionally stable region whereas maximum inter seismic slip deficit and co seismic slip occurs in the unstable region the boundary between the unstable and conditionally stable zones parallels the coastline we identify a similar segmentation for other earthquakes in chile and peru where the offshore segments break in great m 8 earthquakes and the onshore segments in smaller m 8 earthquakes using critical taper analysis we demonstrate a causal relationship between varying slip behavior on the interface and forearc wedge anatomy that can be attributed to spatial variations in the rate dependency of friction

a study of the 2006 and 2007 earthquake sequence of pisco peru with insar and teleseismic data 1 we combine interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar and teleseismic body waves to study the largest earthquake mw 8 1 in a sequence of events on the subduction megathrust near pisco peru our analysis includes some of the first insar data from the alos satellite and wide swath data from the envisat satellite the teleseismic data indicate the slip maximum occurred 60 90 seconds after the mainshock started the insar data constrain the main slip patch to be about 70 km from the hypocenter suggesting an extremely low rupture velocity 1 5 km s or long slip rise time no large earthquake has occurred in the 2007 rupture area since at least 1746 and possibly 1687 suggesting significant aseismic deformation in the area the slip deficit apparently cannot be filled with rapid after slip in addition the area where the nazca ridge is subducting appears to be either a seismic gap or a persistent area of aseismic slip

determination of the pore fluid pressure ratio at seismogenic megathrusts in subduction zones implications for strength of asperities and andean type mountain building 1 we construct the differential stress profile across the fore arc in a subduction zone from the force balance between the shear stress at seismogenic megathrust and the lithostatic pressure we assume that is written by 1 n where is the pore fluid pressure ratio is the coefficient of static friction and n is the normal stress given a density structure of the fore arc wedge we determine by comparing calculated fore arc stresses with observed ones as 0 95 0 98 in shikoku miyagi peru north chile and south chile and 0 90 0 93 in south vancouver island and washington the parameter averaged over the seismogenic megathrust is of the order of 10 mpa stress drops of great earthquakes in these zones occupy 14 87 and not a constant fraction of they on the other hand increase linearly with 1 we propose a simple fault model in which the area of asperities as a fraction of the total fault area is proportional to 1 variation of fractional area of asperities thus may explain the observed correlation and the regional variation of assuming that the differential stress at summit of the andean mountains is zero not at the coast as observed at present we determine to be 0 84 in north chile in the mountain building stage such a smaller value of along with 0 9 in subduction zones would suggest that variation of controls the tectonic style of the earth

coseismic slip distribution of the february 27 2010 mw 8 8 maule chile earthquake 1 static offsets produced by the february 27 2010 mw 8 8 maule chile earthquake as measured by gps and insar constrain coseismic slip along a section of the andean megathrust of dimensions 650 km in length 180 km in width gps data have been collected from both campaign and continuous sites sampling both the near field and far field alos palsar data from several ascending and descending tracks constrain the near field crustal deformation inversions of the geodetic data for distributed slip on the megathrust reveal a pronounced slip maximum of order 15 m at 15 25 km depth on the megathrust offshore lloca indicating that seismic slip was greatest north of the epicenter of the bilaterally propagating rupture a secondary slip maximum appears at depth 25 km on the megathrust just west of concepcion coseismic slip is negligible below 35 km depth estimates of the seismic moment based on different datasets and modeling approaches vary from 1 8 to 2 6 1022 n m our study is the first to model the static displacement field using a layered spherical earth model allowing us to incorporate both near field and far field static displacements in a consistent manner the obtained seismic moment of 1 97 1022 n m corresponding to a moment magnitude of 8 8 is similar to that obtained by previous seismic and geodetic inversions

scaling relations of seismic moment rupture area average slip and asperity size for m 9 subduction zone earthquakes 1 scaling relations for seismic moment m0 rupture area s average slip d and asperity size sa were obtained for large great and giant mw 6 7 9 2 subduction zone earthquakes we compiled the source parameters for seven giant mw 9 earthquakes globally for which the heterogeneous slip distributions were estimated from tsunami and geodetic data we defined sa for subfaults exhibiting slip greater than 1 5 times d adding 25 slip models of 10 great earthquakes around japan we recalculated regression relations for 32 slip models s 1 34 10 10 m02 3 d 1 66 10 7 m01 3 sa 2 81 10 11 m02 3 and sa s 0 2 where s and sa are in square kilometers m0 is in newton meters and d is in meters these scaling relations are very similar to those obtained by murotani et al 2008 for large and great earthquakes thus both scaling relations can be used for future tsunami hazard assessment associated with a giant earthquake

stress drop as a criterion to differentiate subduction zones where mw 9 earthquakes can occur abstract i propose a hypothesis that might be used to differentiate zones that produce mw 9 earthquakes from zones that do not i calculate stress drop values for mw 7 thrust type earthquakes over worldwide subduction zones compiling the studies that obtained well constrained slip distributions by inverting seismic geodetic or tsunami data earthquakes are grouped into class 1 mw 9 earthquakes class 2 mw values of the class 1 2 and 3 events are 4 6 3 4 and 1 6 mpa respectively in individual subduction zones values of the class 2 events are by more than twice greater than those of the class 3 events except kuril hokkaido based on these results i propose a hypothesis that if is greater than 3 mpa in a subduction zone segment this segment possibly produces mw 9 earthquakes and if is less than 2 mpa the segment would not produce mw 9 earthquakes i examine the fault parameters obtained in this study based on the newly derived scaling relations that take into account the variation in the rupture of subduction zone earthquakes from mw 9 through mw 7 can be understood on the basis of the same scale invariant physics if mo is normalized by 1 5 in the scaling relation between l and mo using this relation i estimate the maximum magnitude of an earthquake which may rupture the entire nankai suruga trough off sw japan and obtain mw 8 6 8 4

double seismic zone and dehydration embrittlement of the subducting slab 1 dehydration embrittlement of metamorphosed oceanic crust and mantle in the subducting slab may be responsible for the occurrence of intermediate depth earthquakes we explore the possibility that this hypothesis can explain the morphology of the double seismic zones observed in northeast japan southwest japan northeast taiwan northern chile cape mendocino and eastern aleutians we calculate transient temperature structures of slabs based on geologically estimated subduction histories of these regions we then determine dehydration loci of metamorphosed oceanic crust and serpentinized mantle using experimentally derived phase diagrams the depth range of the dehydration loci of metamorphosed oceanic crust and serpentine is dependent on slab age the dehydration loci of serpentine produce a double layered structure because the upper dehydration loci of serpentine are mostly located in the wedge mantle above the slab we regard the upper plane seismicity representing dehydration embrittlement in the oceanic crust and we fix the slab geometry so that the upper plane seismicity is just below the upper surface of the slab we find that the lower plane seismicity is located at the lower dehydration loci of serpentine which indicates that the morphology of the double seismic zones is consistent with the dehydration embrittlement

interplate seismic activity near the northern japan trench deduced from ocean bottom and land based seismic observations the off sanriku area the landward slope area of the northern japan trench is characterized by its active seismicity which is directly related to the subduction process of the pacific plate in july august 1992 a seismic swarm activity was observed near the trench five earthquakes of m 6 occurred successively within 2 weeks at the beginning of the activity we deployed an ocean bottom seismograph obs array in the epicentral region to make an in situ observation of the spatial distribution of these events and to study the characteristics of the swarm activity in detail we relocated 357 events from 23 july to 26 august with focal depth errors less than 5 km by using both the obs and the land network data the swarm events are not distributed homogeneously over the plate boundary but form several clusters a remarkable concentration of the earthquakes was found in the vicinity of the hypocenter of the largest event during the obs observation m 6 2 29 july this formed the most active cluster almost all the earthquakes including the m 6 2 event occurred at depths of about 15 km and were concentrated along a thin plane dipping to the west at 5 the location of the plane coincides well with that of the plate boundary derived from previous seismic explorations we also relocated epicenters of the off sanriku events by introducing station corrections to the land network data during the period when the obs array was absent the corrections were estimated from the travel time residuals of the hypocenter relocation using the obs and the land network data the result of the epicenter relocation strongly indicates the existence of a zone of extremely low seismic activity beneath the inner trench wall where low seismic velocity mechanically weak unconsolidated sediments overly the subducting pacific plate

petrogenetic grid in the system mgo sio2 h2o up to 30 gpa 1600 c applications to hydrous peridotite subducting into the earth s deep interior 1 a semiquantitative petrogenetic grid in the system mgo sio2 h2o up to 30 gpa and 1600 c was constructed using schreinemakers analysis on previous experimental data the grid includes stability relations of hydrous wadsleyite hydrous ringwoodite and dense hydrous magnesium silicates dhmss phase a phase d phase e and superhydrous phase b a sequence of chemical reactions among these hydrous phases was clarified in the mantle transition zone 410 660 km depth hydrous wadsleyite and hydrous ringwoodite are stable even at a standard mantle temperature of 1600 c whereas in the other depths nominal hydrous phases including dhmss are stable below 1400 c newly found phase transitions in hydrous wadsleyite and hydrous ringwoodite are multiphase and multireaction because their compositions are on neither mgo sio2 nor mg2sio4 h2o tie lines different from single transition in the dry mg2sio4 system the grid indicates that water in the subducting slab peridotite would be transported to the bottom of the upper mantle by several dhmss and hydrous polymorphs of olivine via solid solid reactions after antigorite decomposition finally dhmss would dehydrate to liberate free water at the upper mantle lower mantle boundary layer or deeper level we also examined a relation between the predicted depth distributions of dehydration reactions in slab peridotite along several possible pressure temperature paths and the mode of seismic frequency in each subduction zone the result suggests a possible origin of intermediate to deep seismicity by the dehydration of hydrous phases in the subducting slab

slip distribution of the 2007 bengkulu earthquake inferred from tsunami waveforms and insar data 1 joint inversion study using tsunami waveforms and insar data provides a new way to understand the magnitude and spatial extent of subduction zone earthquakes a great earthquake mw 8 5 occurred on 12 september 2007 off the west coast of bengkulu indonesia the tsunami generated by the event was recorded by tide gauge stations around the indian ocean and by two bottom pressure sensors in the deep sea the ground surface displacements produced by the earthquake on pagai islands and on sumatra island were observed by interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar we estimated the slip distribution of the earthquake by joint inversion incorporating a spatial smoothness constraint using tsunami waveforms and insar data the total released seismic moment calculated from the slip distribution is 6 7 1021 n m mw 8 5 consistent with the seismic moment of the global cmt solution 6 71 1021 n m the maximum observed tsunami heights along the coast of bengkulu agree with those computed from the slip distribution the slip amount of the 2007 earthquake is smaller than the amount of potential slip that has been accumulated since after the 1797 and 1833 events the premise is that averaged over long periods of time the entire fault must slip equal amounts therefore the 2007 great earthquake could be followed by several great earthquakes that will rupture the plate interface until the potential slip that has been accumulated is completely released

using bar preservation to constrain reworking in channel dominated fluvial stratigraphy fluvial deposits comprising more than 80 channel facies are often thought to have accumulated during intervals of relatively slow subsidence in sedimentary basins this interpretation stems from the conceptual model that migrating and avulsing rivers rework their own deposits during times of limited accommodation creation preferentially removing and bypassing fine floodplain deposits alternatively channel dominated stratigraphy may reflect avulsion patterns that favor channel preservation over floodplain preservation or channel networks fed by sand rich sediment sources that never deposited significant floodplain sediments these potential origins of channel dominated stratigraphy cannot be differentiated without a way of independently assessing how ancient rivers eroded and reworked their own alluvium here we propose a new method that uses fluvial bar preservation as a proxy for reworking in channel dominated stratigraphy we apply this approach to the lower castlegate sandstone upper cretaceous utah usa and use geometric modeling to investigate the degree to which sediment supply and avulsion dynamics influence fluvial deposit preservation castlegate exposures in central utah show up to 80 bar preservation in some localities suggesting that in contrast to previously published interpretations castlegate channel deposits are not heavily reworked and accommodation creation rates during castlegate deposition might have been relatively high model comparisons indicate that well preserved castlegate deposits could have resulted from random avulsions in a rapidly aggrading basin with a sand dominated sediment supply or under lower aggradation conditions if river avulsions avoided previously occupied locations this approach represents a new advance for interpreting the relationships between basin accommodation sediment supply and avulsion dynamics on ancient landscapes and provides a new method for estimating sediment reworking and bypass from ancient river deposits

great earthquakes and slab pull interaction between seismic coupling and plate slab coupling great earthquakes the few largest earthquakes that account for most of the earth s seismic energy release have occurred at only a few subduction zones around the world strong locking or seismic coupling of the interface between plates at certain subduction zones is often invoked to explain these great earthquakes although past studies have correlated strong seismic coupling with a compressional stress environment that is characterized by back arc compression and caused by trenchward motion of the overriding plate the consequences of this compressional environment for the tectonic forces that drive global plate motions are not yet clear to examine these consequences we compared subduction zone earthquake magnitudes to tectonically constrained estimates of the degree to which each slab transmits its excess weight as a direct pull force on a subducting plate at seismically uncoupled subduction zones that generate only moderate sized earthquakes we find that slabs must transmit nearly their entire upper mantle weight as a pull force on the subducting plate at seismically coupled subduction zones that produce great earthquakes however we find that slabs must be nearly completely detached from their subducting plates this suggests that slabs subducting in a compressional environment experience stress induced weakening that prevents the effective transmission of the slab pull force convergent mantle flow above a descending slab that becomes decoupled from its surface plate may induce additional surface compression that further locks the subduction zone and leads to additional slab decoupling and detachment the resulting redistribution of plate driving forces may be responsible for rapid changes in plate motion c 2003 elsevier b v all rights reserved

the 1994 java tsunami earthquake slip over a subducting seamount on june 2 1994 a large subduction thrust earthquake ms 7 2 produced a devastating tsunami on the island of java this earthquake had a number of unusual characteristics it was the first recorded large thrust earthquake on the java subduction zone all of the aftershock mechanisms exhibit normal faulting no mechanisms are similar to the main shock also the large tsunami and the relatively low energy radiated by the main shock have led to suggestions that this earthquake might have involved slow shallow rupture near the trench similar to the 1992 nicaragua earthquake we first relocate the main shock and the aftershocks we then invert long period surface waves and broadband body waves to determine the depth and spatial distribution of the main shock slip a dip of 12 hypocenter depth of 16 km and moment of 3 5 l020 n m mw 7 6 give the best fit to the combined seismic data and are consistent with the plate interface geometry the source spectrum obtained from both body and surface waves has a single corner frequency between 10 and 20 mhz implying a stress drop of 0 3 mpa the main energy release was preceded by a small subevent lasting 12 s the main slip occurred at 20 km depth downdip and to the nw of the hypocenter this area of slip is collocated with a prominent high in the bathymetry that has been identified as a subducting seamount we interpret the java earthquake as slip over this subducting seamount which is a locked patch in an otherwise decoupled subduction zone we find no evidence for slow shallow rupture no thrust aftershocks are expected if the entire locked zone slipped during the main shock but extension of the subducting plate behind the seamount would promote normal faulting as observed it seems probable that such a source model could also explain the size and timing of the observed tsunami

the geology of dione abstract dione is one of the more geologically complex of saturn s satellites several geologic units have been identified including ancient heavily cratered terrain two plains units cratered plains and lightly cratered plains lobate deposits crater rim deposits and bright wispy material the only structural features observed are a series of troughs which cross portions of the surface and subtle northeast and northwest trending lineaments the troughs are associated with volcanic deposits and are interpreted to be the vents through which material was erupted correlations exist between telescopically observed albedo patterns and the distribution of geologic units

the updip and downdip limits to great subduction earthquakes thermal and structural models of cascadia south alaska sw japan and chile this study examines thermal and structural controls of the updip and downdip rupture limits of great subduction thrust earthquakes data on past great earthquake seismic limits have been compiled for four continental subduction zones cascadia sw japan south alaska and chile these limits have then been compared to the predictions of several models for what constrains great earthquake rupture temperatures on the subduction thrusts have been estimated by finite element numerical models the landward limits of the observed updip aseismic zones correspond to the position where the thrust temperature reaches about 100 c that is depths of about 2 to 10 km for the subduction zones studied this temperature agrees with the dehydration of stable sliding smectite clays to illite chlorite the temperatures in this region are controlled mainly by the thickness of sediment on the incoming crust and by the crustal age and thus heat flow the downdip limits correspond to the depth on the thrust where either 1 the temperature reaches about 350 c which corresponds to thermally activated stable sliding behavior for crustal rocks with a transition to 450 c or 2 about 40 km depth if 350 c is reached at greater depth depths of about 40 km approximately correspond to the intersection of the thrust with the continental forearc moho and this downdip limit may be a consequence of stable sliding serpentinite or talc and other hydrated forearc mantle rocks the primary temperature controls on the downdip region are the age of the subducting oceanic plate and the thrust dip profile secondary control comes from the thickness of incoming sediment the convergence rate and the radioactive heat generation in the overlying forearc the 100 c updip limit occurs near the trench for young subducting plates with a thick sediment section such as cascadia 6 8 ma and up to 80 km landward for older oceanic crust such as south alaska 50 ma the 350 c downdip thermal limit is applicable for young oceanic plates e g cascadia and nankai whereas the forearc mantle limit applies for older plates e g south alaska and chile except near the chile rise for the margins studied that have experienced great earthquakes there is generally good agreement between the postulated thermal and moho limits and the rupture or seismogenic zone as defined by the distribution of aftershocks and by waveform tsunami and dislocation modeling the downdip limit of the interseismic locked zone from dislocation modeling is also in agreement with these limits

the 2010 mw 7 8 mentawai earthquake very shallow source of a rare tsunami earthquake determined from tsunami field survey and near field gps data 1 the mw 7 8 october 2010mentawai indonesia earthquake was a tsunami earthquake a rare type of earthquake that generates a tsunami much larger than expected based on the seismicmagnitude itproducedalocallydevastatingtsunami withrunupcommonlyinexcess of 6 m we examine this event using a combination of high rate gps data from instruments located on the nearby islands and a tsunami field survey the gps displacement time series are deficient in high frequency energy and show small coseismic displacements 16 m our modeling results show that the combination of the small gps displacements and large tsunami can only be explained by high fault slip at very shallow depths far from the islands and close to the oceanic trench inelastic uplift of trench sediments likely contributed to the size of the tsunami recent results for the 2011 mw 9 0 tohoko oki earthquake have also shown shallow fault slip but the results from our study which involves a smaller earthquake provide much stronger constraints on how shallow the rupture can be with the majority of slip for the mentawai earthquake occurring at depths of 6 km this result challenges the conventional wisdom that the shallow tips of subduction megathrusts are aseismic and therefore raises important questions both about the mechanical properties of the shallow fault zone and the potential seismic and tsunami hazard of this shallow region

asperity distribution of the 1952 great kamchatka earthquake and its relation to future earthquake potential in kamchatka the 1952 kamchatka earthquake is among the largest earthquakes of this century with an estimated magnitude of m w 9 0 we inverted tide gauge records from japan north america the aleutians and hawaii for the asperity distribution the results show two areas of high slip the average slip is over 3 m giving a seismic moment estimate of 155 x 102onm or m w 8 8 the 20th century seismicity of the 1952 rupture zone shows a strong correlation to the asperity distribution which suggests that the large earthquakes m 7 are controlled by the locations of the asperities and that future large earthquakes will also recur in the asperity regions

physical characteristics of subduction interface type seismogenic zones revisited 1 based on global earthquake catalogs the hypocenters nodal planes and seismic moments of worldwide subduction plate interface earthquakes were extracted for the period between 1900 and 2007 assuming that the seismogenic zone coincides with the distribution of 5 5 m 7 earthquakes the subduction interface seismogenic zones were mapped for 80 of the trench systems and characterized with geometrical and mechanical parameters using this database correlations were isolated between significant parameters to identify cause effect relationships empirical laws obtained in previous studies were revisited in light of this more complete accurate and uniform description of the subduction interface seismogenic zone the seismogenic zone was usually found to end in a fore arc mantle rather than at a moho depth the subduction velocity was the first order controlling parameter for variations in the physical characteristics of plate interfaces determining both the geometry and mechanical behavior as such the fast subduction zones and cold slabs were associated with large and steep plate interfaces which in turn had large seismic rates the subduction velocity could not account for the potential earthquake magnitude diversity that was observed along the trenches events with mw 8 5 preferentially occurred in the vicinity of slab edges where the upper plate was continental and the back arc strain was neutral this observation was interpreted in terms of compressive normal stresses along the plate interface large lateral ruptures should be promoted in neutral subduction zones due to moderate compressive stresses along the plate interface that allow the rupture to propagate laterally