Bridget Smith-Konter

Locking depths estimated from geodesy and seismology along the San Andreas Fault System: Implications for seismic moment release

[1] The depth of the seismogenic zone is a critical parameter for earthquake hazard models. Independent observations from seismology and geodesy can provide insight into the depths of faulting, but these depths do not always agree. Here we inspect variations in fault depths of 12 segments of the southern San Andreas Fault System derived from over 1000 GPS velocities and 66,000 relocated earthquake hypocenters. Geodetically determined locking depths range from 6 to 22 km, while seismogenic thicknesses are largely limited to depths of 11–20km.Theseseismogenicdepthsbestmatchthegeodeticlockingdepthswhenestimated at the 95% cutoff depth in seismicity, and most fault segment depths agree to within 2 km. However, the Imperial, Coyote Creek, and Borrego segments have significant discrepancies. In these cases the geodetically inferred locking depths are much shallower than the seismogenic depths. We also examine variations in seismic moment accumulation rate per unit fault length as suggested by seismicity and geodesy and find that both approaches yield high rates (1.5– 1.8 ×1 0 13 Nm/yr/km) along the Mojave and Carrizo segments and low rates (∼0.2 × 10 13 Nm/yr/km) along several San Jacinto segments. The largest difference in seismic moment between models is calculated for the Imperial segment, where the moment rate from seismic depths is a factor of ∼2.5 larger than that from geodetic depths. Such variability has important implications for the accuracy to which future major earthquake magnitudes can be estimated.

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.

Vertical crustal displacement due to interseismic deformation along the San Andreas fault: Constraints from tide gauges

Interseismic motion along complex strike-slip fault systems such as the San Andreas Fault System (SAFS) can produce vertical velocities that are ~10 times smaller than horizontal velocities, caused by along-strike variations in fault orientation and locking depth. Tide gauge stations provide a long (50–100 year) recording history of sea level change due to several oceanographic and geologic processes, including vertical earthquake cycle deformation. Here we compare relative sea level displacements with predictions from a 3-D elastic/viscoelastic earthquake cycle model of the SAFS. We find that models with lithospheric structure reflecting a thick elastic plate (>50 km) and moderate viscosities produce vertical motions in surprisingly good agreement with the relative tide gauge uplift rates. These results suggest that sea level variations along the California coastline contain a small but identifiable tectonic signal reflecting the flexure of the elastic plate caused by bending moments applied at the ends of locked faults.

THE EVOLVING PHOTOMETRIC LIGHTCURVE OF COMET 1P/HALLEY’S COMA DURING THE 1985/86 APPARITION

We present new analyses of the photometric lightcurve of Comet 1P/Halley during its 1985/86 apparition. As part of a world-wide campaign coordinated by the International Halley Watch (IHW), narrowband photometry was obtained with telescopes at 18 observatories. Following submissions to and basic reductions by the Photometry and Polarimetry Network of the IHW, we computed production rates and created composite lightcurves for each species. These were used to measure how the apparent rotational period (~7.35 day), along with its shape, evolved with time during the apparition. The lightcurve shape systematically varied from double-peaked to triple-peaked and back again every 8-9 weeks, due to Halleys non-principal axis (complex) rotation and the associated component periods. Unexpectedly, we found a phase shift of one-half cycle also took place during this interval, and therefore the actual beat frequency between the component periods is twice this interval or 16-18 weeks. Preliminary modeling suggests that a single source might produce the entire post-perihelion lightcurve variability and associated evolution. The detailed evolution of the apparent period varied in a non-smooth manner between 7.2 and 7.6 day, likely due to a combination of synodic effects and the interaction of solar illumination with isolated source regions on a body in complex rotation. The need to simultaneously reproduce each of these characteristics will provide very strong additional constraints on Halleys component periods associated with its complex rotation. To assist in these and future analyses, we created a synthetic lightcurve based directly on the measured data. We unexpectedly discovered a strong correlation of ion tail disconnection event start times with minima in the comets gas production, implying that a decrease in outgassing is another cause of these events.

Surface Creep Rate of the Southern San Andreas Fault Modulated by Stress Perturbations From Nearby Large Events

A major challenge for understanding the physics of shallow fault creep has been to observe and model the long-term effect of stress changes on creep rate. Here we investigate the surface creep along the southern San Andreas fault (SSAF) using data from interferometric synthetic aperture radar spanning over 25 years (ERS 1992–1999, ENVISAT 2003–2010, and Sentinel-1 2014–present). The main result of this analysis is that the average surface creep rate increased after the Landers event and then decreased by a factor of 2–7 over the past few decades. We consider quasi-static and dynamic Coulomb stress changes on the SSAF due to these three major events. From our analysis, the elevated creep rates after the Landers can only be explained by static stress changes, indicating that even in the presence of dynamically triggered creep, static stress changes may have a long-lasting effect on SSAF creep rates. Plain Language Summary There are two significant conclusions from this study. First, we analyzed 25 years of InSAR measurements over the Southern San Andreas Fault system to document a major increase in the average creep rate following the 1992 Mw 7.3 Landers Earthquake which is then followed by creep rate reductions after the 1999 Mw 7.1 Hector Mine Earthquake and the 2010 Mw 7.2 El Major Cucapah Earthquake. Second, we attribute all these creep rate changes to the Coulomb stress variations from these three major Earthquakes. The dynamic Coulomb stress changes are similar for all three events, contributing to triggered creep on the SSAF. In contrast, the static Coulomb stress changes on the SSAF are positive after the Landers and negative after the Hector Mine and El Major Cucapah, coinciding with the higher average creep rate after the Landers and lower rates after the other two events. An implication of this study is that small but steady Coulomb stress changes have a larger impact on shallow creep than the larger dynamic stress changes associated with passing seismic waves. These results illuminate the significance of time scale-dependent complexity of shallow fault creep and how these behaviors are communicated by stress perturbations from regional earthquakes.