Hussain, E, Wright, TJ orcid.org/0000-0001-8338-5935, Walters, RJ et al. (3 more authors) (2018) Constant strain accumulation rate between major earthquakes on the North Anatolian Fault. Nature Communications, 9. 1392. ISSN 2041-1723
Abstract
Earthquakes are caused by the release of tectonic strain accumulated between events. Recent advances in satellite geodesy mean we can now measure this interseismic strain accumulation with a high degree of accuracy. But it remains unclear how to interpret short-term geodetic observations, measured over decades, when estimating the seismic hazard of faults accumulating strain over centuries. Here, we show that strain accumulation rates calculated from geodetic measurements around a major transform fault are constant for its entire 250-year interseismic period, except in the ~10 years following an earthquake. The shear strain rate history requires a weak fault zone embedded within a strong lower crust with viscosity greater than ~10^20 Pa s. The results support the notion that short-term geodetic observations can directly contribute to long-term seismic hazard assessment and suggest that lower-crustal viscosities derived from postseismic studies are not representative of the lower crust at all spatial and temporal scales.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | (c) 2018, the Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Keywords: | earthquake; strain; InSAR; seismic hazard; rheology; North Anatolian Fault |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Inst of Geophysics and Tectonics (IGT) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NERC No External Reference NERC NE/I028017/1 NERC NE/K010867/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 19 Apr 2018 15:58 |
Last Modified: | 06 Jul 2018 10:17 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Nature |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41467-018-03739-2 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:129801 |