Wimpenny, S, Craig, T orcid.org/0000-0003-2198-9172 and Marcou, S (Cover date: June 2023) Re-Examining Temporal Variations in Intermediate-Depth Seismicity. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 128 (6). e2022JB026269. ISSN 2169-9313
Abstract
Changes in the frequency of intermediate-depth (60–300 km) earthquakes in response to static stress transfer can provide insights into the mechanisms of earthquake generation within subducting slabs. In this study, we use the most up-to-date global and regional earthquake catalogs to show that both the aftershock productivity of large earthquakes, and the changes in the frequency of intermediate-depth earthquakes around the timing of major megathrust slip, support the view that faults within the slab are relatively insensitive to static stress transfer on the order of earthquake stress drops. We interpret these results to suggest the population of faults within the slab are much further from their failure stress than is typical for shallow fault systems. We also find that aftershock productivity varies within slabs over small spatial scales, indicating that the mechanism that enables faults to rupture at intermediate depths is likely to be spatially heterogeneous over length-scales of a few tens of kilometres. We suggest dehydration-related weakening mechanisms can best account for this heterogeneity.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023. The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | deep earthquakes, subduction zones |
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 Royal Society RF\ERE\210041 Royal Society RGF\EA\181084 Royal Society URF\R1\180088 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 26 Jul 2023 14:25 |
Last Modified: | 30 Aug 2023 11:28 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | American Geophysical Union |
Identification Number: | 10.1029/2022JB026269 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:200039 |