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ShareMay 10, 2010 — Just a few years ago, Dan Farber happened to be doing field work in Peru with students when the 8.0 Pisco earthquake struck. As a scientist working in the active tectonics of the Peruvian Andes -- funded through the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics -- Farber was asked by colleagues if he could participate in a rapid response team to map the damage of the seismic deformation and install a system of geodetic stations.
He jumped at the opportunity to install a Global Positioning System (GPS) network to capture the post-seismic response and collected critical geological data for the understanding of the inter-plate dynamics of one of the Earth's largest subduction zones -- the Central Peru Megathrust.
In a new paper appearing in the May 6 edition of the journal Nature, Farber and international colleagues determined that the seismic slip on the Central Peru Megathrust is not dependent on earthquakes alone. As it turns out, movement along this subduction zone is caused by earthquakes as well as non-seismic (aseismic) related slip from steady or transient creep between or directly after earthquakes.
"Active faults are made up of areas that slip mostly during earthquakes and areas that mostly slip aseismically," Farber said. "The size, location and frequency of earthquakes that a megathrust can generate depend on where and when aseismic creep is taking place."
The 8.0 Pisco earthquake that occurred in 2007 ruptured the subduction interface -- where load-bearing flat surfaces butt up -- between the Nazca plate and the South American plate, an area that subducts about 6 centimeters per year. In this event, two distinct areas moved 60 seconds apart in a zone that had remained locked in between earthquakes. The event also triggered aseismic frictional afterslip on two adjacent areas.
The most prominent afterslip coincides with the Nazca ridge subduction, which seems to have repeatedly acted as a barrier to seismic rupture propagation in the past.
To sum up, aseismic (non-earthquake producing) slip accounts for as much as 50 percent to 70 percent of the slip on this portion of the megathrust in central Peru. Because much of the interface displacement is taken up aseismically, an earthquake the size of the 2007 earthquake is estimated to occur only every 250 years.
Other collaborators included those from: Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, the Instituto Geofisico del Peru, California Institute of Technology, Géosciences Azur, University of California Santa Cruz and Université Paul Sabatier/CNRS/IRD.
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Hugo Perfettini, Jean-Philippe Avouac, Hernando Tavera, Andrew Kositsky, Jean-Mathieu Nocquet, Francis Bondoux, Mohamed Chlieh, Anthony Sladen, Laurence Audin, Daniel L. Farber, Pierre Soler. Seismic and aseismic slip on the Central Peru megathrust. Nature, 2010; 465 (7294): 78 DOI: 10.1038/nature09062
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
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