Abstract
The proximity and similarity of the 1992, magnitude 7.3 Landers and 1999, magnitude 7.1 Hector Mine earthquakes in California permit testing of earthquake triggering hypotheses not previously possible. The Hector Mine earthquake confirmed inferences that transient, oscillatory ‘dynamic’ deformations radiated as seismic waves can trigger seismicity rate increases, as proposed for the Landers earthquake1,2,3,4,5,6. Here we quantify the spatial and temporal patterns of the seismicity rate changes7. The seismicity rate increase was to the north for the Landers earthquake and primarily to the south for the Hector Mine earthquake. We suggest that rupture directivity results in elevated dynamic deformations north and south of the Landers and Hector Mine faults, respectively, as evident in the asymmetry of the recorded seismic velocity fields. Both dynamic and static stress changes seem important for triggering in the near field with dynamic stress changes dominating at greater distances. Peak seismic velocities recorded for each earthquake suggest the existence of, and place bounds on, dynamic triggering thresholds. These thresholds vary from a few tenths to a few MPa in most places, depend on local conditions, and exceed inferred static thresholds by more than an order of magnitude. At some sites, the onset of triggering was delayed until after the dynamic deformations subsided. Physical mechanisms consistent with all these observations may be similar to those that give rise to liquefaction or cyclic fatigue.
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Acknowledgements
Seismic data were obtained from the Northern California Earthquake Data Center operated by the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, and from the Southern California Seismic Network and TriNet operated by the US Geological Survey, the California Institute of Technology, and the California Division of Mines and Geology. R. Castro and C. Rebollar of CICESE also provided data. We also thank D. Hill, L. Jones, C. Marone and D. Agnew for comments on the manuscript.
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Gomberg, J., Reasenberg, P., Bodin, P. et al. Earthquake triggering by seismic waves following the Landers and Hector Mine earthquakes. Nature 411, 462–466 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35078053
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35078053
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