Preprints
Search for earthquake (540 results)
Breaking the Cycle: Short Recurrence and Overshoot of an M9-class Kamchatka Earthquake
Published: 2025-09-18
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
M9-class megathrust earthquakes in subduction zones are generally thought to release slip deficits on the plate interface accumulated over centuries. However, the 2025 Kamchatka earthquake (Mw 8.8--8.9) ruptured nearly the same area as the 1952 Mw 9.0 event, as shown by the aftershock distribution. This unusually short recurrence interval challenges conventional seismic-cycle models used for [...]
Massive High-Fidelity Focal Mechanisms Reveal Detailed Structure of Re-Activated Faults During Hydraulic Fracturing in Western Canada
Published: 2025-09-14
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology
Microseismic focal mechanism solutions (FMSs) are essential for understanding reservoir stress changes and rock fracturing during hydraulic fracturing. While machine learning has shown strong performance in seismic data processing tasks, including phase picking and magnitude estimation, as well as identifying P-wave first-motion polarity for moderate to large earthquakes to invert FMSs, its [...]
Stress interactions between earthquakes and volcanoes in South Iceland: Application to Eyjafjallajökull and Katla
Published: 2025-09-12
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
South Iceland contains some of Iceland´s best-known volcanoes (Hekla, Katla, and Eyjafjallajökull) as well as one of its two main seismic zones, namely the South Iceland Seismic Zone (SISZ). The part of the SISZ that produces continuous microseismicity is a 70-km-long and 10-20-km wide zone, located between the active volcanic zones referred to as the West Volcanic Zone and East Volcanic Zones. [...]
Shear-wave splitting measured for permanent reservoir monitoring systems: an example from the Snorre field
Published: 2025-09-06
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology
Microseismic monitoring of offshore CO2 storage projects is likely to include some deployment of offshore sensors. To improve the value proposition of this monitoring infrastructure, it is important to consider what other information can be gained about the CO2 storage complex and the surrounding region. Shear-wave splitting is one potential source of added value to microseismic monitoring of CO2 [...]
The role of thermal pressurization in driving deep fault slip during the 2021 Mw 8.2 Chignik, Alaska megathrust earthquake
Published: 2025-09-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The 2021 Mw 8.2 Chignik earthquake ruptured a weakly coupled portion of the deep slab in the eastern Aleutian-Alaska subduction zone, with no significant shallow slip. The underlying physics driving such large earthquakes nucleating at large depth and their impact on seismic and tsunami hazards remain poorly understood. We perform 3D dynamic rupture simulations that couple thermal [...]
Using ruptures from an earthquake cycle simulator to test geodetic early warning system performance
Published: 2025-08-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
New Zealand's vulnerability to seismic hazards highlights the need for systems capable of providing earthquake early warning (EEW) or rapid notice of strong shaking. Large offshore earthquakes along the subduction zone east of the North Island could also trigger catastrophic tsunamis, inundating coastal communities in under an hour. While New Zealand operates a robust seismic and geodetic network [...]
Earthquake body-wave extraction using sparsity-promoting polarization filtering in the time–frequency domain
Published: 2025-08-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Seismic waves generated by earthquakes consist of multiple phases that carry critical information about Earth’s internal structure as they propagate through heterogeneous media. Each seismic phase follows its own propagation path and sampling depth, bringing constraints from different regions of the Earth such as the crust, mantle, or even the outer and inner cores. The choice of phase for [...]
Strike-slip restraining screwed fault geometry reconstructed from the 2025 Myanmar earthquake
Published: 2025-08-25
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
We present a fault surface model of the 2025 Mw 7.7 Myanmar earthquake based on the potency density tensor inversion (PDTI) of teleseismic P-waves combined with surface reconstruction from distributed potency tensor solutions. Our source model demonstrates that the earthquake fault is twisted, varying the dip angle along strike. Inferred fault twists are prominent near fault-segment junctions, [...]
Bayesian Estimation of Paleoearthquake Magnitudes in the Central Apennines
Published: 2025-08-21
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Paleoseismic data provide critical constraints on earthquake recurrence where instrumental records are limited, but magnitude estimation from geologic evidence requires careful treatment of measurement uncertainties. We develop a Bayesian method with application to the estimation of paleoearthquake magnitudes in the central Apennines, Italy, by jointly analyzing rupture length (L), slip (S), and [...]
Newly discovered active faults in the Wairarapa Valley: Implications for multi-fault rupture and kinematics in the southern North Island, Aotearoa New Zealand
Published: 2025-08-21
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Active fault locations and constraints on the timing and size of earthquakes are important for understanding and mitigating seismic hazard in Aotearoa New Zealand. However, historical and instrumental records are too short to provide these data on most earthquake-generating faults. Light detection and ranging (lidar) data provide us with the ability to locate and describe active faults and [...]
Virunga Volcanoes Supersite Biennial Report: 2017- 2019
Published: 2025-08-09
Subjects: Education, Engineering, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Virunga Volcanoes is the first Supersite established on the African continent in a highly populated Multi-hazards region. This permanent Supersite was established in a critical context as little was known about the Virunga hazards sources and their dynamics, and little done as measures to evaluate, mitigate and reduce their impacts. Similarly, the active volcanoes are poorly studied and [...]
Subsurface Lithologic Controls on Off-Fault Deformation and Multi-Fault Slip During the 2016 Mw 6.5 Norcia Earthquake Revealed by Satellite Geodesy
Published: 2025-08-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Understanding the mechanisms controlling deformation localization is crucial for our understanding of fault mechanics and improving seismic hazard assessment, but has not been extensively studied for normal-faulting earthquakes. Here, we present a thorough analysis of the 2016 Mw 6.5 Norcia, Italy, earthquake using high-resolution satellite geodesy. We investigate the degree of deformation [...]
On the Origin of Slow and Large Earthquakes in South-Central Mexico
Published: 2025-08-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Slow slip events (SSEs) in Guerrero and Oaxaca, Mexico, have likely triggered five of the last six M7+ earthquakes in the region since 2012. This interaction, however, is non-systematic, as evidenced by the preceding 17 years of large earthquake quiescence, when multiple SSEs occurred without consequence. The Mexican catalog since 1800 reveals that large earthquakes cluster in time every ~15 [...]
Comparisons of tsunami inundation between homogeneous and heterogeneous earthquake sources at select sites for the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
Published: 2025-08-05
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology
Tsunami hazard severity — especially tsunami inundation depth — is related to the tsunami’s source mechanism. Traditionally, homogeneous earthquake rupture sources have been used as the source mechanism for tsunamis generated in the Cascadia Subduction Zone for re- gional hazard assessment. We show with 200 heterogeneous earthquake rupture sources how tsunami inundation hazards change for three [...]
Slow Slip Events in Mexico: A Historical Perspective
Published: 2025-08-01
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
This paper introduces a historical catalogue of slow slip events (SSE) for the Mexican subduction zone. The catalogue incorporates all 25 SSEs recorded since they were discovered in 1997. The inversion of GPS data for ten SSEs in Guerrero and five in Oaxaca reveals a clear slow slip segmentation along the Middle America Trench, with slip maxima between 30 and 40 km depth in both regions. SSEs in [...]