Preprints
Search for earthquake (575 results)
Spatial and temporal variations in slip rate over millions of years on an extensional fault system: implications for seismic hazard
Published: 2025-10-14
Subjects: Tectonics and Structure
Slip rate is a key input for fault-based seismic hazard assessment, with temporal and spatial variations in slip rate along and between faults influencing earthquake size and recurrence. Temporal variations in slip rate have been attributed to earthquake clustering and anti-clustering in tectonically active settings. Here we explore the combined temporal and spatial assessment of slip rate [...]
Seismicity Migration from Fluid Injection: Laboratory Experiments and Numerical Models Illuminate Volume-Driven versus Pressure-Diffusion-Driven Migration
Published: 2025-10-09
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology, Geotechnical Engineering, Mining Engineering
Fluid injection into the subsurface can induce seismicity by reactivating shear rupture, which typically produces larger earthquake magnitudes than tensile rupture. In laboratory shear rupture experiments, pressurization of the entire fault is often limited because large unconfined samples allow fluid to leak at free surfaces. In this study, we investigated shear fault reactivation by directly [...]
Do Coupled Megathrusts Rupture?
Published: 2025-09-27
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Megathrust earthquakes are among the most destructive and least predictable natural hazards. Kinematic geodetic coupling models, which identify regions of the plate interface where interseismic strain accumulates, are essential for seismic and tsunami hazard assessment. Yet their reliability remains debated: geodetic records are short, offshore resolution remains poor, and earthquake ruptures may [...]
SWOT Satellite Altimetry Observations and Source Model for the Tsunami from the 2025 M8.8 Kamchatka Earthquake
Published: 2025-09-24
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
On 29 July 2025 a Mw 8.8 earthquake struck off Kamchatka, Russia generating a Pacific-wide tsunami and marking the largest earthquake since the launch of the SWOT satellite in 2022. We analyze tsunami observations from SWOT together with three nearby DART buoys to resolve the source of the event. SWOT provided the first high-resolution spaceborne track of a great subduction-zone tsunami, [...]
Constraining On- and Off-Fault Nonlinear Dynamic Rupture Parameters via Hierarchical Bayesian Inversion for the 2019 Mw 7.1 Ridgecrest Earthquake
Published: 2025-09-20
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology
We present the first multilevel Bayesian inversion to quantify uncertainties and correlations among on- and off-fault dynamic rupture parameters for the 2019 Mw 7.1 Ridgecrest earthquake. The inversion is constrained by multidisciplinary surface deformation data, including fault-parallel offsets from satellite imagery, high-rate GNSS time series, and static GNSS displacements, and is enabled by [...]
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) alerts 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. Although New Zealand operates a robust seismic and [...]
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: 2025-08-24
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 [...]