Source Parameters for Repeating Earthquakes along the Middle America Trench

Abstract:

Repeating earthquakes, with their similar locations and similar waveforms, are often thought to represent slip along the same patch of fault. Analysis of these earthquake clusters can provide useful information about the nature of the fault and earthquake interaction. Here we focus on sequences of repeating earthquakes along both the Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica and along the Oaxaca segment of Mexico, as both megathrust faults have been well instrumented in recent years with local seismic networks able to record the small magnitude earthquakes. These regions have also experienced large megathrust earthquakes as well as non-volcanic tremor and slow slip, suggesting a complex fault system that allows a wide spectrum of slip. We can use source characteristics of the repeating earthquakes to probe this fault complexity. Along the Nicoya Peninsula, there are over 370 repeating earthquakes (M 0.5-3.3) in the 3 months following the 2012 Mw 7.6 megathrust earthquake grouped into 55 distinct clusters. Along Oaxaca, the earthquake clusters or swarms (M 1.5-5.5) span a wider spatial and temporal range. For our source parameter calculations, we form narrow-frequency band envelopes for pairs of earthquakes within the earthquake clusters to compute spectral ratios for each pair. We determine seismic moment, corner frequency, and earthquake stress drop for each earthquake from these spectral ratios. We compare the source parameters for events within the clusters to examine temporal variations and compare between clusters to explore spatial variations that could be linked to other slip heterogeneity. Preliminary results for the Nicoya region suggest nearly identical stress drop for repeating events within clusters located near the 2012 mainshock, and more variability in stress drops for earthquakes in clusters located updip and to the northwest of the mainshock.