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Constant strain accumulation rate between major earthquakes on the North Anatolian Fault

Hussain, E.; Wright, T.J.; Walters, R.J.; Bekaert, D.P.S.; Lloyd, R.; Hooper, A.

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Authors

E. Hussain

T.J. Wright

R.J. Walters

D.P.S. Bekaert

R. Lloyd

A. Hooper



Abstract

Earthquakes are caused by the release of tectonic strain accumulated between events. Recent advances in satellite geodesy mean we can now measure this interseismic strain accumulation with a high degree of accuracy. But it remains unclear how to interpret short-term geodetic observations, measured over decades, when estimating the seismic hazard of faults accumulating strain over centuries. Here, we show that strain accumulation rates calculated from geodetic measurements around a major transform fault are constant for its entire 250-year interseismic period, except in the ~10 years following an earthquake. The shear strain rate history requires a weak fault zone embedded within a strong lower crust with viscosity greater than ~1020 Pa s. The results support the notion that short-term geodetic observations can directly contribute to long-term seismic hazard assessment and suggest that lower-crustal viscosities derived from postseismic studies are not representative of the lower crust at all spatial and temporal scales.

Citation

Hussain, E., Wright, T., Walters, R., Bekaert, D., Lloyd, R., & Hooper, A. (2018). Constant strain accumulation rate between major earthquakes on the North Anatolian Fault. Nature Communications, 9(1), Article 1392. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03739-2

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 9, 2018
Online Publication Date Apr 11, 2018
Publication Date Apr 11, 2018
Deposit Date Apr 13, 2018
Publicly Available Date Apr 16, 2018
Journal Nature Communications
Publisher Nature Research
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 9
Issue 1
Article Number 1392
DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03739-2

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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.




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