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Publications (378)
Along-strike seismotectonic behavior of subduction megathrusts feeds back into the forearc deformation as elastic and permanent deformation. However, whether and how short-term elastic deformation reflects long-term permanent deformation in the forearc and shapes the coastal region remains unclear. To evaluate the forearc deformation, we analyze th...
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The Main Himalayan Thrust fault marks the boundary where the Indian continent slides beneath the Eurasian plate, causing earthquakes like the 2015 magnitude 7.8 event in Nepal. Subsurface images constructed using seismic waves suggest a weak layer surrounding the fault. However, we show that the seismic signature of this laye...
Sets of marine terraces, sediments, and paleoshorelines are commonly found in forearc regions worldwide. A common assumption holds that crustal uplift prevents these features from littoral erosion. Here, we study the vertical deformation of Karpathos, a forearc island in the eastern Mediterranean, whose long axis extends at a high angle to the stri...
In Northwestern South America (NWSA) the geodetic data show a consistent northeastward displacement of blocks, while the geological record shows a predominant shortening in NW-SE direction suggesting a clear pattern of strain partitioning. This type of deformation has been extensively studied in the context of two convergent plates. However, in NWS...
Triaxial deformation is a general feature of continental tectonics, but its controls and the systematics of associated fault networks remain poorly understood. We present triaxial analog experiments mimicking crustal thinning resulting from distributed longitudinal extension and lateral shortening. Contemporary longitudinal extension and lateral sh...
Subduction zones generate the largest earthquakes on Earth, yet their detailed structure, and its influence on seismic and aseismic slip, remains poorly understood. Geological studies of fossil subduction zones characterize the seismogenic interface as a 100 m–1 km thick zone1, 2–3 in which deformation occurs mostly on metres-thick faults1,3, 4, 5–...
Uplifted Pleistocene marine terrace sequences are used to quantify uplift rates along active margins by knowing terrace age and elevation, and sea level (SL) position at the time of terrace formation. When terraces are undated, ages are assigned by correlating terraces at progressively higher elevations with progressively older highstands. Uplift a...
In this review article, we compile seismological observations from the different constituent parts of the Northern Chile forearc: the downgoing Nazca Plate, the plate interface, the upper South American Plate as well as the mantle wedge beneath it. As Northern Chile has been monitored by a network of permanent seismic stations since late 2006, ther...
Understanding the along-strike seismogenic behavior of the megathrusts is crucial to anticipate seismic hazards in the subduction zones. However, if and how the spatiotemporal frictional heterogeneity (high and low kinematic coupling) at depth feeds back into the upper-plate deformation pattern and how the upper-plate elastic signals and permanent...
The interaction of the northern Nazca and southwestern Caribbean oceanic plates with northwestern South America (NWSA) and the collision of the Panama‐Choco arc (PCA) have significant implications on the evolution of the northern Andes. Based on a quantitative kinematic reconstruction of the Caribbean and Farallon/Farallon‐derived plates, we recons...
Understanding the along-strike seismogenic behavior of megathrusts is crucial to anticipating seismic hazards in subduction zones. However, if and how spatiotemporal frictional heterogeneity (high and low kinematic coupling) at depth feeds back into the upper-plate deformation pattern and how the upper-plate elastic signals and permanent records ma...
Upper-plate aftershocks following megathrust earthquakes are particularly dangerous as they may occur close to the highly populated shore. Aftershock numbers decay with time, imposing a time-dependent seismic hazard. While coseismic stress transfer cannot explain this time-dependency, transient postseismic deformation due to afterslip, viscoelastic...
Analogue models are often used to model long-term geological processes such as mountain building or basin inversion. Most of these models use granular materials such as sand or glass beads to simulate the brittle behaviour of the crust. In granular material, deformation is localised in shear bands, which act as an analogue to natural fault zones an...
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Earthquakes release stresses that build up in the Earth due to the motion of tectonic plates. The stress release can cause additional earthquakes called aftershocks. Several thousand onshore and offshore aftershocks followed the great Tohoku subduction earthquake in March 2011. Whether the stress release of the Tohoku earthqu...
The interaction of the northern Nazca and southwestern Caribbean oceanic plates with South America, and the collision of the Panama-Choco arc have significant implications on the evolution of the northern Andes. We integrate an alternative interpretation of the Nazca and Caribbean kinematics with the magmatic and deformation history in the region....
Large magnitude (Mw ∼ ≥6) earthquakes in extensional settings are often associated with simultaneous rupture of multiple normal faults as a result of static and/or dynamic stress transfer. Here, we report details of the coseismic breaching of a previously unrecognized large‐scale fault relay zone in central Greece, through three successive normal f...
Analogue models are commonly used to model long-term geological processes such as mountain building or basin inversion. The majority of these models use granular materials like sand or glass beads to simulate the brittle behaviour of the crust. In granular materials deformation is localized into shear bands that act as analogues to natural fault zo...
Plain Language Summary
Subduction zones, where one tectonic plate slides underneath the other, host the largest earthquakes on earth. Two plates with different physical properties define the upper and lower plates in the subduction zones. A frictional interaction at the interface between these plates prevents them from sliding and builds up elastic...
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Large earthquakes modify the state of stress and pore pressure in the upper crust and mantle. These changes induce stress relaxation processes and pore pressure diffusion in the postseismic phase. The two main stress relaxation processes are postseismic slip along the rupture plane of the earthquake and viscoelastic deformati...
The behavior of the shallow portion of the subduction zone, which generates the largest earthquakes and devastating tsunamis, is still insufficiently constrained. Monitoring only a fraction of a single megathrust earthquake cycle and the offshore location of the source of these earthquakes are the foremost reasons for the insufficient understanding...
The Kaikōura Earthquake uplifted Kaikōura Peninsula by ≤∼1 m. Uplift in 2016 mainly resulted from slip on an offshore thrust fault (OSTF), modelled to splay from the plate-interface, and was further influenced by slip on two newly identified faults (Armers Beach Fault, ABF; Te Taumanu Fault, TTF) mapped onshore from differential lidar (D-lidar). Fo...
Upper-plate normal faults along forearcs often accumulate slip during >Mw 6 earthquakes. Such normal faults traverse the forearc of the Hellenic Subduction System (HSS) in Greece and are the focus of this study. Here, we use detailed field-mapping and analysis of high-resolution Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) to study 42 active normal faults on th...
Currently, it is unknown how seismic and aseismic slip influences the recurrence and magnitude of earthquakes. Modern seismic hazard assessment is therefore based on statistics combined with numerical simulations of fault slip and stress transfer. To improve the underlying statistical models we conduct low velocity shear experiments with glass micr...
Cataclasites are a characteristic rock type found in drill cores from active faults as well as in exposed fossil subduction faults. Here, cataclasites are commonly associated with evidence for pervasive pressure solution and abundant hydro fracturing. They host the principal slip of regular earthquakes and the family of socalled slow earthquakes...
Slow slip events (SSEs) at subduction zones can precede large-magnitude earthquakes and may serve as precursor indicators, but the triggering of earthquakes by slow slip remains insufficiently understood. Here, we combine geodetic, Coulomb wedge and Coulomb failure-stress models with seismological data to explore the potential causal relationship b...
Several decades of field, geophysical, analogue, and numerical modelling investigations have enabled documentation of the wide range of tectonic transport processes in accretionary wedges, which constitute among the most dynamic plate boundary environments on Earth. Active convergent margins can exhibit basal accretion (via underplating) leading to...
Inspired by exhumed subduction shear zones that commonly exhibit block-in-matrix characteristics (mélanges), we create synthetic models with different proportions of strong clasts within a weak matrix and compare them to natural mélange outcrops. Using 2D Finite Element visco-plastic numerical simulations in simple shear kinematic conditions, we de...
Rock avalanches produce exceptionally long run-outs that correlate with their rock volume. This relationship has been attributed to the size-dependent dynamic lowering of the effective basal friction. However, it has also been observed that run-outs of rock avalanches with similar volumes can span several orders of magnitude, suggesting additional...
The month-to-year-long deformation of the Earth’s crust where active subduction zones terminate is poorly explored. Here we report on a multidisciplinary dataset that captures the synergy of slow-slip events, earthquake swarms and fault-interactions during the ~5 years leading up to the 2018 Mw 6.9 Zakynthos Earthquake at the western termination of...
Evaluating the transfer of stresses from megathrust earthquakes to adjacent segments is fundamental to assess seismic hazard. Here, we use a 3D forward model as well as GPS and seismic data to investigate the transient deformation and Coulomb Failure Stresses (CFS) changes induced by the 2010 Maule earthquake in its northern segment, where the Mw 8...
The Northern Chilean subduction zone is characterized by long-term subduction erosion with very little sediment input at the trench and the lack of an accretionary prism. Here, multichannel seismic reflection (MCS) data were acquired as part of the CINCA (Crustal Investigations off- and onshore Nazca Plate/Central Andes) project in 1995. These line...
On October 9, 2014, a Mw 7.1–6.7 seismic doublet occurred at the Juan Fernández microplate, close to the triple junction with Pacific and Nazca plates. The Mw 7.1 earthquake is the largest earthquake ever to have been recorded in the region. Its thrust focal mechanism is also unusual for the region, although the northern part of the microplate is e...
The month-to-year-long deformation of the Earth's crust where active subduction zones
terminate is poorly explored. Here we report on a multidisciplinary data set that captures the synergy of slow-slip events, earthquake swarms and fault interactions during the ∼5 years leading up to the 2018 Mw 6.9 Zakynthos Earthquake at the western termination o...
The following text (Text S1-S6) and data (Supplementary Figs S1-S23, Supplementary Tables S1-S5 and Movies S1-S2) present details on the calculation of various seismic parameters (b-value, magnitude of completeness, etc.), calculation of moment tensor solutions, analysis and modeling of GPS data and analysis of fault kinematics, complementing those...
Quantifying uncertainty in balancing cross-sections is an insufficiently resolved challenge. We present a new workflow to assess uncertainty of selected modeling parameters. In contrast to conventional restoration, we focus on forward modeling and mapping uncertainty in solution space. We test the approach by applying trishear as the most appropria...
The Geology of Colombia book provides an updated background of the geological knowledge of Colombia by integrating the most up–to–date research covering paleontology, biostratigraphy, sedimentary basin analysis, sedimentology, sequence stratigraphy, stratigraphy, geophysics, geochronology, geochemistry, thermochronology, tectonics, structure, volca...
Using a regional geological and geophysical dataset, we reconstructed the stratigraphic evolution of the Lower Magdalena Valley basin and San Jacinto fold belt of northwestern Colombia. Detailed interpretations of reflection seismic data and new geochronology analyses reveal that the basement of the Lower Magdalena basin is the northward continuati...
Rock avalanches display exceptionally long runouts, which are found to correlate with their volume and attributed to size dependent dynamic lowering of the effective basal friction. However, even for similar volumes, runouts are seen to span several orders of magnitude suggesting additional controlling factors. Here, we here analyse experiments wit...
Active normal faults on the Mediterranean island of Crete form prominent limestone scarps together with basin and range topography. These faults mainly strike E‐ESE and N‐NNE in southern and northern Crete, respectively, with fault sets commonly intersecting and northerly‐trending faults being a factor of three more abundant. Lengths, displacements...
Plain Language Summary
At the northern Chile subduction zone, where the oceanic Nazca plate glides several centimeters per year under the South American continent, the two plates got stuck at an irregularity. This irregularity got stressed for more than 100 years until it broke in 2014 in a magnitude 8.1 earthquake. We mapped small earthquakes in t...
Plain Language Summary
The largest earthquakes on the world generally occur at convergent plate boundaries in subduction zones where two tectonic plates meet, and they pose a destructive threat by generating severe ground motion and devastating tsunamis. The source of the earthquakes is mostly located offshore, while the underwater sources are stil...
The importance of splay‐thrust faults in subduction seismogenesis is increasingly acknowledged; however, their elastic interaction with the plate interface remains unclear. Here, we use GPS velocities, constrained by millennial fault slip rates, to study elastic fault‐interactions between the plate interface and its upper‐plate splay‐thrust faults...
After large earthquakes at subduction zones, the plate interface continues moving due to mostly frictional afterslip or simply afterslip processes. Below approximately 60 km depth, the seismic moment release at the plate interface is quite small indicating that the shear strength is low and stable sliding is the prevailing process. This agrees with...
The month-to-year-long deformation of the Earth’s crust where active subduction zones terminate is poorly explored. Here we report on a multidisciplinary dataset that captures the synergy of slow-slip events, earthquake swarms and fault-interactions during the ~5 years leading up to the 2018 Mw 6.9 Zakynthos Earthquake at the western termination of...
The shear force along convergent plate boundary faults (megathrusts) determines the height of mountain ranges that can be mechanically sustained1–4. However, whether the true height of mountain ranges corresponds to this tectonically supported elevation is debated4–7. In particular, climate-dependent erosional processes are often assumed to exert a...
Active normal faults on the eastern Mediterranean island of Crete form prominent limestone scarps together with basin and range topography. These faults mainly strike E-ESE and N-NNE in southern and northern Crete, respectively, with fault sets commonly intersecting and northern-trending faults a factor of three more abundant. Displacements, length...
The 2016 Mw=7.8 Kaikōura earthquake (South Island, New Zealand) caused widespread complex ground deformation, including significant coastal uplift of rocky shorelines. This coastal deformation is used here to develop a new methodology, in which the upper living limits of intertidal marine biota have been calibrated against tide-gauge records to qua...
Megathrust earthquakes are responsible for some of the most devastating natural disasters1. To better understand the physical mechanisms of earthquake generation, subduction zones worldwide are continuously monitored with geophysical instrumentation. One key strategy is to install stations that record signals from Global Navigation Satellite System...
Rock avalanches are large rockslides consisting of highly fragmented materials that display exceptionally long runouts, which are found to correlate with their volume. Such volume-dependent runouts are conventionally attributed to dynamic lowering of the effective basal friction. However, even for similar volumes, the runouts are seen to span sever...
Asperities are patches where the fault surfaces stick until they break in earthquakes. Locating asperities and understanding their causes in subduction zones is challenging because they are generally located offshore. We use seismicity, inter- and co-seismic slip, and the residual gravity field to map the asperity responsible for the 2014 M8.1 Iqui...
Plain Language Summary
Interseismic viscoelastic relaxation due to megathrust fault locking is explored recently using a viscoelastic Earth model for the late‐stage interseismic period in the Cascadia and Peru‐North Chile subduction zones, where the last great earthquake occurred centuries ago, and the next event is expected in the near future. In...
A network of fossil subduction plate interfaces preserved in the Central Alps (Val Malenco, N Italy) is herein used as a proxy to study deformation processes related to subduction and subsequent underplating of continental slices (in particular the Margna and Sella nappes) at depths reported to in the former brittle-ductile transition. Field observ...
We used data from >100 permanent and temporary seismic stations to investigate seismicity patterns related to the 1 April 2014 M8.1 Iquique earthquake in northern Chile. Applying a multistage automatic event location procedure to the seismic data, we detected and located ~19,000 foreshocks, aftershocks, and background seismicity for 1 month precedi...
The 2016 Mw 7.8 Kaikōura Earthquake (South Island, New Zealand) caused widespread complex ground deformation including significant coastal uplift of rocky shorelines. This coastal deformation is used here to develop a new methodology, in which intertidal marine biota have been calibrated against tide-gauge records to quantitatively constrain pre-de...
