Paola Vannucchi
Past seismic slip-to-the-trench recorded in Central America megathrust
Vannucchi, Paola; Spagnuolo, Elena; Aretusini, Stefano; Di Toro, Giulio; Ujiie, Kohtaro; Tsutsumi, Akito; Nielsen, Stefan
Authors
Elena Spagnuolo
Stefano Aretusini
Giulio Di Toro
Kohtaro Ujiie
Akito Tsutsumi
Professor Stefan Nielsen stefan.nielsen@durham.ac.uk
Professor
Abstract
The 2011 Tōhoku-Oki earthquake revealed that co-seismic displacement along the plate boundary megathrust can propagate to the trench. Co-seismic slip to the trench amplifies hazards at subduction zones, so its historical occurrence should also be investigated globally. Here we combine structural and experimental analyses of core samples taken offshore from southeastern Costa Rica as part of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) Expedition 344, with three-dimensional seismic reflection images of the subduction zone. We document a geologic record of past co-seismic slip to the trench. The core passed through a less than 1.9-million-year-old megathrust frontal ramp that superimposes older Miocene biogenic oozes onto late Miocene–Pleistocene silty clays. This, together with our stratigraphic analyses and geophysical images, constrains the position of the basal decollement to lie within the biogenic oozes. Our friction experiments show that, when wet, silty clays and biogenic oozes are both slip-weakening at sub-seismic and seismic slip velocities. Oozes are stronger than silty clays at slip velocities of less than or equal to 0.01 m s–1, and wet oozes become as weak as silty clays only at a slip velocity of 1 m s–1. We therefore suggest that the geological structures found offshore from Costa Rica were deformed during seismic slip-to-the-trench events. During slower aseismic creep, deformation would have preferentially localized within the silty clays.
Citation
Vannucchi, P., Spagnuolo, E., Aretusini, S., Di Toro, G., Ujiie, K., Tsutsumi, A., & Nielsen, S. (2017). Past seismic slip-to-the-trench recorded in Central America megathrust. Nature Geoscience, 10(12), 935-940. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-017-0013-4
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Oct 24, 2017 |
Online Publication Date | Nov 27, 2017 |
Publication Date | Nov 27, 2017 |
Deposit Date | Dec 7, 2017 |
Publicly Available Date | May 27, 2018 |
Journal | Nature Geoscience |
Print ISSN | 1752-0894 |
Electronic ISSN | 1752-0908 |
Publisher | Nature Research |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 10 |
Issue | 12 |
Pages | 935-940 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-017-0013-4 |
Public URL | https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1338651 |
Files
Accepted Journal Article
(2.5 Mb)
PDF
You might also like
Fracture Energy and Breakdown Work During Earthquakes
(2023)
Journal Article
Frictional power dissipation in a seismic ancient fault
(2023)
Journal Article
Scaling Seismic Fault Thickness From the Laboratory to the Field
(2021)
Journal Article
Downloadable Citations
About Durham Research Online (DRO)
Administrator e-mail: dro.admin@durham.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2025
Advanced Search