Large-scale tectonic deformation inferred from small earthquakes

被引:62
作者
Amelung, F [1 ]
King, G [1 ]
机构
[1] INST PHYS GLOBE STRASBOURG, F-67084 STRASBOURG, FRANCE
关键词
D O I
10.1038/386702a0
中图分类号
O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];
学科分类号
07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;
摘要
It is a long-standing question whether the focal mechanisms of small earthquakes can be used to provide information about tectonic deformation on a regional scale. Here we address this question by using a 28-year record of seismicity in the San Francisco Bay area to compare the strain released by small earthquakes with geological, geodetic and plate-tectonic measurements of deformation in this region. We show that on a small spatial scale, the strain released by small earthquakes is closely related to specific geological features. But when averaged over a regional scale, strain release more closely follows the regional pattern of tectonic deformation: this relationship holds for all but the largest earthquakes, indicating that the earthquake strain is self-similar(1,2) over a broad range of earthquake magnitudes. The lack of selfsimilarity observed for the largest earthquakes suggests that the time interval studied is not large enough to sample a complete set of events-the fault with the highest probability(3) for hosting one such missing event is the Hayward fault.
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页码:702 / 705
页数:4
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