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Migrating tremors illuminate complex deformation beneath the seismogenic San Andreas fault

Abstract

The San Andreas fault is one of the most extensively studied faults in the world, yet its physical character and deformation mode beneath the relatively shallow earthquake-generating portion remain largely unconstrained. Tectonic ‘non-volcanic’ tremor, a recently discovered seismic signal1 probably generated by shear slip on the deep extension of some major faults2,3,4, can provide new insight into the deep fate of such faults, including that of the San Andreas fault near Parkfield, California5. Here I examine continuous seismic data from mid-2001 to 2008, identifying tremor and decomposing the signal into different families of activity based on the shape and timing of the waveforms at multiple stations6. This approach allows differentiation between activities from nearby patches of the deep fault and begins to unveil rich and complex patterns of tremor occurrence. I find that tremor exhibits nearly continuous migration, with the most extensive episodes propagating more than 20 kilometres along fault strike at rates of 15–80 kilometres per hour. This suggests that the San Andreas fault remains a localized through-going structure, at least to the base of the crust, in this area. Tremor rates and recurrence behaviour changed markedly in the wake of the 2004 magnitude-6.0 Parkfield earthquake6,7, but these changes were far from uniform within the tremor zone, probably reflecting heterogeneous fault properties and static and dynamic stresses decaying away from the rupture. The systematic recurrence of tremor demonstrated here suggests the potential to monitor detailed time-varying deformation on this portion of the deep San Andreas fault, deformation which unsteadily loads the shallower zone that last ruptured in the 1857 magnitude-7.9 Fort Tejon earthquake8.

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Figure 1: Map and cross-section showing tremor locations.
Figure 2: Tremor migration.
Figure 3: Event-family recurrence styles.
Figure 4: Recurrence patterns for 21 event families.

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Acknowledgements

I thank T. Ryberg and C. Haberland for sharing data from temporary arrays GFZ1, GFZ2 and GFZ3. G. Fuis assisted with permitting and installation of these stations and instruments were provided by GIPP of GFZ. W. Ellsworth and J. Murphy installed temporary stations at the Vogel site. I thank R. Nadeau for sharing his tremor catalogue. The HRSN is operated by UC-Berkeley, and seismic data was provided through the NCEDC. I thank J. Vidale, J. Hardebeck and J. Gomberg for reviewing various forms of this manuscript.

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Correspondence to David R. Shelly.

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Shelly, D. Migrating tremors illuminate complex deformation beneath the seismogenic San Andreas fault. Nature 463, 648–652 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08755

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