The subduction zone in northern Chile is a well-identified seismic gap that last ruptured in 1877. The moment magnitude (Mw) 8.1 Iquique earthquake of 1 April 2014 broke a highly coupled portion of this gap. To understand the seismicity preceding this event, we studied the location and mechanisms of the foreshocks and computed Global Positioning System (GPS) time series at stations located on shore. Seismicity off the coast of Iquique started to increase in January 2014. After 16 March, several Mw > 6 events occurred near the low-coupled zone. These events migrated northward for ~50 kilometers until the 1 April earthquake occurred. On 16 March, on-shore continuous GPS stations detected a westward motion that we model as a slow slip event situated in the same area where the mainshock occurred.

6p.International audienceDespite remarkable successes achieved by Differential InSAR, estimations of low tectonic strain rates remain challenging in areas where deformation and topography are correlated, mainly because of the topography‐related atmospheric phase screen (APS). In areas of high relief, empirical removal of the stratified component of the APS may lead to biased estimations of tectonic deformation rates. Here we describe a method to correct interferograms from the effects of the spatial and temporal variations in tropospheric stratification by computing tropospheric delay maps coincident with SAR acquisitions using the ERA‐ Interim global meteorological model. The modeled phase delay is integrated along vertical profiles at the ERA‐I grid nodes and interpolated at the spatial sampling of the interferograms above the elevation of each image pixel. This approach is validated on unwrapped interferograms. We show that the removal of the atmospheric signal before phase unwrapping reduces the risk of unwrapping errors in areas of rough topography