International audienceGeophysical observations from the 2011 moment magnitude (Mw) 9.0 Tohoku-Oki, Japan earthquake allow exploration of a rare large event along a subduction megathrust. Models for this event indicate that the distribution of coseismic fault slip exceeded 50 meters in places. Sources of high-frequency seismic waves delineate the edges of the deepest portions of coseismic slip and do not simply correlate with the locations of peak slip. Relative to the Mw 8.8 2010 Maule, Chile earthquake, the Tohoku-Oki earthquake was deficient in high-frequency seismic radiation--a difference that we attribute to its relatively shallow depth. Estimates of total fault slip and surface secular strain accumulation on millennial time scales suggest the need to consider the potential for a future large earthquake just south of this event

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International audienceWe analyse the Mw 7.7 Balochistan earthquake of 09/24/2013 based on ground surface deformation measured from sub-pixel correlation of Landsat-8 images, combined with back-projection and finite source modeling of teleseismic waveforms. The earthquake nucleated south of the Chaman strike-slip fault and propagated southwestward along the Hoshab fault at the front of the Kech Band. The rupture was mostly unilateral, propagated at 3 km/s on average and produced a 200 km surface fault trace with purely strike-slip displacement peaking to 10 m and averaging around 6 m. The finite source model shows that slip was maximum near the surface. Although the Hoshab fault is dipping by 45° to the North, in accordance with its origin as a thrust fault within the Makran accretionary prism, slip was nearly purely strike-slip during that earthquake. Large seismic slip on such a non-optimally oriented fault was enhanced possibly due to the influence of the free surface on dynamic stresses or to particular properties of the fault zone allowing for strong dynamic weakening. Strike-slip faulting on thrust fault within the eastern Makran is interpreted as due to eastward extrusion of the accretionary prism as it bulges out over the Indian plate. Portions of the Makran megathrust, some thrust faults in the Kirthar range and strike-slip faults within the Chaman fault system have been brought closer to failure by this earthquake. Aftershocks cluster within the Chaman fault system north of the epicenter, opposite to the direction of rupture propagation. By contrast, few aftershocks were detected in the area of maximum moment release. In this example, aftershocks cannot be used to infer earthquake characteristics

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[1] A sequence of large strike-slip earthquakes occurred west of Sunda Trench beneath the Wharton Basin. First reports indicate that the main shock was extremely complex, involving three to four subevents (M w > 8) with a maze of aftershocks. We investigate slip models of the two largest earthquakes by joint inversion of regional and teleseismic waveform data. Using the M w 7.2 foreshock, we developed hybrid Green's Functions for the regional stations to approximate the mixture of oceanic and continental paths. The main shock fault geometry is defined based on the back projection results, point-source mechanisms, aftershock distribution, and fine tune of grid searches. The fault system contains three faults, labeled F1 (89°/289°for dip/strike), F2 (74°/20°), and F3 (60°/310°). The inversion indicates that the main rupture consisted of a cascade of high-stress drop asperities (up to 30 MPa), extending as deep as 50 km. The rupture propagated smoothly from one fault to the next (F1, F2, and F3 in sequence) with rupture velocities of 2.0-2.5 km/s. The whole process lasted about 200 s, and the major moment release (>70%) took place on the N-S oriented F2. The M w 8.2 aftershock happened about 2 h later on a N-S oriented fault with a relatively short duration (~60 s) and also ruptured as deep as 50 km. The slip distributions suggest that the earthquake sequence was part of a broad left-lateral shear zone between the Australian and Indian plates and ruptured the whole lithosphere. These earthquakes apparently reactivated existing fracture zones and were probably triggered by unclamping of the great Sumatran earthquake of 2004.