Strain budget of the Ecuador-Colombia subduction zone: a stochastic view

Abstract

The 2016 Pedernales earthquake (M W =7.8) ruptured a portion of the Colombia-Ecuador subduction interface where several large historical earthquakes have been documented since the great 1906 earthquake (M =8.6). Considering all significant ruptures that occurred in the region, it has been suggested that the cumulative moment generated co-seismically along this part of the subduction over the last century exceeds the moment deficit accumulated interseismically since 1906. Such an excess challenges simple models with earthquakes resetting the elastic strain accumulated inter-seismically in locked asperities. These inferences are however associated with large uncertainties that are generally unknown. The impact of spatial smoothing constraints on co-seismic and inter-seismic models also prevents any robust assessment of the strain budget. We propose a Bayesian kinematic slip model of the 2016 Pedernales earthquake using the most comprehensive dataset to date including InSAR and * Corresponding author

Impulsive Source of the 2017 MW=7.3 Ezgeleh, Iran, Earthquake

“…They are described in detail in Table S3. For further details on the method, the reader can refer to supporting information Text S3 (Duputel et al, ; Herrmann, ; Minson et al, ) and Gombert et al ().…”