Crustal earthquakes in low‐strain‐rate regions are rare in the human life span but can generate disastrous consequences when they occur. Such was the case in the Canterbury earthquake sequence that began in 2010 and eventually led to almost 200 fatalities. Our study explores this earthquake sequence’s origins by producing an enhanced earthquake catalog in the Canterbury Plains and Otago, South Island, New Zealand. We investigate seismicity rate changes from 2005 to before the 2010 Mw 7.2 Darfield earthquake. During this time, major subduction‐zone earthquakes, such as the 2009 Mw 7.8 Dusky Sound earthquake, created measurable coseismic and postseismic strain in the region. We use template matching to expand the catalog of earthquakes in the region, and use a support vector machine classifier to remove false positives and poor detections. We then compare the newly obtained seismicity rates with the coseismic and postseismic crustal strain fields, and find that seismicity rate and crustal strain are positively correlated in the low‐stress, low‐seismicity region of the northern Canterbury Plains. In contrast, near fast‐moving plate‐boundary faults, the seismicity rate changes rise without much change in the strain rate. Our analysis reveals a substantial seismicity rate decrease in the western rupture area of the Darfield earthquake, which we infer to be an effect of coseismic and postseismic deformation caused by the Dusky Sound earthquake. We show in low‐strain‐rate regions, stress perturbation of a few kPas creates substantial seismicity rate change. However, the implication that such seismic quiescence is responsible for the nucleation of the Darfield earthquake requires further studies.

中文翻译：

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地震率变化作为调查 2010-2011 年新西兰坎特伯雷地震序列延迟和远程触发的工具

低应变率地区的地壳地震在人类生命周期中很少见，但一旦发生就会造成灾难性后果。2010 年开始的坎特伯雷地震序列就是这种情况，最终导致近 200 人死亡。我们的研究通过在新西兰南岛的坎特伯雷平原和奥塔哥生成增强的地震目录来探索该地震序列的起源。我们调查了从 2005 年到 2010 年 Mw 7.2 Darfield 地震之前的地震活动率变化。在此期间，主要的俯冲带地震，例如 2009 年 Mw 7.8 Dusky Sound 地震，在该地区产生了可测量的同震和震后应变。我们使用模板匹配来扩展该地区的地震目录，并使用支持向量机分类器去除误报和差检测。然后我们将新获得的地震活动率与同震和震后地壳应变场进行比较，发现在坎特伯雷平原北部的低应力、低地震活动区，地震活动率和地壳应变呈正相关。相比之下，在快速移动的板块边界断层附近，地震活动率变化上升而应变率没有太大变化。我们的分析表明，达菲尔德地震西部破裂区的地震活动率大幅下降，我们推断这是暗音地震引起的同震和震后变形的影响。我们表明，在低应变率区域，几 kPas 的应力扰动会产生显着的地震活动率变化。然而，