Abstract
We estimated the seismic energy radiated by 47 earthquakes located near the faults that rupture during the 3 May 1887 Mw 7.5 Sonora earthquake in the Mexican Basin and Range Province. We retrieve source parameters from seismograms recorded by the local network RESNES (Red Sismica del Noreste de Sonora) that operated from 2003 to 2011, using a spectral inversion technique. We calculated the seismic energy by integrating the square velocity source spectrum of the earthquakes analyzed. We found that events with high-scaled seismic energy (Es/Mo) are located at the southern end of the fault that rupture in 1887, between the stepovers of the fault segments Teras and Otates. It is likely that tectonic stress accumulated in that zone after the fault ruptured. We estimate an average log(Es/Mo) = − 5.76 and found that most earthquakes analyzed have low apparent stress, varying between 0.5 × 10−3 and 1.85 MPa, with an average value of 0.0521 MPa. The apparent stress is heterogeneous not showing a clear correlation with seismic moment or focal depth.
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Acknowledgments
Antonio Mendoza Camberos and Arturo Pérez Vertti provided technical support. We thank the editor, Dr. García Fernández, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.
Funding
This research was funded by the Mexican National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT), grant CB2017-2018-A1-S-37179.
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Article Highlights
• Events with the higher scaled seismic energy (Es/Mo) are located at the southern end of the 1887 fault rupture, between the stepovers of the Teras and Otates fault segments.
• The estimates of ES/Mo are consistent with the elastic impact model (Tsai and Hirth, 2020) that predicts that earthquakes of different sizes can have the same high-frequency spectral shape when they generate in fault zones having similar elastic properties.
• We estimate an average log(Es/Mo) = − 5.76 and found that most earthquakes analyzed have low apparent stress.
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Castro, R.R., Villalobos-Escobar, G.P. Seismic energy radiated by earthquakes in the Basin and Range Province of Sonora, Mexico, near the rupture of the 1887 Mw 7.5 earthquake. J Seismol 25, 73–83 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10950-020-09953-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10950-020-09953-0