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Spatiotemporal clustering of great earthquakes on a transform fault controlled by geometry

Nature Geoscience volume 14, pages 314–320 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Minor changes in geometry along the length of mature strike-slip faults may act as conditional barriers to earthquake rupture, terminating some and allowing others to pass. This hypothesis remains largely untested because palaeoearthquake data that constrain spatial and temporal patterns of fault rupture are generally imprecise. Here we develop palaeoearthquake event data that encompass the last 20 major-to-great earthquakes along approximately 320 km of the Alpine Fault in New Zealand with sufficient temporal resolution and spatial coverage to reveal along-strike patterns of rupture extent. The palaeoearthquake record shows that earthquake terminations tend to cluster in time near minor along-strike changes in geometry. These terminations limit the length to which rupture can grow and produce two modes of earthquake behaviour characterized by phases of major (Mw 7–8) and great (Mw > 8) earthquakes. Physics-based simulations of seismic cycles closely resemble our observations when parameterized with realistic fault geometry. Switching between the rupture modes emerges due to heterogeneous stress states that evolve over multiple seismic cycles in response to along-strike differences in geometry. These geometric complexities exert a first-order control on rupture behaviour that is not currently accounted for in fault-source models for seismic hazard.

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Fig. 1: The Alpine Fault, study sites and the palaeoseismic proxy used in this study.
Fig. 2: Along-strike rupture extent reconstructions for the last 20 Alpine Fault earthquakes that ruptured the Central and/or the South Westland (SW) sections.
Fig. 3: Earthquake simulation experiment exploring the relationship between geometry and mode-switching rupture behaviour.
Fig. 4: 100,000 yr RSQSim rupture simulation for realistic Alpine Fault geometry showing a mode-switching behaviour similar to that inferred from the palaeoseismic data.

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Data availability

Core sedimentological (bulk density, grain size and geochemistry) and geochronological data (radiocarbon dates and age-model-derived EES age PDFs) generated during the study are available in a Figshare repository (https://figshare.com/projects/Geometry_controls_spatiotemporal_clustering_of_great_earthquakes_on_a_transform_fault/97906) or by request to the corresponding author. The synthetic earthquake catalogues for events Mw ≥ 6 produced by the 33 kyr and 100 kyr RSQSim simulations are also available from the Figshare repository. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

The open source software package OxCal used to the generate earthquake chronologies is available for download or online use from https://c14.arch.ox.ac.uk/oxcal.html. The OxCal codes used to produce the age-depth models for the lakes are available in the Figshare repository (https://figshare.com/projects/Geometry_controls_spatiotemporal_clustering_of_great_earthquakes_on_a_transform_fault/97906). The source code for the RSQSim earthquake simulator is available from the authors upon request.

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Acknowledgements

The palaeoseismic work was funded through grants to J.D.H. from the Rutherford Foundation (RFTGNS1201-PD) and Earthquake Commission (EQC) (grant 14/669). Lake sediment cores were collected after consultation with Ngāi Tahu under Department of Conservation (DoC) research permit 38491-RES. We thank C. Boulton, D. Strong, L. Wallace, J. Dieterich, P. Upton, R. Hilton and K. Scharer for comments that improved the manuscript. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand

    Jamie D. Howarth & Rupert Sutherland

  2. University of California, Riverside, CA, USA

    Nicolas C. Barth & Keith Richards-Dinger

  3. University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

    Sean J. Fitzsimons

  4. GNS Science, Lower Hutt, New Zealand

    Kate J. Clark, Ursula A. Cochran, Robert M. Langridge & Kelvin R. Berryman

  5. USGS, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Glenn P. Biasi

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Contributions

J.D.H. designed the study with input from N.C.B., S.J.F., K.R.-D. and R.S. The palaeoseismic data was generated and interpreted by J.D.H., S.J.F., K.R.B., U.A.C., K.J.C., R.M.L. and R.S. Earthquake simulation was conducted by K.R.-D. K.R.-D., J.D.H. and N.C.B. interpreted the simulations. Conditional probabilities were calculated by K.R.-D. and G.P.B. J.D.H. wrote the paper with notable input from N.C.B. and contributions from all the co-authors.

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Correspondence to Jamie D. Howarth.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Primary Handling Editor(s): Rebecca Neely. Nature Geoscience thanks Michael Oskin and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–15, Tables 1–8 and Discussions 1–4.

Supplementary Video 1

Video of pre-event shear stress and co-seismic slip for Mw>6 earthquakes on the Alpine Fault simulated using RSQSim showing mode switching between single-and multi-section ruptures on the Central and South Westland sections.

Supplementary Video 2

Video of pre-event coulomb stress and co-seismic slip for Mw>6 earthquakes on the Alpine Fault simulated using RSQSim showing mode switching between single-and multi-section ruptures on the Central and South Westland sections.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

Bulk density data for the 1717 CE earthquake event sequence (EES) in lakes Paringa and Kaniere. 1717 CE EES age probability density functions for lakes Kaniere, Mapourika, Paringa and Ellery.

Source Data Fig. 2

Earthquake event sequence (EES) age probability density functions from lakes Kaniere, Mapourika, Paringa and Ellery.

Source Data Fig. 3

The timing of Mw>6 earthquakes on the Alpine Fault and the locations of hypocentres, northern termination and southern termination for earthquakes simulated in RSQSim parameterized with different elements of the Alpine Fault’s geometry and run for 33 kyr.

Source Data Fig. 4

The timing of Mw>6 earthquakes on the Alpine Fault and the locations of hypocentres, northern termination and southern termination for earthquakes simulated in RSQSim parameterized with realistic Alpine Fault geometry and run for 100 kyr.

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Howarth, J.D., Barth, N.C., Fitzsimons, S.J. et al. Spatiotemporal clustering of great earthquakes on a transform fault controlled by geometry. Nat. Geosci. 14, 314–320 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-021-00721-4

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