TY - JOUR T1 - Spatial and Temporal Variations in Earthquake Stress Drop on Gofar Transform Fault, East Pacific Rise: Implications for Fault Strength JF - Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth Y1 - 2018 A1 - Moyer, Pamela A. A1 - Boettcher, Margaret S. A1 - McGuire, Jeffery J. A1 - Collins, John A. KW - earthquake stress drop KW - earthquake swarms KW - fault zone damage KW - oceanic transform faults KW - rupture dynamics KW - seismic coupling AB - On Gofar Transform Fault on the East Pacific Rise, the largest earthquakes (6.0 ≤ MW ≤ 6.2) have repeatedly ruptured the same portion of the fault, while intervening fault segments host swarms of microearthquakes. These long-term patterns in earthquake occurrence suggest that heterogeneous fault zone properties control earthquake behavior. Using waveforms from ocean bottom seismometers that recorded seismicity before and after an anticipated 2008 MW 6.0 mainshock, we investigate the role that differences in material properties have on earthquake rupture at Gofar. We determine stress drop for 138 earthquakes (2.3 ≤ MW ≤ 4.0) that occurred within and between the rupture areas of large earthquakes. Stress drops are calculated from corner frequencies derived using an empirical Green's function spectral ratio method, and seismic moments are obtained by fitting the omega-square source model to the low frequency amplitude of the displacement spectrum. Our analysis yields stress drops from 0.04 to 3.2 MPa with statistically significant spatial variation, including 2 times higher average stress drop in fault segments where large earthquakes also occur compared to fault segments that host earthquake swarms. We find an inverse correlation between stress drop and P wave velocity reduction, which we interpret as the effect of fault zone damage on the ability of the fault to store strain energy that leads to our spatial variations in stress drop. Additionally, we observe lower stress drops following the MW 6.0 mainshock, consistent with increased damage and decreased fault strength after a large earthquake. VL - 123 UR - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2018JB015942 N1 - _eprint: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2018JB015942 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - The relationship between seismicity and fault structure on the Discovery transform fault, East Pacific Rise JF - Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems Y1 - 2014 A1 - Wolfson-Schwehr, Monica A1 - Boettcher, Margaret S. A1 - McGuire, Jeffrey J. A1 - Collins, John A. KW - earthquakes KW - East Pacific Rise KW - fault structure KW - transform fault AB - There is a global seismic moment deficit on mid-ocean ridge transform faults, and the largest earthquakes on these faults do not rupture the full fault area. We explore the influence of physical fault structure, including step-overs in the fault trace, on the seismic behavior of the Discovery transform fault, 4S on the East Pacific Rise. One year of microseismicity recorded during a 2008 ocean bottom seismograph deployment (24,377 0 ML 4.6 earthquakes) and 24 years of Mw 5.4 earthquakes obtained from the Global Centroid Moment Tensor catalog, are correlated with surface fault structure delineated from high-resolution multibeam bathymetry. Each of the 15 5.4 Mw 6.0 earthquakes that occurred on Discovery between 1 January 1990 and 1 April 2014 was relocated into one of five distinct rupture patches using a teleseismic surface wave cross-correlation technique. Microseismicity was relocated using the HypoDD relocation algorithm. The western fault segment of Discovery (DW) is composed of three zones of varying structure and seismic behavior: a zone with no large events and abundant microseismicity, a fully coupled zone with large earthquakes, and a complex zone with multiple fault strands and abundant seismicity. In general, microseismicity is reduced within the patches defined by the large, repeating earthquakes. While the extent of the large rupture patches on DW correlates with physical features in the bathymetry, step-overs in the primary fault trace are not observed at patch boundaries, suggesting along-strike heterogeneity in fault zone properties controls the size and location of the large events. VL - 15 UR - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/2014GC005445 N1 - _eprint: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/2014GC005445 ER - TY - JOUR T1 - Variations in earthquake rupture properties along the Gofar transform fault, East Pacific Rise JF - Nature Geoscience Y1 - 2012 A1 - McGuire, Jeffrey J. A1 - Collins, John A. A1 - Gouédard, Pierre A1 - Roland, Emily A1 - Lizarralde, Dan A1 - Boettcher, Margaret S. A1 - Behn, Mark D. A1 - van der Hilst, Robert D. KW - seismology AB - Mid-ocean ridge transform faults experience more foreshocks than continental faults, yet the mainshock rarely ruptures the entire fault. Analysis of seismic data from the Gofar transform fault at the East Pacific Rise indicates that the foreshock region has different material properties from the mainshock region, and acts as a barrier to rupture propagation. VL - 5 UR - https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo1454 N1 - Number: 5 Publisher: Nature Publishing Group ER -