Migration of seismic scatterers associated with the 1993 Parkfield aseismic transient event

Fenglin Niu (), Paul G. Silver, Robert M. Nadeau and Thomas V. McEvilly
Additional contact information
Fenglin Niu: MS-126, Rice University
Paul G. Silver: Carnegie Institution of Washington
Robert M. Nadeau: University of California Berkeley, and Earth Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Thomas V. McEvilly: University of California Berkeley, and Earth Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Nature, 2003, vol. 426, issue 6966, 544-548

Abstract: Abstract The time-varying deformation field within a fault zone, particularly at depths where earthquakes occur, is important for understanding fault behaviour and its relation to earthquake occurrence1,2,3. But detection of this temporal variation has been extremely difficult, although laboratory studies have long suggested that certain structural changes, such as the properties of crustal fractures, should be seismically detectable4. Here we present evidence that such structural changes are indeed observable. In particular, we find a systematic temporal variation in the seismograms of repeat microearthquakes that occurred on the Parkfield segment of the San Andreas fault over the decade 1987–97. Our analysis reveals a change of the order of 10 m in the location of scatterers which plausibly lie within the fault zone at a depth of ∼3 km. The motion of the scatterers is coincident, in space and time, with the onset of a well documented aseismic transient (deformation event). We speculate that this structural change is the result of a stress-induced redistribution of fluids in fluid-filled fractures caused by the transient event.

Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02151 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:426:y:2003:i:6966:d:10.1038_nature02151

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature02151

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().